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Winston Churchill was seen even in his own lifetime as a historic figure, one of the great men of world history, commemorated all across the world (but especially among the English-speaking peoples) in statues, memorials, streets and schools named after him, and in a plethora of stamps, medals, plates, and other such memorabilia. By his own effort and willpower, Churchill inspired the West in the fights against Fascism and Communism in the 1940s,...
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For over 400 years, crusaders ("those signed by the cross"), out of Christian zeal, a declared love for their fellow man, and, in many cases, a simple desire for fortune, glory, and heavenly reward, marched to the Holy Land to battle both a real and perceived threat to their way of life and their religious beliefs. The story of the many crusades are filled with an unremitting passion to keep or return the home of Christianity to Christians. It is...
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Esteemed professor Joseph Luzzi addresses the place of classic literature in the modern world with this riveting series of lectures. Advocating "the art of reading" as a way to answer essential questions of day-to-day life, Luzzi delves into the works of such literary titans as Plato, Shakespeare, and Virginia Woolf. By doing so, he tackles such age-old questions as "How do we fall in love?" and "How do we confront evil?"
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In Elemental Matters, Professor Deborah Sauder leads a comprehensive overview of chemistry, a subject that influences every aspect of daily life. Kicking off the lecture series with a revealing look at one of the planet's most vital chemicals-water-Sauder then delves into the basics of molecular structure and chemical reactions. The course concludes with an eye-opening glimpse of 21st-century applications such as nanotechnology and energy alternatives....
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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 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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In this sweeping history, Ilan Stavans, one of today's preeminent essayists, cultural critics, and translators, explores the way humans have evolved in their conception of the divine, from an animistic view defined by spirituality to Greek myths and the Aztec pantheon, onward to the development on monotheism as a powerful religion in the Middle East that was crystallized in the biblical narrative. He meditates on what type of divine presences coexist...
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The co-author, editor, or coeditor of seven books on American politics, Ken Masugi of Johns Hopkins University has been a speechwriter for two cabinet members. Examining the founding of the American political system through the classic works of Democracy in America author Alexis de Tocqueville, this course explores the big ideas of the American experiment. Taking into account matters from liberty and independence to self-government and civil associations,...
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Distinguished man of letters Ilan Stavans believes Miguel de Cervantes Don Quixote de la Mancha invented modern consciousness. In these lectures, Stavans explores the works impact within Renaissance Spain and discusses Cervantes career as a soldier, tax collector, and failed playwright. Stavans also focuses on the baroque style and the way Spain has built its national identity around Don Quixote. With a wealth of insight, these enlightening lectures...
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Best-selling author Jenna Blum has scored critical and commercial success with her novels Those Who Save Us and The Stormchasers. One of Oprah's Top Thirty Women's Writers, Blum has also taught creative writing at Boston University and master novel workshops for Grub Street Writers. Here Blum shares insights into the writing process and offers listeners the most important aspects of succeeding as an author
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Esteemed professor Donald M.G. Sutherland provides a riveting account of the French Revolution, explaining how its effects varied greatly according to regional economies, social structures, and religious affiliations. He examines how massive counterrevolutionary movements profoundly affected the course of the Revolution, leading to the failure of constitutional government and, ultimately, to an elitist dictatorship in the person of Napoleon Bonaparte...
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During the early years of the Cold War, the anticommunist witch hunt that we now call McCarthyism swept through American society. As we will discover, McCarthyism was much more than the career of the blustering senator from Wisconsin who gave it a name. It was the most widespread and longest-lasting episode of political repression in American history. Dozens of men and women went to prison, thousands lost their jobs, and untold numbers of others saw...
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Through the ages, mankind has pursued questions of faith in something beyond the world of ordinary experience. Is there a God? How can we explain the presence of evil? Do humans, or human souls, live on after death? Is there a hell? The following lectures examine these eternal questions and present the most compelling arguments for and against God's existence, the seeming conflicts between religion and science, and the different truth-claims of the...
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In this compelling series of lectures, widely esteemed author and professor Thomas F. Madden illustrates how the papacy, the world's oldest institution, gave birth to the West. Since Jesus Christ instructed the foremost of his Apostles, Peter, that he would be the rock upon which Christ would build his church, the papacy has survived the rise and fall of empires while continuing to assert an undeniable influence on world events. The men who have served...
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Esteemed history professor Thomas F. Madden explores the reformations that swept across Christendom in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The impact of these reforms affected government, popes, and kings as well as commoners, for at this time the Church was an omnipresent part of European identity-and the import of Church reforms on every level of life at this time simply cannot be underestimated. Involved in this fascinating era are such notable...
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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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Madden guides listeners through the most famous and enduring narratives of medival Europe. Beginning with King Arthur, Professor Madden peels back layers of exaggeration and fiction to lay bare the historical basis for the mythological king. Madden then examines myths of the medieval church, sexual myths of the Middle Ages, and myths about Robin Hood and the Shroud of Turin, all the time imparting an understanding of just what medieval people thought...
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In this engaging series of lectures, theatre historian, Megan Lewis takes listeners on a journey from the ancient world of the Greeks and Romans to the modern era as she explores how theatre, a live event that synthesizes many other art forms and disciples in a collaborative process of storytelling, entertains, educates, and inspires us, as well as helps build community and reflect society.
Dr. Lewis begins by mapping the ancient origins of performance,...