Showing results by author "The Great Courses" in All Categories

Consider these commonly held scientific beliefs: Planetary orbits are fixed ellipses; we only use 10 percent of our brains; nothing travels faster than light; a thrown object’s trajectory is a parabola. They seem correct, but they’re all misconceptions that aren’t entirely accurate. There’s much more to the story than you think. These magnificent 24 lectures are devoted to busting myths, clearing up confusion, and giving you scientific epiphanies that could change how you think about your everyday world.

This mind-bending tour of metaphysics applies philosophy to the forefront of today's knowledge. Over the course of 24 fascinating lectures, Professor Johnson thinks through the big questions about humans and the universe: The relationship between the mind and the brain, how consciousness emerges from neurochemical processes, the existence of God, human free will, the possibility of time travel, and whether we live in a multiverse or even a computer simulation.

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.

In this 12-lecture meditation on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, you'll uncover the clarity and ethical wisdom of one of humanity's greatest minds. Father Koterski shows how and why this great philosopher can help you deepen and improve your own thinking on questions of morality and leading the best life. The aim of these lectures is to provide you with a clear and thoughtful introduction to Aristotle as a moral philosopher.

For most of the last 2,000 years, questions about the figure of Jesus have begun with the Gospels, but the Gospels themselves raise puzzling questions about both Jesus and the religious movement within which these narratives were produced. Is it possible to shape a single picture from the various accounts of his life given us by these Gospels?

We use DNA routinely - to cure diseases, solve crimes, and reunite families. Yet we've known about it for only 60 years. And what we're continuing to learn about it every day has the potential to transform our health, our nutrition, our society, and our future. But what, exactly is DNA, the self-replicating material present in nearly all living organisms?

In Wives, Witches, and Whirlpools: The Powerful Women of Homer’s Odyssey, Professor Jessica Blum-Sorensen helps you explore this classic work with fresh eyes, focusing not on the eponymous hero, but on the many women whose voices and motivations invite us to rethink traditional ideas of heroism. Across seven lectures, you’ll reexamine some of the foundational themes of the literary canon from a new perspective and discover why the deities, wives, maidens, witches, and monsters who populate Homer’s Odyssey are more than a match for its hero.

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.

What impulse drove ancient cultures to create sites like Stonehenge, Machu Picchu, and the pyramids at Giza? Why are we so transfixed by their presence today? And what do they reveal about our ancestors-and humanity? The dynamic force of religious belief is responsible for some of the world's most popular and ancient locales.

To examine the connection between the storytelling impulse and our implicit desire to understand our lives and our place in the world, you will go on a globe-spanning, time-travelling, media-traversing tour in the 12 lectures of Storytelling and the Human Condition. Your guide is award-winning journalist, author, and storyteller Alexandra Hudson, founder of Civic Renaissance, a community of lifelong learners, which she invites you to join at Civic-Renaissance.com. In this course, she will illuminate the many ways stories shape our lives throughout history and across cultures.

We have all pondered seemingly unanswerably but significant questions about our existence - the biggest of all being, "Why are we here?" Philosophy has developed over millennia to help us grapple with these essential intangibles. There is no better way to study the big questions in philosophy than to compare how the world's greatest minds have analyzed these questions, defined the terms, and then reasoned out potential solutions. Once you've compared the arguments, the final step is always deciding for yourself whether you find an explanation convincing.

The history of colonial America is a story of extraordinary scope, with Europeans, Africans, and the native peoples of North America interacting in a drama of settlement and conflict that lasted nearly three centuries. Go back in time and relive this epic story in 36 spellbinding lectures.

While concentrating on British North America, Professor Allison also covers developments in the colonial outposts of Spain, France, the Netherlands, and the all-important British possessions in the West Indies, which were the source of the most lucrative crop in the New World - sugar - and the reason for the enormous growth in the slave trade.

Following the surge of interest and pride in Celtic identity since the 19th century, much of what we thought we knew about the Celts has been radically transformed. In The Celtic World, discover the incredible story of the Celtic-speaking peoples, whose art, language, and culture once spread from Ireland to Austria. This series of 24 enlightening lectures explains the traditional historical view of who the Celts were, then contrasts it with brand-new evidence from DNA analysis and archeology that totally changes our perspective on where the Celts came from.

You can’t truly understand the last decade of the 20th century without a look at the muddy, electrifying rock music that would come to define it: grunge. For such a short-lived genre—at least in the mainstream—grunge had a lasting impact on American music and culture. It also provides a unique lens through which to examine the post-Reagan, pre-internet America of the 1990s. In the six lectures of The Story of Grunge, you’ll explore the rise and evolution of the genre, tracing it from Seattle subculture to MTV and the Billboard charts, all the way to its decline and evolution into new forms.

Alexander the Great, Jesus, Darwin, and Churchill are just a few of the many politicians, religious leaders, scientists, philosophers, authors, inventors, and generals who transformed our world in ways that still resonate today. Now, with this unique collection of 36 lectures from our extensive course catalog, meet the remarkable people without whom the world would never be the same.

Deep in the swampy heart of ancient Mexico, the Olmecs built a grand and influential civilization between 1800 and 400 BCE. The archaeological remains raise more questions than answers about the origins and legacy of this captivating Mesoamerican culture. How did the Olmecs carve and carry their famous colossal heads? Why did they live in flood-prone wetlands when better agricultural land was available? What are the secrets of their written language, and how can we unlock them?

Even today, the influence of Ancient Rome is indelible, with Europe and the world owing this extraordinary empire a huge cultural debt in almost every important category of human endeavor, including art, architecture, engineering, language, literature, law, and religion. At the peak of its power, Rome's span was vast. In the regional, restless, and shifting history of continental Europe, the Roman Empire stands as a towering monument to scale and stability, unified in politics and law, stretching from the sands of Syria to the moors of Scotland. And it stood for almost 700 years.In this series of 48 spirited lectures, you'll see how a small village of shepherds and farmers rose to tower over the civilized world of its day and left a permanent mark on history. In telling Rome's riveting story, Professor Fagan draws on a wealth of primary and secondary sources, including recent historical and archaeological scholarship, to introduce the fascinating tale of Rome's rise and decline, including the famous events and personalities that have become so familiar: . Horatius at the bridge . Hannibal crossing the Alps during Rome's life-or-death war with Carthage . Caesar assassinated before a statue of his archrival Pompey . The doomed lovers Antony and Cleopatra . The mad and venal emperors Nero and Caligula . The conversion of Constantine The course also addresses one of history's greatest questions: Why did the Roman Empire fall? And you'll learn why most modern scholars believe that the empire did not "fall" at all, but, rather, changed into something very different-the less urbanized, more rural, early medieval world.

Where do we come from? How did our ancestors settle this planet? How did the great historic civilizations of the world develop? How does a past so shadowy that it has to be painstakingly reconstructed from fragmentary, largely unwritten records nonetheless make us who and what we are?

These 36 lectures bring you the answers that the latest scientific and archaeological research and theorizing suggest about human origins, how populations developed, and the ways in which civilizations spread throughout the globe.

What makes science science? Why is science so successful? How do we distinguish science from pseudoscience? This exciting inquiry into the vigorous debate over the nature of science covers important philosophers such as Karl Popper, W. V. Quine, Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, Imre Lakatos, Carl Hempel, Nelson Goodman, and Bas van Fraassen.

In The Great Tours: Greece and Turkey, from Athens to Istanbul, award-winning Professor John R. Hale of the University of Louisville is your guide to the fabulous civilizations of the Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, and Ottomans, and to the natural wonders and idyllic landscapes that surround them. These 24 richly enjoyable lectures give you the chance to experience these important sites and cultures through the eyes of an expert archaeologist and scholar, whose knowledge and depth of insight go far beyond any ordinary travel narrative.