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This course addresses some of the eternal questions that man has grappled with since the beginning of time. What is good? What is bad? Why is justice important? Why is it better to be good and just than it is to be bad and unjust? Most human beings have the faculty to discern between right and wrong, good and bad behavior, and to make judgments over what is just and what is unjust. But why are ethics important to us? This course looks at our history...
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Shakespeare invented characters in a new kind of way. He not only gave them personality and depth, he gave them life. Not a life that went simply from point to point, but one that developed rather than unfolded. In so doing, Shakespeare created characters with whom everyone can identify, whether the characters were kings and queens or fools and merchants. Renowned Shakespearian scholar Professor Harold Bloom presents Shakespeare's seven major tragedies...
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We all need some help in understanding the world, and that is the starting point for political theory itself. The great works of other times and places can speak to us today, wherever we are. Political theory does this better than other subjects, in part because the theorist wants us to look around and think about the specifics of the world around us, but also to lift our heads and see farther than we normally do. The theorists we will study in this...
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In Classical Mythology: The Greeks, widely published Professor Peter Meineck examines in thrilling detail the far-reaching influence of Greek myths on Western thought and literature. The nature of myth and its importance to ancient Greece in terms of storytelling, music, poetry, religion, cults, rituals, theatre, and literature are viewed through works ranging from Homer's Iliad and Odyssey to the writings of Sophocles and Aeschylus. Through the study...
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The 20th-century American Presidency is something of a mystery. Some Presidents performed exceptionally well in office, displaying strong leadership and winning the respect of the American people as well as the rest of the world. Others fell short of expectations and are remembered at best as marginal chief executives. What was it that allowed some to rise to greatness while others failed? What elusive mix of character traits, circumstance, and determination...
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This course is a very hands-on companion to Peter Navarro's two books on investing. In the best-selling If It's Raining in Brazil, Buy Starbucks, he introduced the revolutionary concept of Big Picture Investing as a way to not only profit-but also protect your portfolio from heavy losses. Since the publication of that book, he has received countless requests to illustrate, in a very detailed way, just how to apply Big Picture Investing to the day-to-day...
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This course is not designed as a chronological survey of musical history and its many stylistic periods or moments, nor an exploration of the lives and output of individual composers. Instead, these lectures focus on the development of listening skills. Through this course you will develop new levels of aural awareness that will allow you to better appreciate the richness, complexity and excitement at the heart of all great concert music. Music is...
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For six months, the world's major leaders-including Woodrow Wilson, president of the United States, David Lloyd George, prime minister of Great Britain, and Georges Clemenceau, prime minister of France-met to discuss the peace settlements which were to end World War I. The Peace Conference dealt with, among other things, winding up the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires, punishing Germany, creating Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Iraq, setting up...
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Russian literature of the 19th century is among the richest, most profound, and most human traditions in the world. This course explores this tradition by focusing on four giants: Ivan Turgenev, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, and Anton Chekhov. Their works had an enormous impact on Russian understanding of the human condition. And, just as importantly, these works have been one of Russia's most significant exports: Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy,...
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In Empire of Gold: A History of the Byzantine Empire, esteemed university professor Thomas F. Madden offers a fascinating series of lectures on the history of the remarkable culture and state that developed out of the ancient Roman Empire, particularly its eastern portion, throughout the Middle Ages. The story here therefore begins at an ending, that of the Roman Empire, in the third century AD, and continues over the next one thousand years. This...
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"The Great War" as it was known at the time was also said to be the "war to end all wars." It seized all of Europe and much of the rest of the world in its grip of death and destruction. The first truly modern war, it changed how war-and peace-would be conducted throughout the remainder of the twentieth century and even to the present. The Great War was a time of "firsts" and opened the door to the modern era. Almost all the major developed countries...
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One of the most dramatic periods in world history is the age of Europe's discovery of the world from Columbus and da Gama in the late fifteenth century to the voyages of James Cook in the eighteenth century. The extent of the changes can be seen by comparing the pre-Columbian maps, which showed no knowledge of either the Americas or the Pacific, with those of 1800, which in terms of projection, scale, and content approximate today's maps. In this...
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This course introduces both macroeconomics and microeconomics. At a business and professional level, macroeconomics can help to answer questions such as the following: How much should I manufacture this month? How much inventory should I maintain? At a personal level: Should I switch jobs-or ask for a raise? Should I buy a house now or wait until next year? Should I get a variable or fixed-rate mortgage? And what about my investments for retirement?...
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In these illuminating lectures from Professor Ned Blackhawk (Western Shoshone), a history of Native America is provided from the time shortly before the expeditions of Christopher Columbus to the present. Focusing on the Columbian Exchange, Indians and the American Constitution, American Indian Removal, the Civil War, and the modern age, Professor Blackhawk concludes his revealing course by addressing the issues that continue to affect Native Americans...
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The history of Western civilization can be divided neatly into pre-Darwinian and post-Darwinian periods. Darwin's 1859 treatise, On the Origin of Species, was not the first work to propose that organisms had descended from other, earlier organisms, and the mechanism of evolution it proposed remained controversial for years. Nevertheless, no biologist after 1859 could ignore Darwin's theories, and few areas of thought and culture remained immune to...
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This all-encompassing investigation of a highly influential time period includes the major events of the era and informative discussion of empire, papacy, the Crusades, and the fall of Constantinople. During the course of these lectures, Professor Madden also addresses the rise of Islam, reform movements, and schisms in the church. In so doing, Professor Madden underscores the significance and grand scale of an age that continues to hold an undeniable...
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The courtroom trial has fascinated human beings from the beginning of recorded history. Trials are theater, trials are history, and the great trials of the twentieth century and beyond provide a unique window into American history and the sense of America's enduring commitment to law. It was Alexis de Tocqueville who, when he visited the new republic for the first time, said that America was a unique country when it comes to law. Every great issue...
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This course will examine the growth and development of the largest empire in world history -the British Empire-beginning with the late 15th-century Tudor dynasty in England and ending with the death of the Queen-Empress Victoria in 1901. By the beginning of the 20th century, there were very few countries or people who had not been affected, one way or another, by the impact of the British. The Empire itself by then covered over a quarter of the world's...
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Professor Raphael Shargel channels his passion for teaching and expertise as a Shakespearean scholar into this illuminative study of the Immortal Bard's eight great comedies. Shakespeare's genius is as readily apparent in these comedies as in his timeless tragedies. Often marked by internal and external conflicts, young lovers struggling for union, mistaken identities, and intertwining plots, Shakespeare's comedies to this day reveal the master's...
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The plays of one ancient city 2,500 years ago by just four playwrights have had a profound effect on the development of all subsequent Western drama, not only on the theatrical stage, but on opera, film, television, stand-up comedy, and dance-in fact, most, if not all, of the live arts owe a debt to the theatre of ancient Greece and the city of Athens. This course will examine the social, historical, and political context of ancient Greek drama and...
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