検索キーワード： 著者 "The Great Courses" すべてのカテゴリー

Step back to a time when the mysteries of the universe could seem overwhelming. Cycles of nature kept predictable time with the sun, the moon, and the stars, yet crops failed, disease struck, storms ravaged, and empires fell without warning. In the region surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, people responded to such tumult with a rich variety of religious beliefs.

This course offers an overview of the English language that is literary, historical, cultural, political, and scientific in its scope and designed to give you greater insight into the written and spoken word.The lectures provide a thorough understanding of the history of the English language - from its origins as a dialect of the Germanic-speaking peoples through the literary and cultural documents of its 1,500-year span to the state of American speech today.

In this course, an award-winning professor and New York Times best-selling author offers a penetrating investigation of the 24 most pivotal Christian controversies, shedding light on fallacies that obscure an accurate view of the religion and how it evolved into what it is today. In each lecture, you'll delve deeply into a key issue in Christianity's early development. Explore intriguing questions in this unique inquiry into the core of Christian tradition.

The history of human civilization is an astonishing story of migration, innovation, and social development. Now, the exciting new field of "big history" allows us to explore human civilizations in ways unavailable to historians of previous generations. Big history scholars take a multidisciplinary approach to study great spans of time, unlocking important themes, trends, and developments across time and space.

Conventional wisdom suggests there is a sharp distinction between emotion and reason. Emotions are seen as inferior, disruptive, primitive, and even bestial forces. These 24 remarkable lectures suggest otherwise-that emotions have intelligence and provide personal strategies that are vitally important to our everyday lives of perceiving, evaluating, appraising, understanding, and acting in the world.

The Science of Information: From Language to Black Holes covers the exciting concepts, history, and applications of information theory in 24 challenging and eye-opening half-hour lectures taught by Professor Benjamin Schumacher of Kenyon College. A prominent physicist and award-winning educator at one of the nation’s top liberal arts colleges, Professor Schumacher is also a pioneer in the field of quantum information, which is the latest exciting development in this dynamic scientific field.

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....

Have you ever wondered why America, unlike virtually any other industrial nation, continues to show so much religious vitality? Or why are the varieties of religion found in the United States are so numerous and diverse? In this vigorous series of 24 lectures, Professor Allitt argues that the best way to look for explanations of this truly remarkable vitality and diversity is to study the nation's religious history. That's a task, though, that involves more than simply examining religion from the directions you might expect....

How did a persecuted sect in 1st-century Palestine rise to command such a massive influence on human culture, imagination, and spirit? How did Christianity weather the first critical stages of its historical development and attain its fundamental and enduring cultural role?

Many of literature's greatest works, from ancient myths to the works of Nobel laureates, rely on fantasy. Even when there has been a dominant preference for realism, generation after generation of readers have been drawn to stories of the fantastic-not only for what they help us learn about ourselves as individuals or as members of society, but also for what they show about our social values.

After Romeo and Juliet, Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy might just be the world’s most famous fictional couple. The story of how they fall in love—Pride and Prejudice—has left an indelible imprint on popular culture. Readers, novelists, playwrights, filmmakers, and even zombies can’t leave Pride and Prejudice alone. Which raises the question: Why has this novel, of all Jane Austen’s works, remained the general favorite?

If you're like many people, you might associate debate with a school club, or perhaps a TV political debate that features two or more candidates talking over each other. But if these are your only associations with debating, you're missing out on an intellectual pursuit that can help you in all aspects of your daily life. The ability to debate - to present persuasive arguments, pierce the logic of others, and turn the tables against withering cross-examinations - is one of the truest tests of one's intellectual capacity.

There's an art and science behind how doctors diagnose and treat medical patients. Where do doctors get these skills? The Grand Rounds experience, where they practice how to make accurate diagnoses by examining real patients. And with Dr. Benaroch's 24 unique lectures, you'll explore how a master physician solves medical problems just like a detective.

The ancient Greeks left the world that came after them-particularly our own and our ways of seeing it-an incalculable legacy. Mention politics, philosophy, law, medicine, history, even the visual arts, and we barely scratch the surface of what we owe this extraordinary culture. How can we best learn about these people who have given us so much, who have deepened and enriched our understanding of ourselves, and whose world remains far closer than we might imagine? The 36 lectures of this sparkling series from a frequently honored teacher is an outstanding place to begin.

In The Black Death: New Lessons from Recent Research, celebrated medievalist Dorsey Armstrong shares the fascinating new story of this old pandemic—revealed by dedicated researchers working with 21st-century technologies and a knowledge of language and history that now provide input from all geographic areas of the medieval world. In seven engaging lectures, Professor Armstrong corrects explanations of the pandemic that are now known to be inaccurate and offers a more robust description of plague biology than has ever been known.

What foods did the human body evolve to eat, and why? How does the food we eat affect our genes and our minds? What foods are (and aren't) optimal for our everyday health? How can we use cutting-edge science to end world hunger? In these 36 lectures, get eye-opening answers to these and other perplexing questions about the evolution of the human diet and its relationship to our bodies.

Follow an acclaimed archaeologist to unearth the roots of Jesus' actions and teachings within the traditions and beliefs of ancient Judaism. These fascinating 24 lectures approach the subject of Jesus from a historical, rather than scriptural, perspective; one rooted in ancient texts and archaeological discoveries. This investigation reveals hidden insights into how the tumultuous events of early Jewish history shaped an individual - and a movement - whose legacy endures to this day.

With the six lectures of The Everyday Guide to Wines of Italy, you can experience the dynamism of Italian wine for yourself and become your own expert in the tastes, traditions, and innovations from history’s definitive wine-making regions. Delivered by acclaimed Master of Wine Jennifer Simonetti-Bryan, one of the foremost authorities on wines around the world, this course is a chance for you to embark on a delicious, interactive, and unforgettable tasting tour through a country that is equal parts picturesque, romantic, and mysterious.

Everyone has to think in order to function in the world, but what is the best way to reason effectively in your pursuit of reliable beliefs and useful knowledge? What is the best way to prove a case, create a rule, solve a problem, justify an idea, invent a hypothesis, or evaluate an argument? In short, what is the best way to think? Professor Hall helps you cut through deception and faulty reasoning in these 24 humorous, clear, and interesting lectures, offering a friendly but intellectually rigorous approach to the problem of thinking.

Clearly, the Greeks are a source of much that we esteem in our own culture: democracy, philosophy, tragedy, epic and lyric poetry, history-writing, our aesthetic sensibilities, ideals of athletic competition, and more. But what is it about Hellenic culture that has made generations of influential scholars and writers view it as the essential starting point for understanding the art and reflection that define the West?