Contending Modernities
Scott Appleby, professor of history and director of the University of Notre Dame's Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, discusses "Contending Modernities: Catholic, Muslim, Secular," a major cross-cultural research project launched by Notre Dame, in partnership with scholars and educators from around the world. Learn More: http://newsinfo.nd.edu/news/17067
Catalogue of Digitized Medieval Manuscripts
As electronic resources continue to permeate scholarship, the challenge of keeping abreast with new developments becomes ever more pressing. The Catalogue of Digitized Medieval Manuscripts seeks to provide a technological solution to a simple and rather delightful "problem": the breathtaking increase in the number of medieval manuscripts available on the web in their entirety, but in a bewildering range of venues and formats.
Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet on her novel "Martyrdom Street"
Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet, director of the University of Pennsylvania Middle East Center and associate professor of history, discusses her latest book "Martyrdom Street." Set during the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the ensuing Iran-Iraq War, it chronicles the lives of three Iranian women in intertwining narratives in Iran and the United States. For more information on "Martyrdom Street," check out the article in SAS Frontiers at http://www.sas.upenn.edu/home/SASFrontiers/fictional-realities.html.
21H.802 Modern Latin America, 1808-Present: Revolution, Dictatorship, Democracy (MIT)
This class is a selective survey of Latin American history from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present. Issues studied include Latin America in the global economy, relations between Latin America and the U.S., dictatorships and democracies in the twentieth century, African and Indigenous cultures, feminism and gender, cultural politics, revolution in Mexico, Cuba, and Central America, and Latin American identity.
Research and Investigation Project: A Grave Undertaking
The central focus of the Research and Investigation Project (RIP): A Grave Undertaking unit is an exploration of the lives of individuals who lived in Deerfield from 1780-1880. Throughout their investigations of the past, students analyze a variety of primary and secondary sources and material culture to draw inferences about their research subjects, Deerfield's history, and the history of the country during this 100-year period. The five lessons in this unit take three to four weeks to complete
The Great Magnet, the Earth
This site provides a non-mathematical introduction to the magnetism of the Earth, the Sun, the planets and their environments, following a historical thread. In 1600, four hundred years ago William Gilbert, later physician to Queen Elizabeth I of England, published his great study of magnetism, "De Magnete"--"On the Magnet". It gave the first rational explanation to the mysterious ability of the compass needle to point north-south: the Earth itself was magnetic. "De Magnete" opened the era of mo
Forging a New Frontier in Oxford Medicine
The historian Conrad Keating continues his history of Oxford's groundbreaking contribution to health in the tropics by asking David Warrell what motivated him to work in Africa... The modern history of Oxford's medical contribution to the great neglected diseases of mankind begins with David Warrell's appointment as Director of the Mahidol-Oxford-Wellcome Unit in Bangkok, Thailand in May, 1979. Tropical research had fascinated Warrell since his time working in Nigeria and Addis Ababa in 1968.
The Idea of the State: a Genealogy
Quentin Skinner gives a genealogy of the modern state, arguing that we should not understand the state simply as the government, but rather as a fictional person, enabling us to explain such things as shared responsibility for debt over generations. Quentin Skinner is the Barber Beaumont Professor of the Humanities at Queen Mary, University of London and he is the previous Regius professor of modern history at Cambridge. His most recent book is Hobbes and Republican Liberty (2008).
16. Population in Traditional China
Global Problems of Population Growth (MCDB 150)
China's early demographic history is similar to that of Europe; population grows only slowly due to war, disease and Malthusian resource limitation. Later, introduction of American foods allowed cultivated land to expand, but population expanded even more rapidly, leading to an extremely dense, but poor population. During this time, female infanticide was frequent, but almost all surviving girls got married. Within marriage, their fertility rate w
7. Demographic Transition in Europe; Mortality Decline
Global Problems of Population Growth (MCDB 150)
European population grew only slowly during the period 1200-1700; factors include disease and wars. Human feces and rotting animal remains were not sequestered and often contaminated drinking water. Cities were so filthy that more people died in them than were born. About a third of children died in infancy, many from abandonment and lack of care during wet-nursing. Children that survived were subjected to harsh discipline to control their tendenc
20. Paradise XVIII, XIX, XXI, XXII
Dante in Translation (ITAL 310)
In this lecture, Professor Mazzotta examines Paradise XVIII-XIX and XXI-XXII. In Paradise XVIII, Dante enters the Heaven of Jupiter, where the souls of righteous rulers assume the form of an eagle, the emblem of the Roman Empire. The Eagle's outcry against the wickedness of Christian kings leads Dante to probe the boundaries of divine justice by looking beyond the confines of Christian Europe. By contrasting the political with the moral boundaries that distinguis
24. General Review
Dante in Translation (ITAL 310)
The last class of the semester consists of a brief recapitulation of topics in the Divine Comedy addressed throughout the course, followed by an extensive question and answer session with the students. The questions posed allow Professor Mazzotta to elaborate on issues raised over the course of the semester, from Dante's place within the medieval love tradition to the relationship between his roles as poet and theologian.
Complete course materials are available
21L.422 Tragedy (MIT)
"Tragedy" is a name originally applied to a particular kind of dramatic art and subsequently to other literary forms; it has also been applied to particular events, often implying thereby a particular view of life. Throughout the history of Western literature it has sustained this double reference. Uniquely and insistently, the realm of the tragic encompasses both literature and life.Through careful, critical reading of literary texts, this subject will examine three aspects of the tra
21L.512 American Authors: American Women Authors (MIT)
This subject, cross-listed in Literature and Women's Studies, examines a range of American women authors from the seventeenth century to the present. It aims to introduce a number of literary genres and styles- the captivity narrative, slave novel, sensational, sentimental, realistic, and postmodern fiction- and also to address significant historical events in American women's history: Puritanism, the American Revolution, industrialization and urbanization in the nineteenth century, the Har
21L.470 Eighteenth-Century Literature: Versions of the Self in 18th-C Britain (MIT)
When John Locke declared (in the 1690 Essay Concerning Human Understanding) that knowledge was derived solely from experience, he raised the possibility that human understanding and identity were not the products of God's will or of immutable laws of nature so much as of one's personal history and background. If on the one hand Locke's theory led some to pronounce that individuals could determine the course of their own lives, however, the idea that we are the products of our experience just as
2.000 How and Why Machines Work (MIT)
Subject studies how and why machines work, how they are conceived, how they are developed (drawn), and how they are utilized. Students learn from the hands-on experiences of taking things apart mentally and physically, drawing (sketching, 3D CAD) what they envision and observe, taking occasional field trips, and completing an individual term project (concept, creation, and presentation). Emphasis on understanding the physics and history of machines.
17.544 Comparative Politics and China (MIT)
This graduate seminar has two main goals: to explore the main theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of contemporary Chinese politics; and to relate those approches to broader trends in the field of comparative politics. What has the study of China contributed to the field of comparative politics, and vice versa? What are the most effective ways to integrate area studies, broader comparative approaches, and theory? Seminar presumes a basic understanding of the history and politic
21H.105 American Classics (MIT)
"What then is the American, this new man?" asked J. Hector St-John de Crèvecoeur in his Letters from an American Farmer in 1782. This subject takes Crèvecoeur's question as the starting point for an examination of the changing meanings of national identity in the American past. We will consider a diverse collection of classic texts in American history to see how Americans have defined themselves and their nation in politics, literature, art, and popular culture. As a communications
Continental Portuguese intermediate semester B
This module is aimed at students in year 2 semester B. The varied exercises cover a range of topics from Portuguese history to cooking. The transcript reader of the listening exercises allows students to identify words/passages they find difficult to understand.
9.916-A Probability and Causality in Human Cognition (MIT)
Probability theory captures a number of essential characteristics of human cognition, including aspects of perception, reasoning, belief revision, and learning. Expressions of degree of belief were used in language long before people began codifying the laws of probability theory. This course explores the history and debates over codifying the laws of probability, how probability theory applies to specific cognitive processes, how it relates to the human understanding of causality, and how new c
