John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi
This free course, John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi, concentrates on Acts 1 and 2 of John Webster's Renaissance tragedy, The Duchess of Malfi. It focuses on the representation of marriage for love and the social conflicts to which it gives rise. The course is designed to hone your skills of textual analysis.
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Library of Alexandria
One of the most important questions for any student of the ancient world to address is 'how do we know what we know about antiquity?' Whether we're thinking about urban architecture, or love poetry, or modern drama, a wide range of factors shape the picture of antiquity that we have today. This free course, Library of Alexandria, encourages you to reflect upon and critically assess those factors. Interpreting an ancient text, or a piece of material culture, or understanding an historical event,
An introduction to material culture
This free course, An introduction to material culture, introduces the study of material culture. It asks why we should study things and outlines some basic approaches to studying objects. Dr Rodney Harrison.
First published on Mon, 11 Jan 2016 as Author(s):
Introduction The case studies in this course introduce various typologies of heritage and the methods used to study them. The case studies help to draw attention to the fact that the heritage traditions in England, Scotland and Wales are not the same and are enshrined in slightly different legislation. Every study of heritage requires an understanding of the legal context and the traditions and history governing the object of heritage. This OpenLearn course provides a sample of Level 1 study in
Aberdulais Falls: A case study in Welsh heritage
This free course, Aberdulais Falls: A case study in Welsh heritage, looks at the Aberdulais Falls in Wales, and considers the key issues affecting the decision-making of the bodies which are responsible for looking after our heritage. We examine the heritage debates: who decides what should be preserved from the past as our heritage, who is this heritage for, and how should it be presented and explained?
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Introduction This course gives you the opportunity to practise good study techniques using the theme of commemoration and memorials. It will help you to begin to think about how form influences meaning in the arts and how ideas influence approaches to the humanities.
Introduction ‘Freedom’ can mean many different things. Here we're concerned with political freedom. Isaiah Berlin distinguished between a concept of negative freedom and a concept of positive freedom. You will examine these concepts and learn to recognise the difference between freedom from constraint and the freedom that comes from self-mastery or self-realisation. The following material is taken from the book Arguments for Freedom ‘1999’ authored by Nigel Warburton of The Open Unive
Textiles in Ghana
Textiles in Ghana carry a far greater importance than you might expect. This free course will help you to understand how textiles can carry an assortment of meanings and values, including wealth, status and office.
First published on Wed, 13 Jan 2016 as Textiles in Ghana
Plato on tradition and belief
How can we settle questions of morality or ethics? This free course, Plato on tradition and belief, explores Plato's dialogue, the Laches, to discover why Plato thought that we should look to reason, rather than tradition, to decide how we should live and what it means to be courageous.
NOTE: As part of OpenLearn's ongoing content review, this course will be deleted from the site on 22 March 2019. We will be publishing some new content on Plato in the near future. In the meantime, you may be
Introduction This course investigates certain philosophical issues concerning imagination, creativity and the relationships between them, and considers the conceptions and varieties of imaginative experience. This OpenLearn course provides a sample of Level 3 study in Arts and Humanities.
Introduction Most of us today take photographs for our family albums. The lucky ones among us have also inherited family photographs from the past. These photographs provide another type of record that can offer insights into our family history. But what can they tell us? How can we elicit the information they hold? And how do we analyse or evaluate that information? The purpose of this course is to suggest how to approach the interpretation of the photographic record. Please keep referring to your
6.1 Evolutionary development Most of us have some experience of the evolutionary development and the success of new technology. The Walkman personal stereo cassette player has evolved into the Discman CD player and more recently into digital music players. The computer has developed from its beginnings as government and university research machines in the 1940s (the first electronic computer filled an entire room and had a memory of 16 kilobytes) to palm-sized personal digital assistants each one of which has more comput
Voice-leading analysis of music 2: the middleground
This free course, Voice-leading analysis of music 2: the middleground, continues our examination of 'voice-leading' or 'Schenkerian' analysis, perhaps the most widely used and discussed method of analysing tonal music. In this course, this method is explained through the analysis of piano sonatas by Mozart. The course is the second in the AA314 series of three courses on this form of harmonic analysis, and concentrates on the 'middleground level' of voice leading. As you work through this course
Introduction This course will concentrate on one of the most common forms of art history writing – a biographical monograph about a single artist's life and work. You will be focusing on the way that one author, Helen Langdon, has used biography in her book about one artist, Caravaggio. In order to get the most out of studying this course you will need access to a copy of this book (ISBN 071266582x) You will look in detail at the methods she has used to approach her subject and the different kinds
Introduction Robert Owen (1771–1858) (see Figure 1) was one of the most important and controversial figures of his generation. He lived through the ages of Enlightenment and Romanticism and was personally touched by the ideas and dramatic changes that characterised that era. Profiting enormously during the first half of his life from the pro
Introduction This course presents information about how Scottish healthcare institutions were influenced by the underlying social, economic, political and cultural contexts. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a series of innovative models of the body was produced, from the mechanical to the mathematical to the sensible. As groundbreaking anatomical investigation and physiological experimentation were carried out, the map of the body changed, and different parts (vessels, glands, nerves) ac
Dundee, jute and empire
Britain was the first country to industrialise, and it acquired the largest empire ever during this same period. But its sphere of economic influence extended far beyond the boundaries of the formal British Empire. This free course, Dundee, jute and empire, focuses on the economics of empire, using a case study of one town, Dundee in eastern Scotland, to explore this huge topic.
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Icarus: entering the world of myth
This free course, Icarus: entering the world of myth, will introduce you to one of the best-known myths from classical antiquity and its various re-tellings in later periods. You will begin by examining how the Icarus story connects with a number of other ancient myths, such as that of Theseus and the Minotaur. You will then be guided through an in-depth reading of Icarus’ story as told by the Roman poet Ovid, one of the most important and sophisticated figures in the history of ancient myth-m
Discovering Ancient Greek and Latin
The free course, Discovering Ancient Greek and Latin, gives a taste of what it is like to learn two ancient languages. It is for those who have encountered the classical world through translations of Greek and Latin texts and wish to know more about the languages in which these works were composed. First published on Thu, 07 Jun 2018 as Author(s):
Dutch painting of the Golden Age
Seventeenth-century Dutch painting stands out from other art of the same period and even more so from that of previous centuries on account of its apparently ‘everyday’ character. Works by artists such as Johannes Vermeer, Pieter de Hooch and Jacob van Ruisdael seem to offer a faithful picture of life in the Netherlands at the time. In studying this free course, Dutch painting of the Golden Age, you will discover that there is much more to Dutch painting than meets the eye. You will explore
