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audiobook
(12)
International Economic Institutions: Globalism vs. Nationalism
The Complete Course Contains All 24 Lectures
by Ramon P. DeGennaro
read by Ramon P. DeGennaro
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Since the end of World War II, groups such as the World Trade Organization, European Union, and G-20 have sprung up to promote trade, ensure financial stability, fight poverty, and perform other economic missions. Included among these goals is an ultimate aim: preventing the kind of global economic instability that so often leads to war. But while such bodies are trying to knit the world together, the voices of nationalism are objecting that national sovereignty is being lost. Furthermore, such organizations have the failings common to all human institutions. Do they really work? Are we better off without them? What is the best route to prosperity, and do they help smooth the way or obstruct it? International Economic Institutions: Globalism vs. Nationalism uses these influential bodies as a lens to study today's globalized economy. In 24 half-hour lectures, award-winning teacher and economist Professor Ramon P. DeGennaro of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, conducts you through the dizzying array of international institutions, their backgrounds, goals, and the important roles they play in the economic life of the entire world. In a lively and fascinating presentation, he analyzes the organizations in depth to reveal their strengths and weakness. Among the topics covered are the origins of the Great Depression; the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference; the causes of the Great Recession of 2007 - 2008; and the background to the UK's "Brexit" vote in 2016 to leave the European Union.
All Lectures:
1. The Politics of Economic Institutions
2. Financial Regulation across Borders
3. International Anarchy under One Roof
4. Messy Multilateralism
5. The Fed and the Roles of Central Banks
6. The Pre - World War II Rise of Big Government
7. Interest Groups, the State, and Corporatism
8. The World Bank, Poverty, and Violence
9. Group Choices: Rock, Paper, Scissors
10. The United Nations: A League of Its Own
11. Exchange Rates and the Gold Standard
12. What Caused the Great Depression?
13. "Higgledy Piggledy": F. D. R.'s Stimulus Plan
14. The Bank for International Settlements
15. Intrigue at Bretton Woods: July 1944
16. The International Monetary Fund
17. The Asian Development Bank
18. The World Trade Organization
19. The Euro
20. The Great Recession: Mismanaging Risk
21. After the Recession: A Bigger House of Cards
22. Banking Supervision and the Basel Accords
23. A Unified Europe, and Then Brexit
24. The G-Zero Era of Instability
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
(13)
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
(34)
Earth's Changing Climate
The Complete Course Contains All 12 Lectures
by Richard Wolfson
read by Richard Wolfson
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
In 2007 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change-representing a global consensus of hundreds of scientists-concluded that "warming of the climate system is unequivocal," citing observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global mean sea level. And they noted that human activity is "very likely" the cause. Whatever your views on climate change, it's important to understand how the current scientific consensus on global warming evolved out of basic physical principles and a broad range of observations. This lucid series of twelve lectures is designed to do exactly that-reviewing the most up-to-date research and explaining the concepts, tools, data, and analysis that have led an overwhelming number of climate scientists to conclude that Earth is indeed warming and that we humans are in great part responsible. In clear and accessible lectures designed for nonscientists, you'll learn about the "fingerprints" of global climate change-ranging from borehole temperatures to melting glaciers to the altered behavior of plant and animal species and other indicators-that convince scientists that our Earth has been warming at an unprecedented rate in recent decades. The lectures address only scientific issues and make no policy recommendations. Instead, they have been designed to serve as your personal scientific briefing to equip you to engage knowledgeably in one of the most important environmental issues of our time.
All Lectures:
1. Is Earth Warming?
2. Butterflies, Glaciers, and Hurricanes
3. Ice Ages and Beyond
4. In the Greenhouse
5. A Tale of Three Planets
6. Global Recycling
7. The Human Factor
8. Computing the Future
9. Impacts of Climate Change
10. Energy and Climate
11. Energy - Resources and Alternatives
12. Sustainable Futures?
audiobook
(10)
Reconsidering JFK
by Michael Shelden
read by Michael Shelden
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
The John F. Kennedy presidency has an indelible hold on our imaginations. Even more than half a century later, we remain captivated by the charismatic young leader who promised us the moon, who remained steadfast in the face of nuclear catastrophe, who told us to "ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country"-and whose life was cut short by shocking assassination.
Although so much ink has been spilled about JFK, recent years have seen the public release of documents and interviews, shedding new light on a man who perhaps never fully revealed himself to anyone. Reconsidering JFK is your chance to transport yourself back to a presidency mythologized as "Camelot." In these 12 in-depth lectures, Professor Michael Shelden of Indiana State University brings you the latest research and first-hand accounts to portray a fresh angle on a multi-faceted, always fascinating American president.
Here, you consider the story through the eyes of people who experienced it, from speechwriters to squabbling politicos to staffers who got an inside look at the risqué private life of John F. Kennedy. Historians traffic in drama-the turning points that change the world forever. JFK's presidency certainly was a turning point, but what remains so compelling is the human drama behind events such as the Bay of Pigs or the Cuban Missile Crisis. Reconsidering JFK is a story of the human drama-and the heart of the intriguing leader who changed the world.
audiobook
(16)
White Collar Criminal Law Explained
by Randall Eliason
read by Randall Eliason
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
We are surrounded by real-life stories of white collar crime, with pharmaceutical executives going to jail for their roles in the opioid crisis, titans of Wall Street prosecuted for insider trading and securities fraud, and senior government officials charged with fraud and corruption. But although it's widespread, a fascinating aspect of white collar crime is just how blurry its boundaries are.
In 24 lessons, consider the characteristics of white collar crime that set it apart from other areas of criminal law. Early lessons offer you a foundational understanding of the nature and tools of federal white collar prosecutions, including the role of federal prosecutors, federal grand juries, subpoenas and search warrants, and the federal criminal justice system. At the heart of this series: in-depth looks at the most common white collar offenses, including mail and wire fraud, conspiracy, obstruction of justice, money laundering, insider trading, and extortion.
Professor Eliason's legal expertise in the area of white collar criminal law, combined with his background as an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, transforms what would be, in lesser hands, dry legal lectures into eye-opening investigations into some of the greatest crimes in US history, involving infamous figures such as financial fraudster Bernie Madoff and former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling.
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
(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
(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
(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.
audiobook
(16)
How Science Shapes Science Fiction
by Charles L. Adler
read by Charles L. Adler
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Science fiction has been called "the literature of the future," but how often do writers get the science right? Most of us are familiar with the common features of the genre: interstellar travel, laser weapons, alien technology, teleportation, artificial intelligence, time travel, and more. But how much do we know about the science behind the stories and their imaginative worlds? It's true that these are, indeed, science fiction, but you may be surprised by how much scientific reality lies at the heart of well-known science fiction tropes.
Whether science fiction is exploring current realities, extrapolating from the present to create imaginary futures, or just creating interesting settings for character-driven stories, it often relies on real science to both entertain and build stories that can transport us into astonishing new worlds. In the 24 lectures of How Science Shapes Science Fiction, Professor Charles L. Adler of St. Mary's College of Maryland looks at dozens of books, movies, and television shows to unearth the science behind the fiction. From the physics of space flight and the ecology of exoplanets to the creation of alien languages and the paradoxes of time travel, you will uncover the ways real-world science is applied by writers and filmmakers-and consider what they might alter or leave out for the sake of a good plot.
The great sci-fi author Stanislaw Lem once said, "Science explains the world, but only art can reconcile us to it." There is a lot to be learned about science through science fiction, but ultimately, the aim of great literature is the same, no matter the genre. The questions and theories considered in How Science Shapes Science Fiction will give you the opportunity to experience science fiction on multiple levels, as both a fascinating inquiry into the scope of our scientific knowledge and as a bold human quest for meaning in a vast and complex universe.
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
(30)
Why Insects Matter
Earth's Most Essential Species
by Scott Solomon
read by Scott Solomon
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
In many ways, insects are just like us. Elaborate mating rituals, a variety of parenting styles, and a plethora of careers-from architects and engineers, to farmers and ranchers. Like us, they're able to share complex information essential for survival, significantly impact their environment, and recycle. But insects outdo us in so many respects. They are terrestrial, but some can live underwater. Their six legs are great for walking or running, but some can glide through the rainforest canopy, and many can fly. And some can create a material many times stronger than steel.
The truth is, our planet belongs to the insects. Taken all together, they out-number us, out-weigh us, and could quite possibly out-last us. They are by far the most diverse group of organisms on Earth, with more than 1,000,000 species identified, as of now-2,000 times more species than the mammals. In fact, beetles alone account for 23% of all plants, animals, bacteria, and fungi combined.
In 24 captivating lectures beautifully illustrated with graphics, photos, and video footage, Professor Scott Solomon shares his passion for these extraordinary creatures. Why Insects Matter: Earth's Most Essential Species will open your eyes to evolutionary accomplishments you had never even imagined. As many biologists have pointed out, if Homo sapiens simply disappeared one day, the loss would not be terribly disruptive to the rest of life on Earth. But if the insects disappeared, life on this planet would descend into chaos. Insects are Earth's most essential species.
Having established themselves on Earth 480 million years before any of our genus arose in Africa, insects have survived three mass extinctions; while 75% of all living species were extinguished, these animals endured. Just imagine all we could learn from them.
audiobook
(10)
Synthetic Biology
by Milton Muldrow Jr.
read by Milton Muldrow Jr.
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Synthetic Biology: Life's Extraordinary New Worlds is an introduction to synthetic biology for non-scientists, covering the exciting field that is transforming healthcare, agriculture, environmental science, and many other areas. Using the molecules of li
audiobook
(24)
The Music of Richard Wagner
by Robert Greenberg
read by Robert Greenberg
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
In these 24 lectures filled with musical excerpts, enjoy a rich and multifaceted exploration of the trailblazing works and outsized life of this historically pivotal composer. Your immersion in Wagner's art includes the following: The Flying Dutchman (which illustrates several of Wagner's key compositional innovations) Tannhäuser (the saga of a medieval knight torn between two worlds) Tristan and Isolde (Wagner's crowning masterpiece) And, of course, The Ring of the Nibelung (arguably the single most ambitious theater work ever created) The sheer outlandishness of Wagner's life makes for an endlessly intriguing story, from his desperate escapades outrunning creditors to his obsessive personal relationships to his utopian artistic schemes. In his writings, letters, and public actions, you investigate the often contradictory - and hypocritical - aspects of his personality. And, reflecting on the nationalist spirit of his time, you track his core desire to make "German Art in the service of a German national identity," even as he created a body of works whose communicative power transcends any national boundary. With Professor Greenberg's passionate and razor-sharp commentary, you'll plumb the fabulous mystery of a man who gave the world something of deeply compelling and universal resonance: music of great genius and a poetry that reveals the depths of the human psyche.
audiobook
(2)
The Surprising Lives of Christian Saints
by Emily Graham
read by Emily Graham
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Delve into the global history of Christian sainthood in The Surprising Lives of Christian Saints. Over the course of 24 in-depth lectures, Professor Emily Graham of Oklahoma State University, takes you on an enlightening journey through time, revealing the profound lives of individuals who have left an indelible mark on our world.
audiobook
(13)
The Great Revolutions of Modern History
by Lynne Ann Hartnett
read by Lynne Ann Hartnett
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
The great revolutions of the past 300 years have profoundly shaped the social, cultural, political, and military landscape of the 21st century. These epic changes tore down established orders and built new ones in their place. What drives individuals and groups to embrace revolution? At what point does a society decide to revolt? Is there such a thing as a peaceful revolution? Why have some revolutions failed while others changed the world?
Delve into these questions and more in The Great Revolutions of Modern History. Taught by Professor Lynne Ann Hartnett of Villanova University, these 24 eye-opening lessons will give you new insights into the forces that have shaped our political and cultural world. You will travel back in time and around the world to examine some of history's most momentous and influential political transformations. Starting with the motivations and ramifications of the American Revolution and the French Revolution, covering world-changing movements in China, Mexico, India, Haiti, Africa, Russia, and more, Professor Hartnett surveys the shifting tides that inspired each of these revolutions.
The fascinating thing about this course is that no matter how many systems are overthrown or how fraught a particular moment can be, a certain aspect of humanity remains constant. People want freedom, opportunity, justice, and they are willing to fight for these values, even if it costs them their lives. The Great Revolutions of Modern History is a masterful presentation of the human spirit in search of a better way of life.
audiobook
(10)
How to Raise Lifelong Learners
by Donna Baer
read by Donna Baer
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
How can parents create a culture of curiosity for their children? How can they ensure that their budding learners have the tools to ask important questions, solve complex problems, and think for themselves? And how can they do these things in interesting ways that engage instead of exhaust their child's desire to learn?
Look no further than How to Raise Lifelong Learners. In just nine comprehensive lessons, discover how you can become a better, more inspiring teacher for your kids. Kick off the course by discovering a range of educational philosophies and schooling methods. In the lessons that follow, acquire the knowledge, tools, and tips you need to raise intellectually curious and engaged lifelong learners, regardless of whether you intend to teach at home or send them to school. Explore the key instructional role that parents play throughout their children's lives. Find out how to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic to very young children in creative ways. Expand your definition of learning to include non-academic learning, character, and emotional intelligence, and see how you can encourage scientific exploration and artistic development at home. Learn how to communicate with teens and motivate struggling students. Understand how carefully designed chores can teach collaboration. Learn why smart room design will enhance learning, which strategies you can use to combat bullying in your child's life, and more.
Your course instructor, Donna Baer, is a former elite boarding schoolteacher-turned-homeschooler who raised eight sons and two daughters. She knows better than anybody: Adaptability is the name of the game. In How to Raise Lifelong Learners, understand how to accommodate your kids and their unique styles of learning, personalities, and temperaments, from a mother of 10 who did it herself. Engage with late bloomers and stimulate underachievers. Develop lectures and songs for auditory learners and experiments for sensory learners. Unearth how a comprehensive, flexible approach to teaching in the home can enhance your own life.
audiobook
(10)
The Life and Work of Mark Twain
by Stephen Railton
read by Stephen Railton
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Samuel Clemens, the man known to history as Mark Twain, was more than one of America's greatest writers. He was our first true celebrity, one of the most photographed faces of the 19th and 20th centuries. This series of 24 lectures by an acclaimed teacher and scholar explores Twain's dual identities - as one of our classical authors and as an almost mythical presence in our nation's cultural life. The lectures are a gateway to both appreciating Twain's literary achievements and to understanding his life, highlighting seven of his major works - Innocents Abroad, Roughing It, "Old Times on the Mississippi," The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson - each replete with the issues that most interested and concerned Twain over the course of that life. But you also learn that there are even deeper depths to explore. Although Twain may have died a widely beloved figure, he himself once wrote: "Everyone is a moon and has a dark side that he never shows to anybody." Professor Railton shows you that in his private life, Samuel Clemens struggled with doubt, disappointment, despair, and an increasing misanthropy that was greater than any contained in his most sarcastic satires. Even his closest friends almost lost patience with his rantings on how to exterminate what he called "the damned human race." Dr. Railton also explores in some detail the unpublished manuscripts, discovered after his death, that reveal this dark and despairing side of Mark Twain. They include such partly completed works as The Enchanted Sea Wilderness, The Great Dark, and Three Thousand Years Among the Microbes.
audiobook
(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.
audiobook
(40)
English in America: A Linguistic History
The complete course contains all 12 lectures
by Natalie Schilling
read by Natalie Schilling
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Think about this: How would you address a group of two or more people? Would you say "you", "you all", "yous", "you lot", "y'all", "you guys", "you'uns", "yinz", or something else? Would that change depending on whom you were talking to or where you were? Your answers can provide revealing insights into who you are, where you grew up or live now, and your social, economic, and educational background.
Welcome to the enthralling world of linguistics. If you've ever been curious about how words like awesomesauce ever came to be, let alone made it into the Oxford English Dictionary, or if you've wondered why you say "firefly" and someone else calls the same insect a "lightning bug", English in America is for you.
There's an incredibly rich and colorful history behind American English. A profoundly diverse assortment of cultures has influenced our vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar, and the language continues to grow and shift. Dialect variations are widespread and actually increasing, and the new words, accents, and sentence structures both reflect and shape changes in our culture and society. Investigating these dialects is the domain of sociolinguistics, the study of the intricate interrelation between language variation and cultural, interpersonal, and personal identity.
Over 24 lectures, you'll encounter a wide range of ethnic and social groups that have shaped the course of the development of American English over the centuries: English speakers from all over the British Isles; speakers of West African languages; immigrants from Western and Eastern Europe; speakers of languages from Asia; and Spanish speakers from all over the world. In considering the contributions of these groups, you'll also gain deep insights into the perceptions - and misperceptions - about language and dialect variation. As you'll discover, American English is an umbrella term for many different EnglishES, reflecting who we have always been as a nation.
All Lectures:
1. Defining American English Dialects
2. The Foundations of American English
3. From English in America to American English
4. The Rise of American Language Standards
5. Where Is General American English?
6. Mapping American Dialects
7. Ethnicity and American English
8. African American English
9. Mobility, Media, and Contemporary English
10. The History of American Language Policy
11. Latino Language and Dialects in America
12. Where Is American English Headed?
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(16)
America's Long Struggle Against Slavery
by Richard Bell
read by Richard Bell
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
We're all familiar with the Underground Railroad and the Emancipation Proclamation, but the fight against slavery was not some sudden movement that sprang up in the middle of the 19th century. Resistance from the enslaved started on the western coast of Africa in the 15th century and continued as the institution of slavery was codified in America, culminating with the War between the States.
This 300-year struggle has too often been glossed over by history books enamored with American ingenuity, Manifest Destiny, and tales of Revolutionary freedom. But to understand America-to fully understand our country today-one must examine the whole history of struggle, oppression, and resistance, not only by famous figures like Abraham Lincoln and Harriet Tubman, but also by an enormous and often unfamiliar cast of characters.
What these disparate figures had in common was they gradually coalesced into a movement. Individuals gradually organized, and then the abolitionist movement led to war which led, in theory, to freedom. America's Long Struggle against Slavery is your chance to survey the history of the American anti-slavery movement, from the dawn of the transatlantic slave trade during the late 15th century to the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and beyond. Taught by Professor Richard Bell of the University of Maryland, these 30 eye-opening lectures give you an up-close view of a venal institution and the people who fought against it-and who often paid for their courage with their lives.
As Professor Bell examines the different means and methods that Americans, white and black, have used to escape slavery, he presents the grand problems that animated everyone engaged in this great struggle.
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(35)
Mind-Body Philosophy
The complete course contains all 24 lectures
by Patrick Grim
read by Patrick Grim
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Many people have heard the term “mind-body philosophy” used to describe the relationship between physical wellness and mental wellbeing. But mind-body philosophy in its truest form is so much more. It’s a philosophical inquiry that has engaged great minds for centuries, going far beyond the simple idea of a physical mind-body connection, and seeking answers for some of the most complex questions of human existence.
All Lectures:
1. Mind, Body, and Questions of Consciousness
2. Mind and Body in Greek Philosophy
3. Eastern Perspectives on Mind and Body
4. Using the Body to Shape the Mind
5. History of the Soul
6. How Descartes Divided Mental from Physical
7. Mistakes about Our Own Consciousness
8. Strange Cases of Consciousness
9. Altered States of Consciousness
10. Memory, Mind, and Brain
11. Self-Consciousness and the Self
12. Rival Psychologies of the Mind
13. The Enigma of Free Will
14. Emotions: Where Mind and Body Meet
15. Could a Machine Be Conscious?
16. Computational Approaches to the Mind
17. A Guided Tour of the Brain
18. Thinking Body and Extended Mind
19. Francis Crick and Binding in the Brain
20. Clues on Consciousness from Anesthesiology
21. Of Mind, Materialism, and Zombies
22. Thought Experiments against Materialism
23. Consciousness and the Explanatory Gap
24. A Philosophical Science of Consciousness?
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(17)
Great Masters: Robert and Clara Schumann - Their Lives and Music
by Robert Greenberg
read by Robert Greenberg
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
In all the annals of Western music, there has never been a couple like the Schumanns: he a pioneering critic and composer (the only ever to achieve greatness as both), she one of the leading concert pianists of Europe, as well as a composer of no small talent herself. This series of eight lectures by an award-winning composer and acclaimed teacher includes excerpts of works by both of the Schumanns as part of an introduction to an extraordinary couple and the musical legacy left to us in spite of the difficulties that dogged their marriage. Though a loving one that produced eight children, their partnership also had to withstand the pressures of raising those children, managing two careers, and overcoming the tensions posed by Robert-an emotionally unstable man who alternated between manic bouts of awesome creativity and terrifying fits of depression, exacerbating the worsening effects of the syphilis that would eventually kill him. His death left Clara to not only raise the children but also to support the family through an exhausting schedule of concertizing. Despite his ill health, Robert still left behind a magnificent legacy of compositions and insights into music that you explore in these lectures-a legacy that included his return to criticism so he could introduce to the world a then-unknown Johannes Brahms.
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(12)
Literary Modernism: The Struggle for Modern History
by Jeffrey Perl
read by Jeffrey Perl
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Professor Perl invites you in these eight lectures to abandon your preconceptions and consider some of the most controversial authors of the 20th century: the Modernists. Who were they? How did "classical" Modernists like Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, and James Joyce differ from "neo-Modernists" like Gertrude Stein and William Carlos Williams? What made them believe and write as they did? Why were political extremism, war, and self-destructive behavior such defining forces in their writing (and their personal demons)? What do they have to say to us today in the 21st century?
These lectures place literary Modernism within the wide-ranging context of the philosophy, literature, politics, and morality of its time. In doing so, they allow you to look more clearly at the writers and works who have contributed to the definition of human culture. You'll see Eliot, Joyce, Pound, Yeats, James, Lawrence, and others spring to life with their radical beliefs about art and their unforgettable novels and stories. These lectures do not shrink from the challenges imposed by exploring Modernism, or from challenging the answers that scholars have routinely accepted. Nor do they shy away from the difficulties of literary Modernism itself; a literary genre that intimidates many. But despite all this, these lectures are brilliantly organized, crystal clear, and an invaluable tool for finally wrapping your brain around a dramatic roster of authors and an enduring canon of literature.
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(4)
The Mayo Clinic Guide to Pain Relief
by Barbara K. Bruce
read by Barbara K. Bruce
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
If your life or the life of someone you love has been hijacked by pain, you're not alone. One out of every three U.S. adults lives with chronic pain - pain that can rob your vitality, confidence, friendships, intimacy, and even your will to live. But it doesn't have to be that way. That's why the experts at Mayo Clinic have teamed with The Great Courses to craft this research-based guide to pain relief and recovery. In The Mayo Clinic Guide to Pain Relief, Barbara K. Bruce, Ph.D., L.P., provides a tried-and-true framework for coping with chronic pain. Dr. Bruce's scientific explanations and biology-based suggestions can help you create a vibrant and fulfilling future for yourself, in spite of chronic pain. Based on a scientific understanding of the causes of pain and behaviors that make pain better or worse, Dr. Bruce explains why opioids do not work for chronic non-cancer pain; how to empower yourself by developing appropriate "SMART" goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-limited; and how social support affects your physical health. You'll learn about the extraordinary complexities in your brain's interpretation and management of pain and the multifaceted relationships between pain and stress. This course provides a practical guide for building an appropriate health care team and creating an individualized pain-management program with your physician that addresses the issues of physical stamina, stress management, social support, sleep, and mood. Dr. Bruce doesn't want you to wait for a cure or pain relief before you move back into your life. "I want you to begin living your life today," she says. And with this course, you'll be on your way.
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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?
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(14)
Western Literary Canon in Context
by John M. Bowers
read by John M. Bowers
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
What exactly is the Western literary canon? Why does it contain certain works and not others? And what do particular works in the Western canon tell us about the development of literature and civilization? Explore these and other thought-provoking lectures with a thorough investigation of more than 30 key works of the Western canon and the critical roles they played - and continue to play - in the development of Western literature. Over the course of 36 lectures, you'll discover the exciting stories behind these classic works and their often surprising connections with one another. You'll gain invaluable insights into the stories behind these masterpieces and some of the important elements involved in canon formation, including the influence of editors on the New Testament, the influence of culture on Homer's and Virgil's epics, and the influence of education on J.R.R. Tolkien. You'll also examine the unique connections between each work and its predecessors, allowing you to participate in a riveting literary discussion and examine how history's greatest writers have "talked" with one another, from the way Virgil's Aeneid echoes the Homeric epics the Iliad and the Odyssey to the way John Milton's Paradise Lost is a catalog of the canonic works that precede it, from Plato's "The Apology of Socrates" to William Shakespeare's Hamlet. A panoramic look at literature, this course is your opportunity to witness a rich literary dialogue and take an amazing journey through thousands of years of literary beauty, grace, and humanity.
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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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(3)
How Railways Transformed the World
by Patrick Allitt
read by Patrick Allitt
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Railways radically changed the way we experience the world. In this course, you'll explore the story and impact of railways, as you track evolving rail technology; learn how railways galvanized industry, commerce, and tourism; note the roles of railroads in colonial empires and major wars; learn where you can enjoy the best of rail travel today; examine railways' impact on art; and learn about future rail systems.
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(13)
20th-Century American Fiction
by Arnold Weinstein
read by Arnold Weinstein
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Hemingway. Fitzgerald. Faulkner. These and other giants of literature are immediately recognizable to anyone who loves to read fiction and even to many who don't. Now, thanks to these 32 lectures, you can develop fresh insight into some of the greatest American authors of the 20th century. Professor Weinstein sheds light not only on the sheer magnificence of these writers' literary achievements but also explores their uniquely American character as well. Despite their remarkable variety, each author represents an outlook and a body of work that could only have emerged in the United States. As such, the aim of these lectures is to analyze and appreciate some of the major works of American fiction, using as a focal point the idea of freedom of speech. The works you'll investigate here include Winesburg, Ohio (among the most poignant descriptions of life at the beginning of the century); Light in August (which depicts the ravages of racism in the American South); Their Eyes Were Watching God (the first - and perhaps the best - account of growing up black and female in America); Slaughterhouse-Five (a poignant and wacky take of mass destruction and aliens); Sula (an experimental novel that makes rubble out of the conventions of black and white culture); and White Noise (which depicts our encounter with the technological madhouse in which we live). These American fictions, seen together, tell a composite story about coping, about fashioning both a story and a life. Much is dark in these stories, but the honesty and integrity of these writers makes us realize that reading is as much a lifeline as it is entertainment or education.
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(17)
European Thought and Culture in the 20th Century
by Lloyd Kramer
read by Lloyd Kramer
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
As a sequel to European Thought and Culture in the 19th Century, Professor Kramer tackles the major intellectual themes and debates that decisively shaped 20th-century European culture. These 24 lectures cover an amazingly wide range of thinkers and writers, the key historical circumstances and challenges they faced, and the fascinating and subtle ways in which their works relate to one another and to the larger story of modern European culture. You'll look at influential writers such as Stéphane Mallarmé, Joseph Conrad, Henrik Ibsen, Virginia Woolf, and Primo Levi; important painters such as Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and Wassily Kandinsky; philosophers and theorists such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Albert Einstein, Edmund Husserl, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Jürgen Habermas; and other key figures in the human and social scientists, including Émile Durkheim, John Maynard Keynes, Hannah Arendt, and Carl Jung.
With a focus on context, cultural innovations, and responses to World War I and World War II, Professor Kramer lends coherence and liveliness to what might otherwise seem a bewildering gathering of intellectuals. But by learning about their lives, their works, and the connections between their ideas, you'll gain a keener insight into a host of movements and trends in the modern intellectual life-including positivism, literary modernism, feminism, structuralism, and Cubism and Abstract Expressionism in painting.
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(38)
Understanding Cultural and Human Geography
The complete course contains all 24 lectures
by Paul Robbins
read by Paul Robbins
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
No one is an island. The community where you live, the food you eat, and the people you know are all part of a global chain of connections. Over the past 10,000 years, humans have transformed the planet - yet the planet has also influenced human life in myriad ways. In these 24 eye-opening lectures, take an interdisciplinary voyage across time and around the world to consider the dual nature of our relationship with "place". With insights drawn from ecology, anthropology, economics, geopolitics, and more, Professor Robbins reveals the underlying structures that explain why the world is the way it is. Understanding global trends and connections - from environmental changes such as deforestation to the way money and labor slosh around the globe - will give you new insights into the story of human civilization and current events. One key theme of this course is that "place" is a construct. People make (and constantly re-make) places in response to myriad circumstances, ranging from economic conditions to changes in the ecology around them. Indeed, humans have taken over the Earth so completely that some geologists now refer to our era as the Anthropocene - the "human era". While it is tempting to despair over humanity's takeover of the planet, you see how the picture is surprisingly complex, and that there is reason for optimism. Much of the human impact on the Earth, from deforestation to rapid urbanization, is not an inexorable march of destruction without any means of revitalization. In addition to the study of the environment, Professor Robbins examines the wide-ranging implications of a world economy. You'll explore the wellspring of culture and delve into the thorny issues of geography, ethnicity, and statehood. When you complete this course, you'll have all the tools you need to look beyond the headlines and analyze world events in a whole new way.
All Lectures:
1. Writing the World - The Mapmaker's Craft
2. The Problem with Geographical Determinism
3. Anthropocene - The Age of Human Impact
4. Climate Change and Civilization
5. Global Land Change
6. The End of Global Population Growth
7. The Agricultural Puzzle
8. Disease Geography
9. Political Ecology
10. Economic Geography - Globalization Origins
11. The Columbian Exchange
12. Uneven Development and Global Poverty
13. The New Global Economy
14. Restless Humanity - The Migration Conundrum
15. Urbanization - The Rise of New World Cities
16. Geography of Language
17. Understanding Cultural Geography
18. The Importance of Place
19. Cultural Commodification
20. Culture, Power, and the Politics of Meaning
21. The Geopolitical Imagination
22. Regionalism and the Rise of New States
23. Supranationalism - Taking on Big Problems
24. Future Geographies
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(30)
Shocking Psychological Studies and the Lessons They Teach
by Thad A. Polk
read by Thad A. Polk
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
We live in a time of amazing new technologies-and an unparalleled level of surveillance. Virtually every aspect of human behavior is tracked millions of times a day through the technology that we all, often without giving it a thought, use every day. The collected data has the potential of providing vital insight into the human experience, but can the scientific community explore the psychosocial experience of humanity without making victims of us all?
Professor Thad Polk, of the University of Michigan, invites you to join him for Shocking Psychological Studies and the Lessons They Teach, a six-lecture course exploring a range of shocking psychological experiments from the past that have nonetheless contributed significant insight into the human condition. Dr. Polk elucidates the contemporary ethical principles now in place to protect both subjects and science, but admits that with every new technological and scientific advancement, there also comes a new set of ethical conundrums for researchers to grapple with.
Psychological research today adheres to the Belmont Report's principles, a set of three ethical principles established in 1976 following the aftermath of research studies that critically failed to protect the rights of the research subjects. Through a look at a series of influential, but flawed, studies, ranging from syphilis to stuttering to psychoactive drugs, Professor Polk explores these ethical principles and how they, in retrospect, might have been applied.
As he concludes Shocking Psychological Studies and the Lessons They Teach, Professor Polk acknowledges that as science still grapples with the ethics of studying human subjects, past mistakes have helped us to create a safer and more enlightened field of scientific research, adhering to ethical research principles.
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(24)
Masterpieces of Short Fiction
by Michael Krasny
read by Michael Krasny
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
More than simply a shorter version of the novel, the short story is a unique and rewarding literary form in itself. It offers a world in miniature faithfully captured by the author's mastery of character, plot, setting, image, and theme. The time it takes to read a short story may be brief, but its impact lasts much longer. Short story writers see by the light of the flash," says author and Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer. "Theirs is the art of the only thing that one can be sure of - the present moment." These 24 lectures guide you deep into 23 renowned works written by some of the acknowledged masters of the genre, illuminating the remarkable variety, breathtaking artistry, and profound themes to be found in such miniature masterpieces as Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown," Isaac Babel's "My First Goose," Ernest Hemingway's "The Killers," Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," and more. Using examples from the stories themselves, Professor Krasny illuminates each author's virtuosic development of character, plot, setting, imagery, theme, and language. As you progress through the course, you hone your ability to recognize and assess these elements. In this survey of short fiction's hallmark works from its origins in the 19th century to its confrontation with the issues of the late 20th century, you'll discover why this specific genre, in the words of Nadine Gordimer, is the "literary form of our age."
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(22)
Explaining Social Deviance
by Paul Root Wolpe
read by Paul Root Wolpe
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
How do deviants reconcile their behavior with society's norms? This set of 10 lectures examines the complex topic of deviance and how major sociological theories have attempted to define it and understand its role in both historical and modern society. Professor Wolpe introduces deviance as "a complex, often ambiguous, social phenomenon that raises numerous questions about how a varied and often arbitrary set of characteristics can be used to name the same idea."
Intended for those with some understanding of sociology, these lectures trace Western theories of deviance from classical demonism to constructionism. Along the way, you'll get a chance to investigate a range of fascinating, thought-provoking, and sometimes even frightening topics and issues.
You'll discover the relationship between deviance and criminology, and come to terms with three major sociological perspectives on deviance in human society. You'll explore the concept of demonism, with divides the world into good and evil, and see how it's often been used to explain and categorize bad behavior when no other explanations are available. You'll learn about the influence of science on sociological thought as proposed by a range of important thinkers, as well as the impact of this science on everything from the IQ controversy to the eugenics movement to Social Darwinism.
Professor Wolpe has crafted an engaging series of discussions that are sure to have you looking at the world around you (and the people in them) in a new way.
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(32)
The Terror of History: Mystics, Heretics, and Witches in the Western Tradition
by Teofilo Ruiz
read by Teofilo Ruiz
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Western civilization is closely associated with reason and science, and with exceptional accomplishments in art, architecture, music, and literature.
Yet it has also been characterized by widespread belief in the supernatural and the irrational - with mystics who have visions of the divine and entire movements of people who wait in fervent anticipation of the apocalypse. Moreover, Western culture has also been the setting for repeated acts of barbaric reaction to those beliefs, including persecutions of certain groups, such as Jews, or of people accused as heretics and witches. This series of 24 intriguing lectures explores the concept of what has been called the "terror of history," a deeply held ancient belief that human beings live constantly on the edge of doom- a doom against which we must protect ourselves, sometimes by scapegoating an "other" whom we blame for this catastrophic plight. The lectures explore this belief through a study of mysticism, heresy, apocalyptic movements, and the witch-hunting craze that bloomed in Europe from 1000 to 1700. You'll examine sources you may be unfamiliar with, learn to think in new ways, and gain a fresh perspective on how social, economic, political, and religious climates - especially during times of change and stress - exert tremendous influence on the prevalence of irrational attitudes and persecutions.
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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)
Peoples and Cultures of the World
by Edward Fischer
read by Edward Fischer
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
As the "science of humanity," anthropology can help us understand virtually everything about ourselves, from our political and economic systems, to why we get married, to how we decide to buy a particular bottle of wine. In this 24-lecture series, Professor Edward Fischer of Vanderbilt University provides an extraordinary glimpse into the world's varied human societies-including our own.
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(14)
Skeptics and Believers: Religious Debate in the Western Intellectual Tradition
by Tyler Roberts
read by Tyler Roberts
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Beginning in the 16th century, the Protestant Reformation and the Scientific Revolution began to erode the position of authority. As a result, new philosophers began constructing a universal rationality independent of faith. This schism fundamentally changed the course of Western civilization, and it has had consequences that remain with us to this day. This 36-lecture journey will help you understand exactly what the debate has been and will continue to be about. By gaining a richer understanding of the debate's key aspects - including the nature of the conflict, the meaning of the arguments, and what is at stake both philosophically and theologically - you can add significantly to the level of sophistication you already bring to one of today's most far-reaching issues and increase your understanding of both our past and the direction of our future. These lectures examine more than three centuries of debate in the Western world about the nature of religious faith and its compatibility with reason. Drawing on some of Western civilization's greatest theological and philosophical minds, Professor Roberts even-handedly follows and analyzes the arguments of a broad range of skeptics and believers, including the likes of Thomas Aquinas, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Daniel Dennett, Martin Luther, Immanuel Kant, Soren Kierkegaard, and many others.In addition, these lectures maintain the sense of a true conversation across time, so that you'll never lose the thread of how one idea relates to another as he weaves a vast amount of material into a coherent whole that amounts to far more than the sum of its parts. The result is one of the most intellectually satisfying plunges into philosophical and theological thought you will ever take.
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(1)
The Hidden Power of Microbes
by Melissa Booth
read by Melissa Booth
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
Right this minute, your body is carrying roughly 38 trillion microbial cells along with it-and in the majority of cases, you couldn't live without them. On top of that, you harbor around 380 trillion viruses, most of which are either beneficial or benign. The Hidden Power of Microbes draws back the curtain on this vast microworld in 24 lectures delivered by an acclaimed science communicator.
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(13)
The Soul and the City: Art, Literature, and Urban Living
by Arnold Weinstein
read by Arnold Weinstein
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
These eight lectures are a celebration of humanity and the rich texture of human experience. They are a fascinating focus on the complex artistic representations of city life from the 18th to the 20th century. Join Professor Weinstein as he reveals the portraits of humanity that came from several of the period's greatest artists, writers, and thinkers.
Among them:
Painter Edvard Munch, who depicts the emptiness of urban living,
Poet Charles Baudelaire, who celebrates how crowds impact his imagination,
Author Daniel Defoe, who dramatizes the freedom the city offers people who want to change their identities, Author Theodore Dreiser, who views the city as a huge, brutal, industrial machine that systematically grinds up individuals, and Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, who believes that the city is like the mind: a receptacle for the past, as well as for hidden lives and passions.
These lectures reveal several vital themes that appear in artists' subjective renderings of urban living: orientation (finding our way), the marketplace (exchanging goods and services), anonymity (experiencing solitude or freedom), encounters (fearing or connecting with others), history (maintaining contact with other times), and cultures (entering the cities' ever-changing cultural forms).
Why use art as a guide to city life? According to Professor Weinstein, "Art usually supports what we learn from scientific studies of urban life. Art provides us with something social science cannot: a subjective rendering of city experience that is not quantifiable. Such a depiction includes our fears, desires, and dreams. Art serves as a record for these experiences."
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(13)
The Origin of Civilization
The Complete Course Contains All 48 Lectures
by Scott MacEachern
read by Scott MacEachern
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
What defines a civilization? How did the first states emerge? How were the world's ancient states similar and different? Answer these and other dramatic questions with this grand 48-lecture course that reveals how human beings around the world transitioned from small farming communities to the impressive cultural and political systems that would alter the course of history. Taking a gripping archaeological and historical approach to formative states such as the ancient Egyptians, the Chinese, and the Maya, Professor MacEachern completes your understanding of the history of civilization by exploring it at its earliest stages. Unlike traditional surveys of ancient civilizations, which tend to focus only on the glorious achievements of these cultures, you'll look at those first all-important steps that the world's first civilizations would take on the road to glory. You'll investigate places such as Mesopotamia, where agriculture laid the foundation for groundbreaking experiments in social and political development in places like Uruk and Sumer;?the eastern Mediterranean, where expanding maritime trade during the Bronze Age increasingly knit the different societies of these islands into a web of political and economic relationships; and Mesoamerica, where the indigenous states in and around what are now Mexico, Honduras, and Nicaragua reveal the full flowering of Olmec and Maya civilization. You'll also take an engaging look at what archaeologists have learned from some of the world's oldest and most intriguing sites. In the end, these lectures will leave you awestruck at the diverse ways that ancient people crafted complex systems - systems whose broad strokes remain with us even today.
All Lectures:
1. Ancient States and Civilizations
2. The History of Archaeological Research
3. Studying the Origins of States
4. Archaeological Interpretation - Çatalhöyük
5. Stepping Stones to Civilization
6. Trajectories of Cultural Development
7. When Is a State a State?
8. A Complex Neolithic - Halafian and Samarran
9. Hierarchy and Urbanism - 'Ubaid Mesopotamia
10. The Uruk World System
11. Sumer and Afterward
12. Civilization and Pastoralism in Mesopotamia
13. The Development of Writing in Mesopotamia
14. The Gift of the Nile
15. The Egyptian Predynastic Period
16. The Unification of Upper and Lower Egypt
17. Divinity and Display in Dynastic Egypt
18. Why So Different? Mesopotamia and the Nile
19. Borders and Territories of Ancient States
20. The Levantine Copper and Early Bronze Ages
21. Hierarchy and Society in the Aegean
22. Early Minoan and Mycenaean Civilizations
23. Palace and Countryside on Crete
24. How Things Fall Apart - The Greek Dark Ages
25. First Farmers in the Indus Valley
26. Cities along the Indus
27. Seeing What We Expect - Power and Display
28. Sedentism and Agriculture in Early China
29. State Formation in Ancient China
30. Origins of the Chinese Writing System
31. From Human Sacrifice to the Tao of Politics
32. Spread of States in Mainland Southeast Asia
33. Axumite Civilization in Ethiopia
34. Inland Niger Delta - Hierarchy and Heterarchy
35. Lake Chad Basin - Settlement and Complexity
36. Great Zimbabwe and Its Successors
37. Sedentism and Agriculture in Mesoamerica
38. The Olmec of Lowland Mexico
39. Teotihuacán - The First American City
40.Beginnings of States in Lowland Mesoamerica
41. The Great Maya City-States
42.Epigraphy - Changing Views of the Maya
43. Was There a Maya Collapse?
44. Adaptations in Pacific South America
45. Pyramids and Precocity in Coastal Peru
46. Andean Civilization - Chavín to Chimú
47. The Florescence of the Inka Empire
48. Ancient States - Unity and Diversity?
audiobook
(5)
Albert Einstein: Physicist, Philosopher, Humanitarian
by Don Howard
read by Don Howard
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
These 24 lectures present a wide-ranging intellectual exploration of this iconic scientist, genius, and champion of social justice. More than just a biography of Einstein's life, Albert Einstein provides you with an inside look at how this brilliant thinker arrived at his various revolutionary breakthroughs. According to Professor Howard, retracing the thought processes that led to Einstein's ideas is the key to understanding them. Guided by him, you'll reason your way to historic insights such as these: Light has both wave- and particle-like properties; absolute space and absolute time are meaningless concepts; and gravity is caused by the curvature of space-time. Each of these ideas sparked a scientific revolution. The first led to quantum physics; the second and third are conclusions from the special and general theories of relativity, which this lecture series explains in nontechnical detail. In addition to the groundbreaking scientific concepts, you'll learn how Einstein's dynamic life reflected a range of interests and passions that extended into fields like religion, international relations, and social justice. Indeed, as you'll discover, Einstein frequently engaged with many of the leading social and political issues of his day. These lectures are the perfect introduction to Einstein, putting his scientific discoveries into the context of his personal life, his philosophical views, and his outlook on the world. By the final lecture, you'll have become better acquainted with the whole Einstein: his ideas, his thought processes, and his impact on both his own time and ours.
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
(23)
Raising Emotionally and Socially Healthy Kids
The complete course contains all 12 lectures
by Eileen Kennedy-Moore
read by Eileen Kennedy-Moore
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
As a parent, you can't make friends for your children, nor can you prevent them from ever feeling hurt or upset. But with the right guidance, you can support them in learning how to solve problems, cope with feelings, and build satisfying relationships. Raising Emotionally and Socially Healthy Kids gives you access to the same practical advice and actionable plans that Dr. Kennedy-Moore - an in-demand psychologist and author who serves on the advisory board for Parents magazine - shares with clients in her Princeton, New Jersey, practice. Drawing from the her extensive clinical experience - as well as personal experience as a mother of four - these 12 lectures provide a deeper understanding of your child's development and ways to address common stumbling blocks with compassion. In the first half, you'll focus on emotional intelligence and the pivotal role parents can play in helping children understand and cope with their feelings. You'll discover strategies for managing early-childhood meltdowns; simple techniques to inspire cooperation; constructive ways to deal with back-talk, aggression, and unkind behavior; methods to help children cope with anxiety; and more. In the latter half, you'll turn to social intelligence and the challenges children face in making friends, plus practical ways you can guide them through the process. Here, you'll explore how you can support your child in getting along with others; being a good sport; handling conflicts; dealing with bullying; and coping with gossip and cliques. You'll conclude with a candid discussion of friendship in the digital age, looking at video game playing and the relatively new but troubling phenomena of cyberbullying and "Facebook depression".
All Lectures:
1. Developing Your Child's Emotional Intelligence
2. Anxiety-The Way Out Is Through
3. How Kids Manage Anger-Positive Discipline
4. Building Authentic Self-Esteem
5. Teaching Kids to Care-The Roots of Empathy
6. What Makes Kids Happy?
7. How Children Make Friends
8. Playing Well with Others
9. Making Up and Breaking Up with Friends
10. Belonging, Status, Popularity, and Rejection
11. Teasing and Bullying
12. Growing up Social in the Digital Age
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(4)
The Lives and Works of the English Romantic Poets
by Willard Spiegelman
read by Willard Spiegelman
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
The verse of the English Romantic poets is as daunting in its scope and complexity as it is dazzling in its technique and beautiful in its language. Now, in a series of 24 incisive lectures by an honored and distinguished teacher, scholar, and author, you can grasp how England's finest Romantic voices created their masterpieces, as Professor Spiegelman illuminates poems by Byron, Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats, as well as by female Romantic poets like Felicia Dorothea Hemans and Charlotte Turner Smith, who were, in their time, as admired as their male counterparts.
You'll learn how the generalizations so often applied to the Romantic poets - who never even identified themselves as "Romantic" - were misleading as a group description, but that there were some common concerns among them: they wrote about Man's relationship to nature, which, with the universe, they considered active, dynamic entities. There is, though, a counter-desire to escape from nature and to deny Man's connection to it. There is a concern with society and politics, and an idealistic notion that humanity can transcend its enslaving traditions. The Romantics were conscious of consciousness itself - of the power of the mind as a force for self-glorification and a seed of self-destruction.
Professor Spiegelman's emphasis on analyzing the poems is on technique - on how a poem accomplishes its objectives - and to this end he meticulously dissects them, directing you to points of interest that deserve close observation.
And though the lectures focus on the poems themselves, they also tell the story of these great poetic souls and their impact on their age.
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(25)
Utopia and Terror in the 20th Century
by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius
read by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius
Part of the Great Courses Audio series
From the trenches of World War I to Nazi Germany to Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the 20th century was a time of unprecedented violence. Yet while such monumental violence seems senseless, it is not inexplicable. If we can understand the origins of violence, we may prevent even greater horrors in the century to come. These 24 necessary lectures trace the violent history of the 20th century, beginning with its early roots in the American and, especially, the French revolutions. With each passing lecture, you will see how the 20th century's-violence was the result of specific historical developments that eventually combined, with explosive results. You'll see how the French Revolution proved that ideological movements could mobilize the public and, through violence, transform society; the Industrial Revolution and subsequent technology created vastly more powerful weapons; and Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection was perverted into Social Darwinism and eugenics. The most sinister development of all, however, was the notion that utopia was not just a perfect paradise to look forward to in the afterlife. Instead, utopia could be built right now, in this life. Such 20th-century ideologies as Marxism, Nazism, Communism, and Fascism embraced this idea willingly - even enthusiastically - and used terror to implement it. You'll see how leaders of totalitarian governments act as mobsters, and how regimes create fear and command allegiance through the use of bureaucratic "machines," such as the cult of the leader, secret police, and the media. In the final lectures, Professor Liulevicius considers recent figures such as Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden and assesses terrorism in the contemporary world.