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audiobook
(5)
America and the New Global Economy
by Timothy Taylor
read by Timothy Taylor
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Globalization continues to be a force in our economic climate. And the origins of this globalized economy, its effects on important contemporary concerns, and its future trends are just a few of the intriguing issues you explore in these 36 lectures. Go beyond the economy of the United States and examine the recent history of economies in other countries and regions. As you journey with Professor Taylor through the last 50 years of world economic history, you'll explore international perspectives on the new global economy and develop a richer understanding of our increasingly interconnected world. To get a comprehensive picture of the new global economy, you consider the individual economies of countries including China (which may be the world's largest economy through much of the 21st century), India (the accelerated growth of which is based in service industries), and the Middle East (where most economies are surprisingly quite small). You'll also focus on a range of economic issues that have important ramifications for everyone, such as labor laws, population growth, and international economic agencies such as the World Bank and the World Trade Organization. Taken together, these lectures are a comprehensive look at economic globalization you can't get from reading the business section of a newspaper. They're your opportunity to grasp the economic histories, issues, and trends that affect us. With the knowledge gained from these lectures, you're able to understand the latest developments in our global economy and better prepare for a future in which all our economies will be linked.
audiobook
(21)
The Life and Writings of John Milton
by Seth Lerer
read by Seth Lerer
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
There is no disputing that John Milton is considered one of the supreme writers in the history of English letters. Yet, for a number of reasons, many modern readers are unaware of the pleasures of his poetry and prose. These 12 lectures examine Milton's life and work in order to understand the richness and depth of his poetry, its ways of representing 17th-century English life and culture, and its impact on later writers and on English literary history as a whole. You'll learn about Milton's works in all their fullness, whether or not you've read them in the past. You'll get both an introduction to Milton's achievements and a means by which you can cultivate your own thoughts and opinions about works including Paradise Lost and Areopagitica. While Paradise Lost alone could easily be the subject of an entire lecture series, Professor Lerer chooses not to restrict himself to this unique masterwork, but rather to make it manifest in the context of its maker's life and career, and to give you a foundation on which to build your future enjoyment of Milton. Because of this, you'll get a chance to explore Milton's early poetry, "Lycidas," his various political works, Paradise Regained, Samson Agonistes, and more. Professor Lerer describes these lectures as "an invitation to the modern reader to find ways of enjoying, appreciating, valuing, and even struggling through a poetry that says as much about human nature and political life now as it did over three centuries ago." And in learning to feel the living pulse of Milton's world, you'll join generations of readers and authors, including William Wordsworth, T.S. Eliot, and Mary Shelley, who have taken inspiration from his genius.
audiobook
(14)
Liberty on Trial in America: Cases That Defined Freedom
by Doug Linder
read by Doug Linder
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
We like to believe that the founding principle of the United States is liberty. "Give me liberty, or give me death!" Patrick Henry famously said in 1775 to encourage the Virginia colonists to fight for their freedom. It was liberty for which he was willing to sacrifice his life. So, you would think that when the United States of America was formed, our citizenry could finally enjoy a plethora of hard-won liberties.
But that was not the case. While the new Americans no longer suffered from taxation without representation, many of the liberties we enjoy today were not part of their lives. In Liberty on Trial in America: Cases That Defined Freedom, you will learn how liberty increased in our country when individuals sued for those freedoms, when cases were brought specifically to test the limits of the Constitution with its Amendments, and even when a jury in a local case returned an unexpected verdict that helped change the thinking of the times.
In 24 fascinating lectures, Professor Douglas O. Linder of the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law takes you behinds the scenes of the trials that brought many of the liberties we enjoy today. You'll learn what happened when Anne Hutchinson dared to speak her religious ideas in the Massachusetts Bay Colony of the 1600s, when Susan B. Anthony decided to vote in a national election, when activists promoted radical ideas in the 1880s in Chicago, when Jehovah's Witnesses decided their children should not be forced to salute the American flag in school, and more.
audiobook
(4)
Great Piano Works Explained
by Catherine Kautsky
read by Catherine Kautsky
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
"The piano—with its rich tonal resources, orchestral textures, and ability to convey both melody and harmony—has attracted great composers throughout its history. The result is a repertoire of keyboard works of astonishing size and scope, going far beyond that of any other musical instrument.
This phenomenal repertoire, which spans more than 300 years of Western music, includes many of classical music's most beloved masterpieces. Treasures of this tradition include:
• The Baroque-era genius of Johann Sebastian Bach, whose preludes and fugues, toccatas, and suites set the standard for keyboard writing.
• Sonatas, variations, and related piano works by Classical giants Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, and the transitional figure of Franz Schubert.
• Romantic masterworks ranging from Frederic Chopin's mazurkas, nocturnes, and ballades and Robert Schumann's multi-form piano works to Johannes Brahms's variations and glorious small-scale pieces, and Franz Liszt's virtuosic Hungarian Rhapsodies.
• At the turn of the 20th century, the mystical piano works of Aleksandr Scriabin, and the impressionistic textures of Claude Debussy's and Maurice Ravel's keyboard writing.
• A dazzling spectrum of 20th- and 21st-century piano music, pioneering new forms and new tonalities, from Arnold Schoenberg, Sergei Prokofiev, and Charles Ives to George Crumb, Florence Price, and George Walker, all of whom extended the expressive voice of the piano.
These works and many more form the piano literature that continues to move and enchant us; it comprises one of the most powerful legacies in Western art.
In Great Piano Works Explained, you'll dig deeply into this magnificent tradition, in a far-reaching exploration of the art of listening, seen from the bench of a pianist. In these 24 musically rich lectures, taught with passion and deep insight by Professor Catherine Kautsky of Lawrence University, you'll encounter the composers named above and more, finding your way to the heart of their extraordinary music for the piano.
Experience the Sublime Richness of the Piano Repertoire
In this illuminating course, Professor Kautsky coaches you in hearing and understanding the great works for the piano, with a special feature: In addition to her esteemed teaching, she is a celebrated pianist, and she demonstrates the works under discussion in real-time, at the keyboard, illustrating both excerpts and entire works through her own expressive and thoughtful playing.
With her inspired guidance, you'll highlight key works of each composer, and unpack their structure, the musical materials that drive them, and the specific features that affect listeners so strongly, giving you a clear grounding in how to approach and hear this great music.
Within the Baroque and Classical periods, you'll look in depth at works such as:
• Bach's Well Tempered Clavier and French Suite No. 5—Discover the radiant beauty of Bach's keyboard creations in the brilliant counterpoint of two fugues from the ""WTC,"" and in the emotional range of this vibrant dance suite.
• Mozart's Sonata in C Minor, K. 457—Hear the influence of opera in this intense and tempestuous sonata, where Mozart uses dialogue between opposing themes and magical key changes to transport the listener from joy to sorrow, and back again, in an ever-changing kaleidoscope of emotions.
• Beethoven's Sonata Opus 110—In this monumental late sonata, witness how Beethoven constructs the work as an unforgettable musical journey; study the majestic first movement, the dramatic Allegro molto, and the Arioso and great fugue that ends the sonata in triumphant affirmation.
• Schubert's Sonata in Bb, D. 960—This large-scale sonata, written in the last year of Schubert's life, features unforgettable themes and an intriguing dichotomy between keys. Tour the first movement: You'll love the melodies, and you'll see how one small trill gives rise to the harmonic pl
audiobook
(17)
Questions of Value
by Patrick Grim
read by Patrick Grim
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
We live in a world seemingly dedicated to questions of fact and finance. What should I invest in? What school district is the house in? But the fundamental questions of our lives are “actually” questions of value: What makes life worth living? Are there values that transcend cultural differences? Is all value subjective?
If you've ever felt the tug of such questions or if you just want to fine-tune your ability to see how deeper questions of ethics and values apply to the choices that make up our lives, these 24 lectures bring to life the insights of thinkers and artists who have grappled with these questions for thousands of years.
To examine these questions, Professor Grim casts a wide net, drawing from history, theoretical economics, game theory, theoretical biology, and sociobiology with a few forays into physics, anthropology, and psychology. But it isn't only scientists and historians who ask us to consider our values. Writers as varied as Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Ursula Le Guin, Mark Twain, Anne Rice, and Jorge Luis Borges have also delved into the meaning of life and the values we live by. In exploring the course's varied sources, Professor Grim takes great care to introduce each concept carefully so that each new concept builds on the last.
audiobook
(13)
Your Public Persona: Self-Presentation in Everyday Life
by Mark Leary
read by Mark Leary
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Humans are social animals, and the impressions we make on others can critically impact the quality of our lives. Consequently, we spend much of our lives, both consciously and unconsciously, working to shape other people's ideas about who we are. In this eye-opening, 12-lecture series with Professor Leary, explore the "self-presentational underpinnings of human behavior" as well as the what, how, and why of impression management.
People form impressions of us-who we are and what we're like-very quickly and, right or wrong, those impressions determine significant aspects of our outcomes in life, both in the present as well as the future. In just a few short minutes, others assess our personality, interests, attitudes, and moods, taking into account everything from the content of our words to the style of our clothing, and much more. Sometimes their assessments are accurate, other times less so, but the impressions other people form of us significantly impacts how they treat us.
Social interactions and the impressions that drive them are vitally important aspects of human behavior. In this compelling course, learn about how we shape the impressions other people form of us-at work, at home, in our social lives, and in the world at large.
audiobook
(12)
Advanced Investments
The complete course contains all 24 lectures
by Steve L. Slezak
read by Steve L. Slezak
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
This is an advanced course for investors in the market, covering cutting-edge investment principles and practices used by professionals. You learn hands-on techniques for analyzing the central problem of investing: How to determine if a potential investment is a good deal. Employing concepts from probability and statistics, you learn how to measure risk accurately. Then you explore methods for determining if a given security, such as a stock or bond, will generate returns that compensate for its risk. Throughout these 24 in-depth lectures, you weigh the relative advantages of active and passive investment strategies. An active approach takes advantage of mispriced securities that can be traded for a profit. A passive strategy seeks to build a well-diversified portfolio that can be put on automatic pilot. Many investors combine these strategies, and Professor Slezak takes you through a wide range of cases that show how to devise a balanced approach. His many useful tips include how to avoid the most common mistakes that investors make, why you should think in terms of net present value in evaluating a company, how to combine securities in order to control risk, and the importance of analyzing an investment before you act. Professor Slezak is an expert who knows how to communicate effectively. He enlivens his presentation with colorful anecdotes and object lessons from the recent history of Wall Street. His parting advice: Don't be afraid of the market. Nothing is a sure thing, he stresses, but the market has performed consistently over the long term.
All Lectures:
1. Investment Decisions and Goals
2. A Framework for Investing
3. Mistakes Investors Make
4. The Characteristics of Security Returns
5. The Theory of Efficient Markets
6. Evidence on Efficient Markets
7. Valuation Formulas
8. Bond Pricing
9. The Term Structure of Interest Rates
10. The Risks in Bonds
11. Quantifying Interest Rate Risk
12. Value Creation and Stock Prices
13. Present Value of Growth Opportunities
14. Modeling Investor Behavior
15. Managing Risk in Portfolios
16. The Behavior of Stock Prices
17. The Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM)
18. How to Exploit Mispriced Securities
19. Performance Evaluation
20. Market Making and Liquidity
21. Understanding Derivatives
22. Using Derivatives
23. Pricing Derivatives
24. Trade Opportunities or Risk?
audiobook
(12)
How the World Learns: Comparative Educational Systems
The complete course contains all 24 lectures
by Alexander W. Wiseman
read by Alexander W. Wiseman
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
America's blueprint for mass education has been followed across the globe - yet international student assessments show that achievement varies sharply, with the US and much of Europe typically scoring average at best. Not surprisingly, this state of affairs has sparked anxieties about an educational crisis. Adding even more fuel to the fire: many cite a growing disconnect between what schools teach and the needs of a rapidly changing market.
The problem, if there is one, is highly complex, and in these 24 thought-provoking lectures led by an associate professor of comparative and international education, you'll take a meaningful look at education around the world to understand why.
You'll go beyond prescriptions for quick fixes to engage in a detailed comparison of teaching methods and student achievement, from the focus on STEM instruction and the intent of morals education to the role of preschool and the importance of creativity. You'll discover why Finland and South Korea rank as the two best educational systems despite having diametrically opposed approaches and consider the unique challenges facing schools from America to South Africa.
You'll use internationally comparative data to identify strengths and weaknesses and to see how this information is used - and sometimes misused - to enact policies. The data and systems are not studied in a vacuum, however. Instead you'll explore how cultural, religious, socioeconomic, and historical contexts may influence these methods and whether one nation's best practice could backfire in another.
Along the way you'll contemplate questions about the goals of education and the ways teachers may help students reach them, from whether standardized testing is the best way to measure what a person is capable of to whether teachers should have a role beyond presenting academic content.
All Lectures:
1. The Global Challenge to Educate
2. Sputnik Launches the Science-Math Race
3. Education Is Life
4. Evidence-Based Policy Making in Education
5. What Should We Compare about Education?
6. The World Learns from Horace Mann
7. When Culture Invades the Classroom
8. Germany and Japan's Shattered Expectations
9. Borrowing Foreign School Cultures
10. The Value in Linking School to Jobs
11. Why Blame the Teacher?
12. Gender Pipeline Lifts Equality Dream
13. Gulf Schools: The Non-National Advantage
14. Who Is Accountable for Education?
15. How Parents Shape Student Outcomes
16. Reading, Writing, and Religion
17. International Test Scores: All and Nothing
18. Turning a Good Teacher into a Great One
19. The Foundations of Civil Society
20. From National Student to Global Citizen
21. The Problem with Teaching's Best Practices
22. A School inside Your Phone?
23. The Rich-and-Poor Learning Cycle
24. How to Fix Education: Heart, Head, Hands
audiobook
(41)
Taking Control of Your Personal Data
by Jennifer Golbeck
read by Jennifer Golbeck
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
We have never before in human history been able to share so much about ourselves so quickly. Neither have we ever been so exposed to forces that want to take advantage of that capability. Taking Control of Your Personal Data will open your eyes to the surprising extent of that exposure and will discuss your options for keeping your personal data as safe as possible. Your instructor, Professor Jennifer Golbeck of the College of Information Studies at University of Maryland, College Park, will show you what really goes on behind the scenes with the data you knowingly and unknowingly share all day long. You'll be surprised to find out how much of your personal data is being manipulated perfectly legally-data you never intended for another person to see, data you didn't even know was out there.
This course doesn't offer a one-size-fits-all solution because no such solution exists. But this course will help you determine your personal privacy profile, decide whether or not to try the dark web and its Tor browser, and understand the current U.S. laws and proposed state laws regarding privacy. Privacy issues are not going away; the technology that collects, analyzes, and derives insights from our data continues to grow at break-neck speed. As a society, we have not yet figured out how to apply appropriate ethics, values, and protections in parts of this domain. As individuals, we need exactly the type of information and direction provided by Taking Control of Your Personal Data.
audiobook
(2)
The Evolution of American Federalism
by Joseph Hoffman
read by Joseph Hoffman
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Over 250 years, the pendulum of federal versus state power has swung back and forth, and it continues even today with some of our most hot-button issues. The Evolution of American Federalism is your opportunity to step back and examine American political history through this eye-opening lens. These 24 insightful lectures will take you into the heart of American law and political theory.
audiobook
(22)
Thinking About Religion and Violence
by Jason C. Bivins
read by Jason C. Bivins
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
In a world where violence in the name of religion can impact so many other people's lives, it's critical to understand the intersection between religion and violence. What's required is not to see religion as inherently violent but to recognize that the violence associated with religious groups and communities is worth exploring and interrogating.
In these 24 lectures, embark on a global, multidisciplinary investigation of religious violence. Delivered with honesty and sensitivity to the diversity of spiritual beliefs, these lectures examine the roots of this phenomenon and guide you toward more informed ways of thinking about it.
You'll consider how faiths like Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism view concepts like human sacrifice, martyrdom, and penitence; the ways religious violence can be directed toward specific races and genders; concepts like heresy, witch hunting, and demonology; and more. You'll probe complex ideas and concepts that will help you fashion your own interpretations, such as "religion," "Other-ing," and "cult." And you'll burrow deep into both current issues relating to religious violence - as well as their historical and conceptual sources.
Professor Bivins doesn't take a clinical or pessimistic approach to the material. Rather, he's an engaging on-screen presence with a fierce open-mindedness to the varieties of religious experience. He's also optimistic about what we can learn from a comprehensive study of religious violence. And at the individual level, it starts with approaching the topic in a way that's immersive, insightful, thorough, and important for our times.
audiobook
(6)
Modern Economic Issues
by Robert Whaples
read by Robert Whaples
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Gross domestic product. Health insurance. Soaring energy prices. Major economic issues dominate today's news, but how do these issues impact the average citizen? This primer in 21st-century economics for the non-economist surveys today's most urgent economic issues that affect both global events and our everyday lives. You'll learn what economics has to say about making the decisions, big or small, that affect our daily lives: What factors come into play when you're deciding whether to buy this car or that one or even commute by bus? Mow the lawn or take a nap? Grill a burger with a bubbling slice of cheese or eat a simple salad? And you'll see how this same kind of analysis applies to the major issues of public policy, where the needs and wants of a nation and its people, whether financial security, safety from terrorism, or even an available kidney for someone desperately waiting on a transplant list, involve tradeoffs, which are sometimes obvious and sometimes not.
Whether dealing with the traditional sorts of topics most of us are used to seeing in an economics course, Social Security, inflation, unemployment, immigration, taxation, and the like, or issues perhaps surprising, such as gambling, major sports franchises, and even overeating, these 36 lectures offer a steady flow of insights about public policy and the American economy. By showing the full range of economic factors at work, this course can help you become an even more insightful judge of policy recommendations and of the leaders and policymakers who advocate them. And you may well learn to supplement your “own” analyses as you make the real-life economic choices each of us face every day, becoming an even wiser consumer and manager of your “own” economic future.
audiobook
(0)
Searching for People and Places of the Bible
by Jean-Pierre Isbouts
read by Jean-Pierre Isbouts
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Join best-selling author and biblical scholar Jean-Pierre Isbouts as he explores the stories of the Bible in their actual locations that brings fascinating new dimensions to the texts. In the 16 lectures of Searching for People and Places of the Bible, you'll walk the ancient sites where some of the Bible's most notable events happened and meet some of its most well-known figures in a new light.
audiobook
(38)
The Economics of Uncertainty
The complete course contains all 24 lectures
by Connel Fullenkamp
read by Connel Fullenkamp
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Economies are deeply complex systems. The marketplace involves many economic actors behaving in rational and irrational ways, sustaining a dizzying array of interconnected activity. Because of the number of participants involved, the unpredictability of their actions, and the sheer variety of possible actions, some degree of economic uncertainty is inevitable.
In one of the most dramatic displays of economic uncertainty in our times, a wave of toxic loans almost brought down the American financial system in 2008-2009, and with it jobs and savings. Few experts forecast this catastrophe, which stands as a lesson in the power of economic forces to defy our predictions. This event may have been exceptional, but every day we are all at the mercy of economic uncertainty in matters such as the stock market, insurance, and career and retirement planning.
Uncertainty also plagues us in smaller ways. For example, everyone is familiar with rising prices, but the Internet now makes it possible for online shoppers to be charged more based on their buying history, adding a new level of unpredictability to pricing. And anytime you hire someone for a service - from roofing to dentistry - you face the principal-agent problem, in which the person hired may take unethical advantage of your lack of expertise.
Indeed, these large and small risks are so pervasive that it is all too easy to conclude that nothing can be done. But economic uncertainty is like the weather: You can't stop storms from happening, but understanding how and why they happen allows you to be prepared. In the same way, economic uncertainty is beyond our control, but we're in a much better position to respond if we know what's happening and why.
In 24 practical and empowering half-hour lectures, The Economics of Uncertainty takes the mystery and dread out of uncertainty, giving you the tools to deal with risk in every phase of your life.
All Lectures:
1. Man, Nature, and Economic Uncertainty
2. Turning Uncertainty into Risk
3. Five Ways to Face the Unknown
4. Probability: Frequency or Belief?
5. How We Misjudge Likelihood and Risk
6. The Reward in Risk
7. Decision Science Tools
8. Gambling Economics
9. Game Theory: Reveal or Conceal?
10. Adverse Selection: Hiding in Plain Sight
11. Moral Hazard: Whom Do You Trust?
12. The Principal-Agent Problem: When Mice Play
13. Compensation Traps
14. Caring, Sharing, and Risk Bearing
15. Mayhem! Insurance Protection
16. Uncertainty in the Numbers
17. The Business Cycle's Wheel of Fortune
18. The Danger of Inflation
19. Extreme Markets
20. Regulation, Innovation, Excess
21. Global Trade in Employment
22. No Limits to Growth
23. Hedging Business and Personal Risks
24. Stress Testing Your Finances
audiobook
(19)
From Plato to Post-modernism: Understanding the Essence of Literature and the Role of the Author
by Louis Markos
read by Louis Markos
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Any lover of Shakespeare or the Romantic poets can concede that poetry is pleasurable. But is it good for you? Can it teach you anything? These are questions that have beguiled and engaged eminent critics for millennia, and now you can develop your own answers and options with these 24 lectures.
The source of poetry's wellspring; the relationship between poetry and human progress; the possible truths (and lies) involved in the literary arts; the role of the author; these lectures tap into an enormous range of material to explore these and other provocative issues. You'll follow the strands of this "conversation" between philosophy and the literary arts down the millennia, profiting from in-depth analyses of works by Plato, Aristotle, Horace, Sir Philip Sidney, Dryden, Pope, Wordsworth, Shelley, Coleridge, Matthew Arnold, T.S. Eliot, Northrop Frye, Foucault, Derrida, and more.
Throughout these lectures, you'll meet the poet in many guises. These include: the divine poet (a supernatural creator who transcends the laws of nature), the alchemical poet (the inspired individual who fuses humanity's divided nature into one), the common poet (the poet who roots himself or herself in the real world and speaks for the common individual), the playful poet (who champions sensitivity of feeling, contradictory truths, and uncertainties), and the prisoner poet (who's a product of, and a slave to, his or her own subconscious suppositions).
By concentrating on critical reflections about poetry - the oldest of the literary arts - you'll come away with lessons on how to understand literature, and all of the arts, more generally. More importantly, you'll be prepared to join in these critical conversations yourself.
audiobook
(16)
36 Revolutionary Figures of History
by Various Authors
read by Various Readers
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Alexander the Great, Jesus, Darwin, and Churchill are just a few of the many politicians, religious leaders, scientists, philosophers, authors, inventors, and generals who transformed our world in ways that still resonate today. Now, with this unique collection of 36 lectures from our extensive course catalog, meet the remarkable people without whom the world would never be the same. You'll examine the world that was dramatically reformed by a particular individual, or plunge into a defining moment in an individual's life, or learn how an individual went on to influence some of history's other great revolutionaries. Most importantly: you'll come away with a thorough understanding of why history is so indebted-for better or, in some instances, for worse-to these 36 epic figures, including Socrates, Queen Victoria, Abraham Lincoln, and Mohandas Gandhi. You'll also encounter figures that you may not have considered to be so revolutionary. It takes a great professor to help you understand what makes a single person change the world. To that end, we've assembled individual lectures from some of our most highly rated and beloved professors and instructors. Drawn from a range of academic fields (including military history, science, literature, religious studies, and philosophy), each professor lends his or her expert knowledge and teaching skills to making this an authoritative learning experience. Countless adventures await you with this carefully crafted look at titanic historical figures. If you have a friend who is new to The Great Courses, this collection makes for an accessible and rewarding first step into lifelong learning.
audiobook
(22)
Masterpieces of the Imaginative Mind: Literature's Most Fantastic Works
by Eric S. Rabkin
read by Eric S. Rabkin
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Many of literature's greatest works, from ancient myths to the works of Nobel laureates, rely on fantasy. Even when there has been a dominant preference for realism, generation after generation of readers have been drawn to stories of the fantastic - not only for what they help us learn about ourselves as individuals or as members of society, but also for what they show about our social values. And now one of the world's foremost authorities on the literature of the fantastic and science fiction has created a series of 24 lectures that take you on a journey through some of the most remarkable feats of imagination in all of literature.
You'll study strange tales of talking frogs and cannibal witches, from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to Arthur C. Clarke's astonishing 2001: A Space Odyssey and beyond. Ranging from the early 1800s to contemporary times, Professor Rabkin casts a wide net for fantastic works and delves deeply into some of the most astonishing. You'll learn about the works and times of Edgar Allan Poe, the Brothers Grimm, Virginia Woolf, Lewis Carroll, Franz Kafka, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, J.R.R. Tolkien, Ray Bradbury, Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and many others. And you'll see how artists you might not have even considered in this context - such as writers like Nathaniel Hawthorne, or composers like Offenbach and Tchaikovsky - owe a creative debt to this remarkably vibrant genre.
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(2)
The Power of Storytelling With Ari Shapiro
by Ari Sharpiro
read by Ari Sharpiro
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
In The Power of Storytelling with Ari Shapiro, the award-winning host of NPR's All Things Considered reveals the storytelling secrets he's learned during his career, from finding a good story and choosing the right characters to conducting interviews and even delivering a story effectively out loud.
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(10)
Must History Repeat the Great Conflicts of This Century?
by Joseph S. Nye Jr.
read by Joseph S. Nye Jr.
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Twice in the first half of the last century, the great powers engaged in wars that killed nearly 70 million people, with the aftermath of each shaking the international political system, changing the maps of the world, and setting the scene for the next great conflict. And for most of the past 50 years, the Cold War dominated international politics. Is this the history we are condemned to repeat?
This series of eight lectures about international politics will hone your ability to approach that question with knowledge and insight. It reveals how concepts such as the balance of power and the international system interweave with and help shape history, showing you what actually happened in the great conflicts and why. The lectures will help you answer many of the key questions those concerned with creating a stable peace must answer every day; did the end of the Cold War bring peace and harmony or war and chaos? Does the United States play a dominant role in international affairs or is its role declining? Is military power still the key to world leadership, or has economic power become more important? Should the United States attempt to play the role of global police force, or should it withdraw from its overseas military commitments?
audiobook
(10)
England, the 1960s, and the Triumph of the Beatles
by Michael Sheldon
read by Michael Sheldon
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
How did four young men from a faded old seaport in Northern England lead such an epic musical and cultural revolution? Why could the story of the Beatles only have happened in such a charged decade? What remains to be said about this British band that hasn't been said before?
Questions like these lie at the beating heart of these 12 lessons that offer a fresh look at how this celebrated band became one of the most compelling voices against the status quo. Taking you deeper than any simple music survey, Professor Shelden zeroes in on the cultural backstory of how the Beatles emerged as a worldwide phenomenon. Using the advantages of hindsight, recent scholarship, and interviews with key figures, he reconstructs an incredible period in sonic and social history for both dedicated Beatlemaniacs and new listeners alike.
Giving equal weight to the Beatles' early years as they do to the apex of their career and eventual dissolution, these lectures invite you on a whirlwind adventure that reveals the evolution of a band like no other-from school kids to musicians to pop phenomenon to film stars to artists inevitably drawn in separate directions. They also offer eye-opening cultural insights into some of the band's greatest hits, including "Yesterday," "Back in the USSR," and "Do You Want to Know a Secret?".
An eclectic blend of cultural history, biography, and music history, this series is your chance to discover how the Beatles became one of the most compelling voices against the status quo.
audiobook
(10)
Rise of the Novel
Exploring History's Greatest Early Works
by Leo Damrosch
read by Leo Damrosch
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Thousands of novels are published around the world every year. There are so many readily available, it would take multiple lifetimes for a single person to even read a fraction of them. But it hasn't always been that way.
While humans have always been storytellers, the novel as we recognize it today is a relatively new art form in the timeline of human culture. Of all the ways we tell stories, why has the novel become such a perennial favorite? How did the novel go from a narrative experiment with a low-brow reputation to a cultural touchstone and focal point of modern literature?
In the 24 lectures of Rise of the Novel, you will take a journey from the birth of the novel to the height of the form in the mid-19th century-and better understand what this literary form can tell us about human nature and our unquenchable thirst for great stories. With Professor Emeritus Leo Damrosch of Harvard University as your guide, you will dive into some of the most notable works that helped create and shape the novel over the course of more than three centuries, looking at the social and historical influences that coincided with shifts in literary taste along the way.
Beginning with Don Quixote-held up by many scholars as the foundational text from which the novel form would spring-Professor Damrosch will lead you through works both tragic and comic, brief and diffuse, epic and domestic. From early works like La Princesse de Clèves and Robinson Crusoe to pinnacles of the form in the 19th century such as Emma and Middlemarch-along with a few novels that are less familiar today but well worth knowing-you will dive into works with different perspectives and intentions that have all impacted our culture in their own way.
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(6)
How to Turn Your Passion into Profit
by Tara McMullin
read by Tara McMullin
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Most Americans these days consider entrepreneurship to be a good career. More than half of all American adults will start at least one business during their working life. Due to the shutdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic, working from home became a common practice that many Americans would like to see as a permanent work option. This means that if you're like most Americans, you've either already started your own business or you're seriously considering it. If so, you've definitely come to the right place.
In How to Turn Your Passion into Profit, business expert Tara McMullin will guide you through the process of creating your own business, turning some commonly held ideas completely upside down in the process. For example, you might think your first task would be to identify what you want to sell. Not so fast, Tara says. You think your goal should be to make as much money as possible, as quickly as possible? Think again.
Instead of rushing headlong into selling a product, Tara suggests you take a step back to ask what you want to get out of this business. Yes, you certainly want to make money. But as Tara explains in five modules, there are some more important basic questions to ask yourself. For example, what are the guiding principles you live by and how can they be incorporated into your new business? Do you become animated with excitement when talking to groups of people or do you prefer one-on-one communication? Do you want to develop a business that can be supported by your local community face to face or would you be more excited by international sales? With Tara's guidance, your answers to these and other questions will lead you to the appropriate business model and development of a successful, long-term endeavor you will enjoy.
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(17)
A Day's Read
by Various Authors
read by Various Readers
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Join three literary scholars and award-winning professors as they introduce you to dozens of short masterpieces that you can finish - and engage with - in a day or less. Perfect for people with busy lives who still want to discover -or rediscover - just how transformative reading can be, these 36 lectures range from short stories of fewer than 10 pages to novellas and novels of around 200 pages. Despite their short length, these works are powerful examinations of the same subjects and themes that longer "great books" discuss. And with three great professors coming together to offer their own looks at literature, you'll get a multitude of ways to approach and think about grand human themes, including the nature of love and the mysteries of fate; the riddle of identity and the trials of growing up; the complex ties between individuals and their societies; the ways we make sense of personal and public history. In the company of these three professors, you'll also approach the evolution of the modern novel, the development of literary genres such as graphic novels and creative nonfiction, the role of politics and culture in inspiring authors, and much more. What's more, by exploring literature through three perspectives instead of one, you'll get an opportunity to see how literature professors - just like everyone else - approach and read books in their own unique way.
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(14)
The History of the English Language
by Seth Lerer
read by Seth Lerer
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
This course offers an overview of the English language that is literary, historical, cultural, political, and scientific in its scope and designed to give you greater insight into the written and spoken word. The lectures provide a thorough understanding of the history of the English language - from its origins as a dialect of the Germanic-speaking peoples through the literary and cultural documents of its 1,500-year span to the state of American speech today. Professor Lerer defines concepts by illustrating them with copious examples. He often speaks in the dialect appropriate to each lecture - be it Old English, Chaucer's Middle English, or the colloquial style of Mark Twain's most unforgettable characters.
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(27)
A Historian Goes to the Movies: Ancient Rome
by Greg Aldrete
read by Greg Aldrete
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
How have films like Ben-Hur, Spartacus, Gladiator, or even a satire like Monty Python's Life of Brian created our popular perceptions of ancient Roman history? In what ways have they led us astray? And why, despite the occasional box-office flop, do movies set in ancient Rome still have the power to captivate us, and to turn each of us into theater-going history buffs?
In these 12 lectures, an award-winning historian gives you a front-row look at the great movies that have shaped ancient Rome's role in popular culture and memory. Packed with insights into both history and filmmaking, this series immerses you in the glory and grandeur (and, sometimes, the folly) of classic and contemporary films featuring over 50 years of cinematic talent, including directors like Stanley Kubrick and Ridley Scott and actors such as Elizabeth Taylor and Russell Crowe.
You'll investigate portrayals of ancient Roman life on the big screen and small screen; learn how to tease out fact from fiction in some of Hollywood's most stunning spectacles; and deepen your appreciation for films that, when made right, can be thrilling time machines into the past. Some films you may already be a fan of; other films you might have only heard of in passing. But all of them are essential to a well-rounded understanding of the intricate relationship between the world of ancient Rome and the world of the movies.
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(32)
How Winston Churchill Changed the World
by Michael Shelden
read by Michael Shelden
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Great Britain's most celebrated statesman, Winston Churchill, didn't just live history-he made it. In these 24 lectures that unfurl like a great story, enjoy a thorough, multifaceted exploration of Churchill's life, accomplishments, complexities, and legacies.
Guiding you chronologically through the life and times of this master statesman, Professor Shelden takes you from the dawn of Churchill's political career to his final years in a much-changed geopolitical landscape. You'll examine Churchill's beginnings as a young liberal statesman, his rise to the Admiralty and his relentless push for an imposing naval force, his fight against the Nazis, his equally dramatic postwar career suspended between two different cold wars (against the Soviets and Britain's Labour party), and more.
You'll also get fascinating insights into Churchill's iconic public speeches, his philosophies of freedom and history, and his early realizations of the dangers of both Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia. But these lectures never shy away from examining how Churchill's preference for the backward glance of history occasionally distorted his view of the future, leading to missteps and disasters, including his failure to understand the rise of independence movements in the British colonies and his controversial World War II bombing campaigns in German cities like Dresden.
Poet, historian, statesman, soldier, prime minister, husband-Churchill played many roles throughout his life. And these lectures bring them all together to create a fascinating, multilayered biography.
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(18)
Great World Religions: Christianity
by Luke Timothy Johnson
read by Luke Timothy Johnson
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
These 12 lectures are an engaging and comprehensive introduction to one of the world's greatest faiths. By concentrating on the basics that every well-educated individual should know, Professor Johnson's lectures provide you with a clear survey of the most important elements of this religious tradition-and a framework for further study. In this lecture series, you'll consider fundamental issues including Christianity's birth and expansion across the Mediterranean world, the development of its doctrine, its transformation after Christianity became the imperial religion of Rome, its many and deep connections to Western culture, and the tensions within Christianity today. Professor Johnson's synthetic approach provides first an overview of the Christian story, how it understands history from creation to new creation - and the relation of scripture to that history, and the Christian creed: what Christians believe about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the church. He also explains Christian practice as expressed by the structure of the community and its sacraments, by the struggles of Christians to find a coherent and consistent moral teaching, and by various manifestations of Christianity's more radical edge in martyrs, missionaries, and mystics. By the end of this engaging and accessible series, you'll finally have a true grasp of Christianity's distinctive character, the major turning points in its history, it’s most important shared beliefs and practices, and, above all, its continuing appeal to many of the world's peoples.
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(4)
How to Talk About Race
by Anita Foeman
read by Anita Foeman
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
There was a time, not too long ago, when talking openly about race was considered in poor taste. Even now, many people feel the topic of race is better left alone. What if we say something that's misunderstood? What if we're labeled a racist? Professor Anita Foeman understands those worries. In How to Talk about Race, she gives common-sense guidance and step-by-step instructions you can employ to develop safe and productive dialogue about race.
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(13)
America after the Cold War: The First 30 Years
by Patrick N. Allitt
read by Patrick N. Allitt
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Most surveys of American history show you the stunning rise of America and take you through the Cold War, a story that includes the tumultuous conflict in Vietnam and the cultural upheaval of the 1960s. The 30 years of contemporary history following the fall of the Soviet Union, however, tend to get short shrift, perhaps because this period of history is still being written, or perhaps because the end of the Cold War is a natural stopping point, an inflection point when one story ends and something new-something unpredictable-begins.
Nonetheless, events of today have been profoundly shaped by the past several decades, and one must understand this recent history to understand the world today. Contemporary life is changing so rapidly that it can be breathtaking to take a step back and look at the cohesive "story" from 1990 to 2019, but this is precisely what America after the Cold War: The First Thirty Years offers. Taught by esteemed professor and Great Courses favorite Dr. Patrick Allitt of Emory University, these 12 fascinating lectures tie all the threads of contemporary life together to give you a rich understanding of the world we live in now.
America has always been something of a paradox-a colony turned superpower, a productivity dynamo with a widening gulf between rich and poor, and a land of the free that has abetted inequality and racial injustice. The story of the United States is ongoing, but by synthesizing events and illuminating them with vital context, Professor Allitt offers a fascinating exploration of contemporary America.
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(32)
Law School for Everyone: Legislation and Regulation
by Peter J. Smith
read by Peter J. Smith
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
A relatively recent addition to more traditional law school topics like torts and contracts, legislation and regulation have become more and more of a mainstay in some of the country's top law schools.
Over the course of 12 nuanced and balanced lectures, examine a host of topics including the nature of regulation, the merits of lawmaking by legislation, the challenge of interpreting statutes, and the role of federal agencies in our legal system.
Along the way, confront intriguing-and controversial-questions about the letter versus the spirit of the law, how much authority independent federal agencies should have, and when a court or the president should step in to impose their own interpretations. Also, get introductions to concepts like the intelligible principle (the standard, set by Congress, designed to guide and limit an agency's authority) and hard-look reviews (court-conducted reviews designed to focus on the substance of agency decision making).
Given the increasingly prominent role of legislation and regulation in today's national discourse, it's critical for law students and everyday leaders alike to understand how these forms of law govern countless aspects of our lives--including everything from workplace safety to the speed of your internet connection. These lectures are a fascinating introduction to how we, as citizens, can make sense of the law so we can comply with it-or challenge it when necessary.
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(18)
How Digital Technology Shapes Us
by Indre Viskontas
read by Indre Viskontas
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Most adults are concerned that children have much too much technology in their lives these days and are spending way too much time on screens. But as Professor Indre Viskontas points out in How Digital Technology Shapes Us, we are not the first to worry that new technology will harm our children and future generations. At least since the beginning of recorded history, we have been underestimating the capacity of the human brain to adapt to and take advantage of emerging technologies. In this course, Professor Viskontas shares some of the most exciting research into this relatively new topic, providing a scientific approach to judging the true pros and cons of our interaction with technology in the digital age.
Many of us believe we are adjusting well to this new digital technology with its constant demands on our time and attention by increasing our multitasking. But multitasking cannot save us because our brain is not capable of true multitasking. What we experience as multitasking is actually our brain flitting back and forth from this task to the next to the next to the next. That we can do, but in the process, we could be losing the ability-and opportunity-to perform deep work, the opportunity for deep reading, and the empathy that builds up when we think deeply about people who are different from us, to truly expand the tribe rather than reinforce tribalism.
The good news is that just recognizing the significance of deep work and deep reading, we can make it a priority and arrange some time to focus on just that without distractions. If we do, those pathways that lead to deeper cognition can become reinforced. We can also help our children focus on the positives of digital media, empowering them to connect with others to find purpose, motivation, and support. We can spend time with them to encourage them to find opportunities for deep reading and deep work in age-appropriate ways.
Digital technology definitely shapes us. But once we learn how it does so, we can make good decisions for our ourselves and our children.
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(26)
Great Masters: Brahms-His Life and Music
by Robert Greenberg
read by Robert Greenberg
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Johannes Brahms was a man of contrasts. His serious Teutonic music was balanced by joyful dance music. His miserliness with himself by exceeding generosity with family and associates. His kindness to working people with a biting, malicious wit reserved for those he encountered in artistic and aristocratic circles. He was not an easy man to know, destroying a good deal of his own work and almost all of his lifetime's correspondence, in later years even collecting his letters from friends so that he could consign them to the flames. Yet you can know this enigmatic genius through this 8-lecture series, which uses biographical information and musical commentary to link the complexities of Brahms the man with the electrifying music of Brahms the composer. You'll learn how Brahms found unique ways of combining the rigor and formal complexity of older Classical and even Baroque genres and forms with the melodic inventiveness, harmonic sophistication, and expressive richness so prized in the Romantic age. And how his fanatical perfectionism led him to write, rewrite, and ultimately destroy more than 20 string quartets before publishing a pair of exceptionally exquisite pieces at the age of 40, breathing new life into the old bones of this exacting chamber music form.
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(19)
Science and Religion
by Lawrence M. Principe
read by Lawrence M. Principe
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
What is the nature of the relationship between science and religion? When do they conflict? And how do they influence each other in the pursuit of knowledge and truth? While conventional wisdom says that science and theology must perpetually clash, they have actually been partners in an age-old adventure. These 12 engaging lectures cover both the historical sweep and philosophical flashpoints of this epic interaction. You'll encounter a surprisingly cooperative dynamic in which theologians and natural scientists - from St. Augustine to Sir Isaac Newton to contemporary thinkers - share methods, ideas, aspirations, and a tradition of disputational dialogue. Moving from the early centuries of the Christian era and the Middle Ages to our own day, Professor Principe examines St. Augustine's profound ideas about reason and faith, and he follows St. Thomas Aquinas's exploration of miracles - the need to identify them is one example of how scientific and theological inquiry overlap. You'll meet a 19th-century writer whose anti-Catholic diatribe spread myths that persist today, and you'll learn about the courage (and stubbornness) of Galileo, the unexpected rationality of his accusers, the inspiration of Darwin's natural selection, and the religious implications of Lemaître's big bang theory. The solution to modern conflicts is the study of history. Such study will equip you to join that partnership with ideas and a clear, historical perspective on the science/religion relationship. These tools will help you participate more effectively in a dialogue that is as thought-provoking today as it was hundreds of years ago.
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(24)
Great Music of the 20th Century
The Complete Course Contains All 24 Lectures
by Robert Greenberg
read by Robert Greenberg
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
The 20th century was a hotbed of musical exploration, innovation, and transformation unlike any other epoch in history. Ranging across the century in its entirety, these 24 lectures present a musical cornucopia of astounding dimensions-a major presentation and exploration of the incredible brilliance and diversity of musical art across a turbulent century.
Using a chronological approach, you'll explore the fascinating gamut of 20th-century musical "isms," from impressionism and fauvism to serialism, stochasticism, ultraserialism, neo-classicism, neo-tonalism, and minimalism, as well as the inclusivity and synthesis within concert music that embraced Western historical styles, folk and popular music, jazz, rock, Asian, Latin American, and other influences in the service of heightened musical expression. Through the panoramic view of the course, you'll discover the genius of composers such as Debussy, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Webern, Bartók, Ligeti, Riley, Adès, and many others.
Far more than simply a series of lectures, the program comprises a huge and many-sided resource for discovering the endless riches of 20th-century concert music across the globe. The phenomenal range of genres and composers covered and the wealth of suggestions for specific works make this a reference that could easily inspire years of musical exploration and glorious listening.
This remarkable inquiry opens the doors to an extraordinary spectrum of contemporary masterpieces that await discovery and deep listening. Within these unique and riveting lectures, Professor Greenberg offers you the keys to understanding and deep enjoyment of a revolutionary, visionary, and magnificent era in music. In Great Music of the 20th Century, you'll experience the living, evolving, and superlative musical art that so vividly and unforgettably speaks to the life of our times.
All Lectures:
1. 20th-Century Music: Be Afraid No Longer!
2. Setting the Table and Parsing Out Blame
3. Debussy and le français in Musical Action
4. Russia and Igor Stravinsky
5. Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring
6. The Paradox of Arnold Schoenberg
7. The Emancipation of Melody!
8. The Second Viennese School
9. The "New" Classicism
10. Schoenberg and the 12-Tone Method
11. Synthesis and Nationalism: Béla Bartók
12. America's Musical Gift
13. American Iconoclasts
14. The World Turned Upside Down
15. Electronic Music and European Ultraserialism
16. Schoenberg in Exile
17. Stravinsky in America
18. For Every Action an Equal Reaction
19. The California Avant-Garde
20. Rock around the Clock
21. East Meets West; South Meets North
22. Postmodernism: New Tonality and Eclecticism
23. The New Pluralism
24. Among Friends
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(14)
Great American Short Stories: A Guide for Writers and Readers
by Jennifer Cognard-Black
read by Jennifer Cognard-Black
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
While short stories exist in traditions all over the world, American short stories are a genre all their own. Emerging from the clash of cultures-and the collision of oral and print traditions-that began during the arrival of European settlers in the 16thand 17thcenturies, the short works that emerged have served many functions. They have entertained, certainly, but they have also helped foster identity, shape morality, and build the foundations of the American mythos for nearly four centuries.
Whether you want to write short stories, simply want better insight as a reader, or even if you are looking for a new lens through which to view American history, the 24 rich and informative lectures of Great American Short Stories: A Guide for Writers and Readers will show you the ins and outs of this infinitely adaptable-and intrinsically American-literary form. Professor Jennifer Cognard-Black of St. Mary's College of Maryland guides you through the technical aspects of the short story, while also digging deep into the history of the form in the United
States. Along the way, you will discover why the short story became so deeply connected to American identity and how it continues to evolve alongside the nation itself.
The "great American novel" is often the lofty goal of writers who want to achieve literary immortality. But from the opening sentence to the lingering denouement, American short stories can both capture the world as it is and help envision what could be. Each is unique, and yet each is a part of a larger chronicle: the story of America.
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(10)
Theories of Human Development
The complete course contains all 24 lectures
by Malcolm W. Watson
read by Malcolm W. Watson
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
"Human development" is the science that studies how we learn and develop psychologically from birth to the end of life. To a large extent, the study of human development is the study of child development, because the most significant changes take place from infancy through adolescence. This very young science not only enables us to understand children and help them develop optimally, but also gives us profound insights into who we are as adults.
In Theories of Human Development, Professor Malcolm W. Watson, the George and Frances Levin Professor of Psychology at Brandeis University, introduces you to the six theories that have had perhaps the greatest influence on this field. You will meet the people who formulated each theory, become familiar with their philosophical backgrounds and the historical contexts in which they worked, and study the specific processes of human development that each theory describes.
The lessons of this course are not only about learning, behavior, and relationships in our youth - they apply at any age. Taken as a whole, they provide our best answers to the questions of human nature - how we learn, adapt, and become who we are at every stage in life.
All Lectures:
1. Introduction - The Value of Theories
2. The Early History of Child Study
3. Two Worldviews - Locke vs. Rousseau
4. Later History - Becoming Scientific
5. Freud's Psychodynamic Theory
6. How We Gain Contact with Reality - The Ego
7. Freud's Psycho-Sexual Stages
8. Erikson's Psycho-Social Theory
9. Erikson's Early Stages
10. Identity and Intimacy
11. Erikson's Later Stages - Adult Development
12. Bowlby and Ainsworth's Attachment Theory
13. How Nature Ensures That Attachment Will Occur
14. Development of Secure and Insecure Attachments
15. Early Attachments and Adult Relationships
16. Bandura's Social Learning Theory
17. Bandura's Self-Efficacy Theory
18. Piaget's Cognitive-Developmental Theory
19. Piaget's Early Stages
20. Concrete Operations
21. Piaget's Last Stage
22. Vygotsky's Cognitive-Mediation Theory
23. Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development
24. Conclusions - Our Nature and Development
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(11)
Reason & Faith: Philosophy in the Middle Ages
by Thomas Williams
read by Thomas Williams
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Today we tend to separate questions of logic from questions of belief, philosophy from religion, reason from faith. But for 1,000 years during a pivotal era of Western thought, reason and faith went hand-in-hand in the search for answers to the most profound issues investigated by Christianity's most committed scholars. In 24 ambitious lectures, Professor Williams examines the great Christian philosophers from Augustine to Ockham, following their efforts to illuminate the full scope of Christian doctrine using philosophical tools inherited, in large part, from the ancient Greeks. Far from being a "dark" age, this was an era when faith was not blind and reason was not godless, when the great philosophers and the great theologians were the very same people, and no one saw anything surprising about that. Building on the work of Plato and Aristotle, medieval philosophers worked diligently to show how the Christian faith is consistent with what can be demonstrated by reason, asking such questions as: Can God's existence and attributes be established by reason alone? Are there Christian doctrines that are beyond the scope of logical demonstration? How can Christian beliefs be defended and shown to be internally consistent? During this extraordinarily rich period of intellectual ferment, philosophers participated in a common struggle with transcendent questions, using reasoning in the service of faith. This course serves as a fascinating philosophical backdrop to illuminate the stimulating debates that occupied many of the greatest minds of the era.
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(21)
Real Zen for Real Life
by Bret W. Davis
read by Bret W. Davis
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
What do you think of when you hear the word "Zen"? Many Westerners may associate Zen with the counterculture of the 1960s and 70s, while others may associate it with today's hipster culture. Many use the word to simply mean laid back and relaxed.
But what does Zen really mean? Zen is a school of Buddhism and a rigorous spiritual discipline. To understand what Zen is really about, it is vital not only to study its profound philosophical teachings, but also to engage in the practice of Zen. The word "Zen" means meditation, and Zen meditation is a practice of "clearing the heart-mind." For Zen, an open mind entails an open heart, and this open heart-mind is the source of both creativity and compassion.
Professor Bret W. Davis, Professor of Philosophy and the T. J. Higgins, S.J., Chair in Philosophy at Loyola University Maryland, has created a highly accessible introduction to the philosophical concept of Zen with Real Zen for Real Life. Bringing the academic purview of a philosophy professor, the view of an academic scholar, and the spiritual experience of a practitioner and teacher of Zen, this course reflects the push and pull between Eastern and Western traditions and cultures with the goal of making the study and practice of Zen more accessible and engaging to all viewers.
Over the course of 24 lessons, including the eight meditation checkups within lessons, you will learn both what Zen has traditionally meant for East Asians and what it can mean for contemporary Westerners. Prepare to be challenged as Professor Davis asks you to set aside your preconceptions in order to open yourselves to what Zen masters who lived in the past and in distant lands have to teach you. You will especially need to be open to the possibility that Zen may be able to teach you about yourself. This course aims to challenge and inspire you, both intellectually and personally.
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(8)
Ancient Wisdom for the Modern World
by Prince Ea
read by Prince Ea
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
How can we utilize ideas that date back centuries to rediscover what it means to be human today? Enter Ancient Wisdom for the Modern World, a 10-episode series of interviews with a range of experts from sociologists to spiritual leaders. Examine the healthiest places in the world-known as "blue zones"-to figure out why their inhabitants live such long, healthy, and fulfilled lives. Discover the health benefits of walking and social connection. Simplify your diet so you can eat better and feel better overall. Experience flow states, forest bathing, tantra meditation, grateful thinking, and so much more.
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(24)
Consciousness and Its Implications
by Daniel N. Robinson
read by Daniel N. Robinson
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Consciousness, a unique and perplexing mental state, has been the subject of debate for philosophers and scientists for millennia. And while it is widely agreed within contemporary philosophy that consciousness is a problem whose solutions are likely to determine the fate of any number of other problems, there is no settled position on the ultimate nature of consciousness. This series of 12 penetrating and thought-provoking lectures by an acclaimed teacher and scholar approaches its subject directly and unflinchingly. Rather than trying to explain away consciousness, or hide behind convenient slogans like "it's all in your brain," Professor Robinson reviews some of the problems that philosophers, psychologists, scientists, and doctors face when taking on this vexing topic, addressing questions that include. What is the most promising way to study this subject? What are the implications that arise from the fact that we have consciousness? What are the ethical and moral issues raised by its presence - or absence? Professor Robinson draws on the wisdom of the world's greatest thinkers to shed light on the ethical debates involved in any examination of consciousness, including John Locke, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Aristotle. And he also explores the impact of modern physics and medicine on our understanding of the self. Pondering questions from the most fundamental to contemporary quandaries about artificial intelligence, you'll gain new insights into the complexity of how great minds define consciousness.
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(30)
Power over People: Classical and Modern Political Theory
by Dennis Dalton
read by Dennis Dalton
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
What is the connection between individual freedom and social and political authority? Are human beings fundamentally equal or unequal? In 16 in-depth lectures, Professor Dalton puts the key theories of power formulated by several of history's greatest minds within your reach. These lectures trace two distinct schools of political theory, idealism and realism, from their roots in ancient India and Greece through history and, ultimately, to their impact on the 20th century - via the lives and ideas of two charismatic, yet utterly disparate leaders: Adolph Hitler and Mahatma Gandhi. The issues Professor Dalton addresses in these lectures - and in Western political theory generally - fall into three sets of fundamental questions you'll get to unpack. The first set involves the essential characteristics of human nature and the good society. The second focuses on the intricate relationship between the individual and society. And the final set of questions involves theories about change. Through these lectures and their historical case studies, you'll be able to identify the fundamental questions and concerns that shape classical and modern political theory: Describe the influence of one's understanding of human nature upon one's vision of the good society. Compare and contrast the views of theorists regarding the purpose of the state, the relationship between politics and ethics, and the qualifications for exercising political power. Discuss views of leading political theorists regarding the meaning of freedom, the sources of legitimate political authority, and the obligations of individuals to the state or society, and more.
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(14)
American Ideals: Founding a "Republic of Virtue"
by Daniel N. Robinson
read by Daniel N. Robinson
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
What is the significance of the phrase "the pursuit of happiness" in the Declaration of Independence? Why does it read "We the people" in the preamble to the Constitution? What were the philosophies and social forces that made this country unique - that enabled it to become the first successfully self-governing republic? Answer these questions and more with this insightful 12-lecture course, which explores the principles that guided the founding of the United States, the conditions that led to the break with Great Britain, and the creation of such founding documents as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. You'll deepen your understanding of fundamental ideas that inspired American independence and that continue to have a profound influence on American thought. You'll also receive insight into what historians call "the long conversation" in American society - questions that have been the focus of debate and controversy since the nation was born. As the world's oldest democracy, the United States stands as the "test case" for those who regard self-government as inherently unstable, inherently self-destructive. Examining the founding documents, such as the Articles of Confederation, the Declaration of Independence, and the U.S. Constitution, Professor Robinson considers the principles under which the United States evolved.
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(24)
The Long Shadow of the Ancient Greek World
The Complete Course Contains All 48 Lectures
by Ian Worthington
read by Ian Worthington
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Immerse yourself in this comprehensive survey of ancient Greece from 750 to 323 B.C. - from the emergence of Greece at the end of the Dark Ages to the final disintegration of Greek autonomy through the Macedonian kings Philip II and Alexander the Great. These 48 riveting lectures delivered by Professor Ian Worthington of the University of Missouri, Columbia tell the story of ancient Greek institutions and the people who molded them during the Archaic and Classical periods.
Concentrating on the city-states of mainland Greece, with a special focus on Athens, Professor Worthington guides through some of history's most hard-fought struggles - from armed conflicts to political and social struggles.
As you explore innovative Athenian approaches to democracy, law, and empire, you discover how these approaches served as the bedrock for ideas and practices that you live with every day. You also encounter a wealth of intriguing links to many of our own contemporary institutions and attitudes about democracy, law, and empire.
By the end of Professor Worthington's final captivating lecture, you discover that there was nothing inevitable about democracy, the Western concept of justice, or any of the other traditions and institutions that now play such central roles in the politics of the modern Western world. The story of how this tentative structure transformed into the firm foundation of our contemporary world is gripping, enlightening, and immensely rewarding.
All Lectures:
1. Three Mainstays of Ancient Greece
2. The 8th-Century Renaissance
3. Politics and Tyranny in Greece
4. The Exercise of Political Power in Athens
5. Dracon of Athens and the Birth of Greek Law
6. Solon of Athens - Social and Economic Reforms
7. Solon, Democracy, and Law
8. From Anarchy to Tyranny in Athens
9. Pisistratus, Tyrant of Athens
10. Tyranny Overthrown - The Sons of Pisistratus
11. Democracy Restored - Cleisthenes of Athens
12. Cleisthenes, the Real Father of Democracy?
13. Sparta, the Odd-Man-Out State in Greece
14. Death or Glory - Spartan Military Education
15. "Come Back Carrying Your Shield or On It"
16. From Sparta to Persia
17. Marathon - End of the First Persian Invasion
18. Thermopylae and the 300 Spartans
19. Greece Triumphs - The End of the Persian Wars
20. From the Archaic to the Classical Period
21. The Delian League - Origins and First Steps
22. From Delian League to Athenian Empire
23. Ephialtes, Founder of Radical Democracy
24. Rhetoric - A New Path to Political Power
25. Democracy and Political Speech - Then and Now
26. The Causes of the Peloponnesian War
27. The War's Early Years and the Great Plague
28. Athenian Successes and a Temporary Peace
29. War Resumes - The Athenian Disaster in Sicily
30. Democracy Fails - Oligarchy in Athens
31. Final Battles - Sparta's Triumph over Athens
32. Why Athens Lost - The Impact on Greece
33. The Household in the Polis
34. Athenian Law and Society
35. Historical Development of the Legal Code
36. The Judicial Machinery of the Legal System
37. Types of Cases, Sycophants, and Pretrial
38. Going to Trial in Ancient Athens
39. Macedonia, North of Mount Olympus
40. Philip II - "Greatest of the Kings of Europe"
41. Philip II and Macedonian Imperialism
42. Greece Conquered - The End of Greek Autonomy
43. Philip's Assassination and Legacy
44. Alexander the Great - Youth, Early Kingship
45. Alexander as General
46. Alexander as King
47. Alexander as Man - and God?
48. Beyond the Classical - The Greeks and Us
audiobook
(30)
The Passions: Philosophy and the Intelligence of Emotions
The complete course contains all 24 lectures
by Robert C. Solomon
read by Robert C. Solomon
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Conventional wisdom suggests there is a sharp distinction between emotion and reason. Emotions are seen as inferior, disruptive, primitive, and even bestial forces. These 24 remarkable lectures suggest otherwise-that emotions have intelligence and provide personal strategies that are vitally important to our everyday lives of perceiving, evaluating, appraising, understanding, and acting in the world. Take a tour of Professor Solomon's more than three-decade-long intellectual struggle to reach an understanding of emotions, which he argues are, "the key to the meaning of life." A distinguished philosopher himself, Professor Solomon's lectures unfold as a rich dialogue with other philosophers, including Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Adam Smith, Nietzsche, William James, Freud, Heidegger, and Sartre. In your exploration, you'll address such questions as: how do we distinguish emotions from feelings, such as heartache? What is the meaning of our emotions, and how do they serve to enrich and guide our lives? Are there a determinable number of basic emotions that serve as building blocks for the range of emotions we experience? Is an emotion such as jealousy a genetic trait shared by all humans - or is it something learned? As you listen to these lectures, prepare to think: Think about your own emotions; think about what you observe in others; think about the enormous body of research and conjecture on this fascinating topic as Professor Solomon takes you on a challenging and stimulating journey. The more we puzzle over the nature of emotions, the deeper the mystery becomes. It is a mystery that is by no means solved, but one that repays in careful, philosophical analysis.
All Lectures:
1. Emotions as Engagements with the World
2. The Wrath of Achilles
3. It's Good to Be Afraid
4. Lessons of Love - Plato's Symposium
5. We Are Not Alone - Compassion and Empathy
6. Noble? or Deadly Sin? Pride and Shame
7. Nasty - Iago's Envy, Othello's Jealousy
8. Nastier - Resentment and Vengeance
9. A Death in the Family - The Logic of Grief
10. James and the Bear - Emotions and Feelings
11. Freud's Catharsis - the Hydraulic Model
12. Are Emotions "in" the Mind?
13. How Emotions Are Intelligent
14. Emotions as Judgments
15. Beyond Boohoo and Hooray
16. Emotions Are Rational
17. Emotions and Responsibility
18. Emotions in Ethics
19. Emotions and the Self
20. What Is Emotional Experience?
21. Emotions across Cultures - Universals
22. Emotions across Cultures - Differences
23. Laughter and Music
24. Happiness and Spirituality
audiobook
(20)
Greek Legacy: Classical Origins of the Modern World
by Daniel N. Robinson
read by Daniel N. Robinson
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Virtually all of the major building blocks of our culture (law, government, religion, science, medicine, drama, architecture, and more) derived ultimately from the ancient Greeks. In these 12 lectures, you'll explore the continuing influence of the classical Greek achievement on contemporary life. The point is not the often tedious claim that there is nothing new under the sun. Rather, it is to underscore the remarkable continuity of the Greek perspective and ethos preserved over several millennia. You'll learn how great literary themes that have dominated creative writing over the past two millennia were developed and bequeathed to us by a handful of ancient Greek poets and dramatists. You'll study the pure symmetry of ancient Greek art and architecture and its influence on everything from politics to the works of Leonardo da Vinci. You'll explore the Greek ideals in scholarship and the relationship the ancient Greeks saw between what you study and what you become.
You'll also get a chance to investigate the origins of the modern scientific method in the mathematical deductions of Pythagoras and the explosively productive inductive inquiries of Aristotle, as well as the origins of modern clinical medicine in the work of Hippocrates of Cos and the Greek writings of Galen. And you'll study statecraft, specifically the contemporary notions of freedom, self-government, virtuous leadership, and civic life that have their origins in the Athens of Pericles, Plato, and Aristotle.
audiobook
(9)
Language and Society: What Your Speech Says About You
by Valerie Fridland
read by Valerie Fridland
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Language is not a passive means of communication. In fact, it's the active process through which we construct societies, and, within them, our own social lives and realities. Language - as we use it in our day-to-day interactions - fundamentally shapes our experience, our thinking, our perceptions, and the very social systems within which our lives unfold. Nowhere is the social role of language revealed more clearly than in the fascinating field of sociolinguistics. Among many eye-opening perspectives, the work of sociolinguistics points out that: Language is strong social capital, and our linguistic choices carry both costs and benefits we rarely consider. Our identity is strongly tied to the speech we use and our perceptions of the speech we hear. Our children are raised, our relationships are made, and our careers succeed, in large part, through how we use language. Language embodies a worldview: Your linguistic system reflects and affects the way you organize and understand the world around you. In these 24 thought-provoking lectures, you'll investigate how social differences based on factors such as region, class, ethnicity, occupation, gender, and age are inseparable from language differences. Further, you'll explore how these linguistic differences arise, and how they both reflect and generate our social systems. You'll look at the remarkable ways in which our society is a reflection of our language, how differences in the way people use language create differences in society, how people construct and define social contexts by their language use, and ultimately why our speech reveals so much about us. Join a brilliantly insightful sociolinguist and teacher in a compelling inquiry that sheds light on how our linguistic choices play a determining role in every aspect of our lives.
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(24)
Freedom: The Philosophy of Liberation
by Dennis Dalton
read by Dennis Dalton
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Professor Dalton explores the meaning of freedom and examines the progress of both personal and political freedom. These eight lectures are a guided tour along the byways of the philosophy of liberation, beginning with its ancient roots and ending in 20th-century America.
Throughout these lectures, you'll follow the progress toward personal liberation and spiritual freedom found in the lives of those who were often consumed by fierce and difficult struggles for political freedom. And you'll see that the results achieved along the way are not separate mysteries but truths linked by the same path.
But you'll also learn that the philosophy of freedom was never intrinsically American and has its roots in diverse ancient cultures. For example, you'll learn about the ancient Hindu philosophy of dual freedom as described in the Bhagavad Gita, the Greek philosopher Plato's study of freedom in the republic of Athens, and the major contributions Christian philosophy has made to the ideal of freedom. Traveling from the ancient world to the modern, you'll consider the lives and work of John Stuart Mill (the 19th-century philosopher who defined the meaning of freedom with extraordinary clarity), Mahatma Gandhi (the political leader who led the Indian subcontinent out of British domination), Martin Luther King, Jr. (who synthesized the teachings of Jesus and Gandhi to create a method of nonviolent resistance), and others.
audiobook
(23)
Unexpected Economics
by Timothy Taylor
read by Timothy Taylor
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Why are we choosing to have fewer children, even as we put more time into raising each one? Why are we so often willing to follow the herd and the opinions of strangers when making important decisions, even when those decisions are deeply personal? Most surprising: Why are questions like these increasingly attracting the attention of economists? Find out why with these 24 fascinating lectures that will help you grasp as never before the ways in which these mechanisms for making choices are operating even in areas in which you may never have considered the forces of economics to be at work. Professor Taylor puts to rest the oft-quoted misconception of economics as "the dismal science." Instead, you'll take part in a wide-ranging and enjoyable investigation of how economic thinking - whether applied personally, nationally, or globally - relates to, and sheds fresh light on, just about everything. With the aid of findings from recent Nobel Prize winners and rapidly evolving leading-edge fields like behavioral economics, you'll look at subjects ranging from discrimination and natural disasters to charity and risk-taking, and even whether terrorism can be considered a "career choice." As you roam with Professor Taylor across this fascinating landscape, you'll discover unique vantage points from which to survey and understand these exciting and vital territories being explored every day by economists. And you'll gain a deeper understanding of the role of choice in your own life, whether choices you've made for yourself, or those made for you by leaders you've entrusted with that authority.