The chair establishes a new compulsory university teaching course on the European Union (history and politics) as part of the DAMS three-year degree course in Cinema and Theater of the Link Campus University (LCU).
Ciak-EU! consists of various research, teaching and communication modules. It is based on a multidisciplinary research and experimentation unit and is a complex and innovative system that represents, teaches and communicates the history of the European integration process and EU policies through cinema and the audiovisual world.
The Jean Monnet Module (JMC) is experimenting with a new direction of studies on the EU by involving numerous students and from other LCU degree courses through educational activities, seminars, a summer school and by collaborating with other universities where JM projects are active.
CiakEU! is a project that brings together different skills using the language of cinema, TV series and documentaries to provide an original approach to the study of the EU, promoting academic and public debate on the future of the Union. The JMC is a combined research teaching/communication system that will evolve through research and debate over the three-year project, at the end of which it will become an integral part of the LCU curriculum, innovating the methods of teaching the studies about the EU.
The JMC will involve several partners which share these interests in research, teaching and public debate, thus structuring a new narrative-communicative modality for EU history and policies.
Ciak-EU! also aims expand outside of LCU and its academic network of partners to interact directly with civil society, the world of entertainment, cinema and art in general, as well as with the sectors of communication and politics. Finally, to promote broad knowledge of the EU, the organization of a series of events on the topics covered is planned to disseminate research results through products, tools and collaborations with study centers and agencies specialized in European communication.
Filippo Maria Giordano – Chair holder & Chief coordinator
Filippo Maria Giordano is associate professor of Contemporary History at the Link Campus University of Rome, where he teaches Contemporary History, History of Contemporary Culture and Contemporary History and Media History. At the same University he holds a “Jean Monnet” Chair on Cinema and European History (Ciak-EU! – EU-rope through films: History, Identity, and Policies). He taught History of European integration at the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the University of Bologna (Forlì Campus) and History of International Relations at the Department of Cultures, Politics and Society of the University of Turin, where he also held of a “Jean Monnet” Module on the religious factor in European integration (R4EU). For years he has collaborated with the Center for Studies on Federalism of Turin and is a member of TO-EUrope. Center for European Studies of the University of Turin and of La.S.P.I. – Laboratory of History, Politics, Institutions of the DiGSPES Department of the University of Eastern Piedmont. He is editor-in-chief of the scientific journal De Europa – European and Global Studies Journal and editor of the “research” section of the scientific journal Labsus – Laboratory for Subsidiarity. He is the author of volumes and essays on the history of the European integration process, on European identity, on Euroscepticism and on pro-European and federalist movements.
Valentina Re – Vice coordinator
Valentina Re is a full professor at Link Campus University, where she teaches History of Cinema and Theory and Technique of Digital Media. She mainly deals with cinema and media theories, production and distribution studies, television series. She currently coordinates the national research project (PRIN 2020) financed by the MUR “Atlante del giallo. History of the media and popular culture in Italy (1954-2020)”. From 2018 to 2021 she was WP leader (project dissemination and communication) and Communication Manager of the international research project “DETECt – Detecting Transcultural Identity in European Popular Crime Narratives”, funded by the EU under Horizon 2020.
Giorgio Grimaldi – Didactic & research member
Giorgio Grimaldi is associate professor of History of International Relations at the Department of Human Sciences of Link Campus University (Rome) where he teaches History of International Relations and History of Politics and is coordinator of the Jean Monnet module “EDCSEU Europartites, democracy and civil society in the Union European” and the Jean Monnet Teacher Training Eulink project – European Civic Education. He also teaches “Contemporary history and territorial sources” at the Department of Economics (Imperia Campus) of the University of Genoa. He obtained a doctorate in History of federalism and European unity and participated in various research projects (at the Center for Studies on Federalism in Turin and, as a research fellow, at the University of Turin, at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa and at the University of Genoa) concerning above all the history of European integration, federalism and green parties. He is the author of publications on these topics and is also a member of the scientific committee of CesUE (Centre for studies, training, communication and planning on the European Union and global governance), a spin-off of the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna.
Silvia Cristofori – Didactic & research member
Silvia Cristofori is associate professor of history of Christianity at the department of Human Sciences at Link Campus University where she teaches “Media and Religion” and “Religions, Identities, Politics”. She is a member of the teaching body of the national DREST doctorate and is an affiliated researcher of the National Research Infrastructure in Religious Studies (FSCIRE – Bologna), the institution that leads the European Research Infrastructure RESILIENCE. She has been part of numerous national and international research groups and is currently scientific director of the Jean Monnet project “Freedom of Belief and Right to Information (FreeBeRi)”. She obtained a doctorate in ethnology and anthropology with top marks from Sapienza, University of Rome and was a post-doc researcher at the Foundation for Religious Sciences (Bologna, 2012-2014) where her research was funded by the Region Program Emilia Romagna for the development of innovative ideas and projects. Her work is characterized by a highly interdisciplinary approach and includes archival and field research in Rwanda, Senegal, Italy, USA and France.
Massimiliano Coviello – Didactic & research member
Massimiliano Coviello (1982) is an associate professor of cinema and television at Link Campus University in Rome. His research focuses on the links between images, testimony and memory, on Italian cinema and migratory phenomena, on the analysis of film and seriality.
Flavia Zorzi Giustiniani – Didactic & research member
Flavia Zorzi Giustiniani is Associate Professor of European Union Law at the Department of Human Sciences, Link Campus University and Adjunct Professor of International Law and International Law of the Digital Society at UNINETTUNO University. She obtained his PhD in «International, supranational and European institutions» at the University of Teramo. In January 2014 she obtained the national qualification for the position of associate professor in International Law and European Union Law. Since 2010 she has been a member of the Scientific Committee on International Humanitarian Law of the Italian Red Cross. Since 2014 she has been co-director of the «International Disaster Law Course» (taught in English) co-organized by the coordination group of the FIRB project with the International Federation of the Red Cross at the International Institute of Humanitarian Law held in Sanremo, Italy . She is a member of the Italian Society of International Law and European Union Law, of the Italian Association of European Union Law Scholars (AISDUE) and of the International Law Association. She is also a member of the editorial boards of the journal QIL- Questions of International Law and of the Yearbook of International disaster law.
Federico Castiglioni – Didactic & research member
Federico Castiglioni works as a researcher in the “EU, politics and institutions” program of the Institute for International Affairs (IAI). In 2019 he obtained his PhD in European Studies at Roma Tre University, presenting a reconstruction of the war on terror in Afghanistan and Iraq from the point of view of the European Union. From 2019 to 2020 he worked in the European Parliament as a policy advisor in the Defense Commission (SEDE), following the initial negotiations of the European Defense Fund. From 2020 to 2022 he was employed by the consultancy firm Zanasi&Partners, specialized in European security and defense projects. In the 2021-2022 academic year he was a contract professor of “European Governance” at the Orientale of Naples and a Jean Monnet professor at the Link Campus University of Rome. He is part of the editorial board of International Spectator and collaborates with various popular magazines (Formiche, Difesa online, Eurocommunication) mainly dealing with European politics.
Cristina Natili – Research member
Cristina Natili is a sociologist and expert on migration and human rights. She currently works as a project officer of Jean Monnet projects at Link Campus University.
She worked, for more than three years, in the sector of reception and integration of refugees and asylum seekers, collaborating with the “CIR – Italian Council for Refugees” and with the “CEIS – Don Mario Picchi”.
Member of the European Federalist Movement, she has always dealt with issues related to the reception and functioning of the European Union.
Giuseppe Romeo – Didactic & research member
Political analyst, journalist and academic. He has held, in various capacities, lectures and seminars in various Italian universities on European Union Law, History of Treaties and International Politics, Sociology of International Relations, Analysis of Foreign Policy, History of International Relations, International Relations, Strategic Studies. To the previous university collaborations, the most recent ones are added in History of International Relations, Contemporary History and Contemporary History and Media History at the Link University of Rome. Contract professor for the module on Russian and American foreign policy within the History of International Relations course and for the module on European defense for the Political History of European Integration within the degree course in “Strategic Sciences” at the Interdepartmental School in Strategic Sciences (SUISS) of the University of Turin and professor of International Relations for the Department of Law, and Political, Economic and Social Sciences of the University of Eastern Piedmont, Alessandria branch. He has written and writes for various magazines on defense policy and international relations topics, publishing more than 150 contributions including articles and essays over the years. Among the various titles published, the most recent ones are worth mentioning: From Vienna to Paris. The last rounds of waltzes. The Great War, the Peace Conference and the world order. History of a defeated Europe (2021); Hybrid Wars. The new faces of the conflict (2021); An unfinished nation. Italy: from the party system to the crisis of democracy (2022). NATO after NATO. Why the Alliance risks imploding (2023).
Bleona Shkullaku – Didactic and research member & board manager
Bleona Shkullaku has been educated in the fields od cultural mediation, foreign languages,international cooperation and governance at the Univerity of Padua and at Sapienza, University of Rome. She covers positions of collaboration and docency under the Chair of Political Thought for Colonization and Decolonization at Sapienza, University of Rome and the Chairs of European Integration Processes and Contemporary History, both at Link Campus University. She is in charge of coordinating and participating as Project Officer in several Jean Monnet projects based at Link Campus University. Her most recent studies cover the European Integration Dynamics in the Western Balkans. She previously worked on South Sudan, especially from the standpoint of its economic history and institutional change. Her main interests include programming, investment, development frameworks in the countries of the ‘New Europe’ (e.g. Western Balkans)
