The Law & Humanities workshop aims to hold a series of meetings that provide the academic community with the opportunity to explore the dynamics surrounding the relationship between law and various artistic languages. The goal is to stimulate debate and discussion on the pressures arising from the art world that influence our understanding of the legal dimension of social, economic, and cultural phenomena. Specifically, the course aims to help students draw connections between artistic representations of reality and the legal phenomenon. It also seeks to develop advanced skills in interpreting the law, situating legal concepts within general theory, and reasoning about the criminal policy options chosen by legislators.

The workshop is part of the Law & Humanities teaching model, which has provided an opportunity to rethink the jurist’s experience in a critical light, moving beyond the role of merely categorizing concrete cases into abstract legal frameworks. From this perspective, this approach has the advantage of highlighting how the work of the jurist must be reconsidered in terms of thinking that is not only rational and calculating but also emotional and experiential—one that is capable of viewing the legal phenomenon as a transformative narrative phenomenon.

The workshop features a single-topic approach, focusing on some of the major art forms. The artistic expression selected for the 2026/2027 academic year is cinema.

Cinema, in its broadest sense as a form of representation through images and sounds, has always been capable of depicting the human being in all its many nuances. It acts with immediacy, eliciting an emotional response from the audience, but often also serving as a platform for criticism and social commentary.

Course Content

The workshop is divided into three thematic blocks, each built around an analysis of the socio-legal concept of vulnerability. Specifically, the category is analyzed with regard to:

1. the analysis of the activity of judgment as the foundation of the legal experience, with particular reference to judicial panels that include lay members;
2.  the use of AI as a tool that offers an epistemological opportunity in the study of vulnerabilities;
3. the relationship between legal subjectivity and vulnerability, with a particular focus on the punitive process involving minors.

Each thematic block consists of three meetings:

• The first meeting aims to initiate a process of sharing ideas related to the film that will be the focus of the subsequent meeting.
• In the second session, we will instead watch the film together in spaces shared with the chosen community. Students will need to address the problematic aspects that emerge in the film’s plot, with a view to collaborating with the chosen social fabric.
• In the third session, students will have the opportunity to engage with experts, critics, and industry professionals. Based on their experiences, they will then create a podcast at the end of each module.

Upon completion of the activities, the workshop aims to create and share with the Academy and the community both a series of podcasts (to be published on Spotify) and papers that will be collected and published. The goal is to showcase the progress made through in-depth exploration of the theme and artistic language, as well as through discussions with various stakeholders.

Instructors:

Edoardo Messineo and Pietro Maria Sabella

General rules 

• The course lasts a total of 30 hours, and students will also be required to work on assigned project work. To have the University Credits recognized, students must attend 80% of the total hours, which amounts to 24 hours (thus, a maximum of 6 hours of absence is allowed), and the instructor must deem them eligible for the final assessment.
• A tutor will be responsible for recording attendance, which will be done by signing a register. Failure to sign in and/or out will be considered an absence. There will be no exceptions to the sole criterion for awarding CFU credits: attendance.
• Absence hours will be calculated based on the attendance records. Depending on the schedule or personal needs, students may take a full day off or miss individual hours across multiple lessons.
• Once a student has chosen their course, they will not be able to earn University Credits through any other means.
• All students who have already earned the University Credits required by their curriculum for Other Activities, or who have already started attending optional language courses or other activities for which credits are recognized, are excluded.

Additional information

• The course will take place in the first semester
• The course will be taught in Italian
• All activities will take place on Fridays from 4:00 PM to 7:00 PM.  

The activity schedule will be available in September. 

Registration

Students enrolled in the second year of the Bachelor's Degree in Global Law for the 2026-2027 academic year, and those in the third year of the Single-Cycle Master's Degree in Law for the same academic year, can select the Soft Skills course they wish to take to earn credits directly through the Web Self Service while completing their study plan.

For more information, please send an email to: softskills@luiss.it