Explore how some of the most influential masterpieces of literature became part of the elite catalog of books known as the Western literary canon. In The Western Literary Canon in Context, you journey from the ancient world to the 20th century and investigate the literary and historical significance of works including the Odyssey, Beowulf, Moby-Dick, War and Peace, and Ulysses. Award-winning Professor John M. Bowers reveals to you the amazing dialogue that occurs among authors, civilizations, generations, genres, and literary styles in the Western canon. Above all, this insightful course will reshape your thoughts on the development of Western literature.
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This course is an introduction to the major texts of Western culture, from antiquity onward. It stresses the uniqueness of literary language, the formal and generic conventions of writing, the position that literature occupies as a site for historical and ideological conflicts, and the continuing human significance of the great works of the past and present.
Open yourself up to works that are just as engaging and insightful about great human themes and ideas as anything you'd find on a college-level reading list. Professor Grant L. Voth's The Skeptic's Guide to the Great Books is your opportunity to discover new literary adventures that make worthy substitutes to works from the Western canon. In these 12 lectures, you'll get an introduction to works that redefine what great literature is and how it can reveal startling truths about life—all without being such a chore to read.
The written word is so central to the way we communicate and live that it can seem as if it has always existed. Yet writing is clearly a human invention—and a relatively recent one at that. Now, in the 24 lectures of Writing and Civilization: From Ancient Worlds to Modernity, you can trace the remarkable saga of “visible speech” from its earliest origins to its future in the digital age. In this thrilling, visually intensive journey, Professor Marc Zender—Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Tulane University and an accomplished epigrapher—whisks you around the globe to explore how an array of sophisticated writing systems developed, then were adopted and adapted by surrounding cultures. You’ll visit the great early civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Asia, and the Americas, and you’ll see how deciphering ancient scripts is a little like cracking secret codes—only far more difficult.
What makes for a powerful story? Why are we, as human beings, drawn to stories? Discover the answers with this two-course set. In The Power of Storytelling with Ari Shapiro, join the award-winning host of NPR’s All Things Considered for a look at what goes into creative an unforgettable story—and how you can tell such stories yourself. And in Storytelling and the Human Condition, examine the connection between the storytelling impulse and our implicit desire to understand our lives and our place in the world.
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