Paula Fredriksen, Boston University: "Sin: The Early History of an Idea - Lecture 3: A Rivalry of Ge
Jesus of Nazareth announced that God was about to redeem the world. Some 450 years later, the church taught that the far greater part of humanity was eternally condemned. The early community began by preserving the memory and the message of Jesus; within decades of his death, some Christians asserted that Jesus had never had a fleshly human body at all. The church that insisted that Jewish scriptures were Christian scriptures also insisted that the god who said "Be fruitful and multiply" actuall
Curt Hillegas, Frans Pretorius, Dan Marlow, Roberto Car - Princeton University: "Research Computing
As the power of computational resources continues to grow, researchers at Princeton University rely more heavily on research computing. The TIGRESS High Performance Computing Center is a collaborative collection of four major HPC resources, storage, and programmers designed to facilitate computational science and engineering on campus. Following a brief overview of the TIGRESS systems, their capabilities, and the application process for using them, several faculty will discuss their research u
Frans Pretorius, Princeton University: "Research Computing - Princeton Perspectives" PDF
As the power of computational resources continues to grow, researchers at Princeton University rely more heavily on research computing. The TIGRESS High Performance Computing Center is a collaborative collection of four major HPC resources, storage, and programmers designed to facilitate computational science and engineering on campus. Following a brief overview of the TIGRESS systems, their capabilities, and the application process for using them, several faculty will discuss their research u
Dan Marlow, Princeton University: "Research Computing - Princeton Perspectives" PDF
As the power of computational resources continues to grow, researchers at Princeton University rely more heavily on research computing. The TIGRESS High Performance Computing Center is a collaborative collection of four major HPC resources, storage, and programmers designed to facilitate computational science and engineering on campus. Following a brief overview of the TIGRESS systems, their capabilities, and the application process for using them, several faculty will discuss their research u
Roberto Car, Princeton University: "Research Computing - Princeton Perspectives" PDF
As the power of computational resources continues to grow, researchers at Princeton University rely more heavily on research computing. The TIGRESS High Performance Computing Center is a collaborative collection of four major HPC resources, storage, and programmers designed to facilitate computational science and engineering on campus. Following a brief overview of the TIGRESS systems, their capabilities, and the application process for using them, several faculty will discuss their research u
21 - Repeated games: cooperation vs. the end game
We discuss repeated games, aiming to unpack the intuition that the promise of rewards and the threat of punishment in the future of a relationship can provide incentives for good behavior today. In class, we play prisoners' dilemma twice and three times, but this fails to sustain cooperation. The problem is that, in the last stage, since there is then is future, there is no incentive to cooperate, and hence the incentives unravel from the back. We related this to the real-world problems of a lam
05 - Nash equilibrium: bad fashion and bank runs
We first define formally the new concept from last time: Nash equilibrium. Then we discuss why we might be interested in Nash equilibrium and how we might find Nash equilibrium in various games. As an example, we play a class investment game to illustrate that there can be many equilibria in social settings, and that societies can fail to coordinate at all or may coordinate on a bad equilibrium. We argue that coordination problems are common in the real world. Finally, we discuss why in such coo
01 - Introduction: five first lessons
We introduce Game Theory by playing a game. We organize the game into players, their strategies, and their goals or payoffs; and we learn that we should decide what our goals are before we make choices. With some plausible payoffs, our game is a prisoners' dilemma. We learn that we should never choose a dominated strategy; but that rational play by rational players can lead to bad outcomes. We discuss some prisoners' dilemmas in the real world and some possible real-world remedies. With other pl
21 - Forwards and Futures
Futures markets were started in Osaka, Japan in the 1600s to create an authoritative and meaningful market price for agricultural products, using standardized contracts. Since then, futures markets have been copied around the world to allow the hedging various future risks, financial and other. In the United States, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade have been the most popular futures trading markets. Although futures markets are changing and becoming more electronic,
06 - Arguments for the existence of the soul, Part IV; Plato, Part I
The lecture begins with a continued discussion of the Cartesian argument and its weaknesses. The lecture then turns to Plato's metaphysical views in the context of his work, Phaedo. The key point in the discussion is the idea that in addition to the ordinary empirical world that we are familiar with, we posit the existence of a second realm in which the Platonic forms exist. These forms are the abstract properties that we attribute to physical objects, such as beauty, justice, goodness and so on
23 - Paradise XXX, XXXI, XXXII, XXXIII
Professor Mazzotta lectures on the final cantos of Paradiso (30-33). The pilgrim's journey through the physical world comes to an end with his ascent into the Empyrean, a heaven of pure light beyond time and space. Beatrice welcomes Dante into the Heavenly Jerusalem, where the elect are assembled in a celestial rose. By describing the Empyrean as both a garden and a city, Dante recalls the poles of his own pilgrimage while dissolving the classical divide between urbs and rus, between civic li
18 - Paradise XI, XII
Professor Mazzotta continues his discussion of the Heaven of the Sun (Paradiso 10-14), where the earthly disputes between the Franciscan and Dominican orders give way to mutual praise. The tribute St. Thomas pays to the founder of the Franciscan order (Paradiso 11) is repaid by St. Bonaventure through his homage to St. Dominic (Paradiso 12). The chiasmic structure of these cantos is reinforced by the presence of Nathan and Joachim of Flora, the counterweights to Solomon and Sigier, among the s
21L.007J After Columbus (MIT)
Sometime after 1492, the concept of the New World or America came into being, and this concept appeared differently - as an experience or an idea - for different people and in different places. This semester, we will read three groups of texts: first, participant accounts of contact between native Americans and French or English speaking Europeans, both in North America and in the Caribbean and Brazil; second, transformations of these documents into literary works by contemporaries; third, moder
21F.035 Topics in Culture and Globalization (MIT)
The concept of globalization fosters the understanding of the interconnectedness of cultures and societies geographically wide apart; America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Subject scans existing debates over globalization around the world. This course explores how globalization impacts everyday life in the First and Third World; how globalization leads to a common cosmopolitan culture; the emergence of a global youth culture; and religious, social, and political movements that challenge globalizati
17.57J Soviet Politics and Society, 1917-1991 (MIT)
At its greatest extent the former Soviet Union encompassed a geographical area that covered one-sixth of the Earth's landmass. It spanned 11 time zones and contained over 100 distinct nationalities, 22 of which numbered over one million in population. In the 74 years from the October Revolution in 1917 to the fall of Communism in 1991, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, its leaders and its people, had to face a number of difficult challenges: the overthrow of the Tsarist autocracy, the est
17.508 The Rise and Fall of Democracy/ Regime Change (MIT)
Coups, civil wars, revolutions, and peaceful transitions are the "real stuff" of political science. They show us why politics matters, and they highlight the consequences of political choices in times of institutional crisis. This course will help you understand why democracies emerge and why they die, from ancient times to the recent wave of democratization in Southern Europe, Eastern Europe, and the developing world.
Few things are more dramatic than the collapse of a political system, whether
21L.703 English Renaissance Drama: Theatre and Society in the Age of Shakespeare (MIT)
Shakespeare "doth bestride the narrow world" of the English Renaissance "like a colossus," leaving his contemporaries "walk under his large legs and peep about" to find themselves in "dishonourable graves." This course aims in part to correct this grave injustice by surveying the extraordinary output of playwrights whose names have largely been eclipsed by their more luminous compatriot: Marlowe, Jonson, Webster, and Ford, among others. Reading Shakespeare as just one of a group of practitioners
Réduction de la mortalité maternelle - Dakar 2010 : Introduction au colloque. (audio)
Le président de séance rappelle que ce colloque est un moment de réflexion pour confronter les approches et harmoniser le langage. La sexualité humaine est un objet social complexe qui, dans toutes les sociétés du monde, articule le langage, les affects et la physiologie.
La sexualité humaine, à la différence de la sexualité animale, dépasse la fonction de reproduction. Nous sommes des êtres de langage et de société. Le terme même de "reproduction" est trop
21L.002-3 Foundations of Western Culture II: Modernism (MIT)
This course comprises a broad survey of texts, literary and philosophical, which trace the development of the modern world from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century. Intrinsic to this development is the growth of individualism in a world no longer understood to be at the center of the universe. The texts chosen for study exemplify the emergence of a new humanism, at once troubled and dynamic in comparison to the old. The leading theme of this course is thus the question
11.166 Law, Social Movements, and Public Policy: Comparative and International Experience (MIT)
The course introduces theoretical frameworks from legal and social movement theories as applied to court opinions, legislation, treaties, law-related articles, and policy-oriented materials and focuses on the impact of the relationship between courts and grassroots activism on current issues like trade, environmental regulation, and human rights enforcement. Students examine case studies of institutional processes including the World Trade Organization and the World Bank from key countries like
