Contrasts two conflicting factions -- Idealism and realism.

Presents an overview of jazz, its elements, and its history.

Professor J. Rufus Fears of the University of Oklahoma presents lectures concerning the history of freedom from ancient civilization to the twentieth century.

Lectures by Dr. David Christian, Professor of History at San Diego State University. Surveys the past at all possible scales, from conventional history, to the much larger scales of biology and geology, to the universal scales of cosmology.

The "Long Debate" on the nature of truth, the scale of real values, the life one should aspire to live, the character of justice, the sources of law, and the terms of civic and political life is encompassed by the name philosophy. Three persistent themes--understood as problems--are knowledge, conduct, and governance, on which there is a storehouse of insights, some so utterly persuasive as to have shaped thought itself. Beginning with Plato and Aristotle,...

What can we still learn from C.S. Lewis? Find out in these 12 insightful lectures that cover the author's spiritual autobiography, novels, and his scholarly writings that reflect on pain and grief, love and friendship, prophecy and miracles, and education and mythology. This is your chance to explore a canon of literary work that speaks volumes about the imaginative, emotional, and spiritual power of literature. As you delve into the depths of enduring...

Dr. Carroll explains the subject of dark matter and dark energy in 24 lectures. He explains why scientists believe we live in a smooth, expanding universe that originated in a hot, dense state called the Big Bang. He describes the features of the infant universe that led to the large-scale structure we observe today. He takes you through the standard model of particle physics and shows how it provides the framework for understanding the interaction...

There are many reasons to study ancient Rome. Rome's span was vast, its influence is indelible, and the story is riveting. This course examines how a small village of shepherds and farmers rose to tower over the civilized world, unified in politics and law, for almost 700 years. Rome changed hugely in many spheres over the course of its 1,500-year history, so the principal focus is on the years from 200 B.C.E. to 200 A.D., when Roman power was at...

Chronicles the history of the United States from colonial origins to the beginning of the 21st century.