Richard Brettell, Professor of Aesthetic Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas, introduces the style, subject, and function of Impressionist painting.

Examines the life and works of Dimitri Shostakovich.

Professor Dale Hoak of The College of William and Mary delivers twenty-four lectures where in he tries to answer the questions via a retrospective assessment of both Henry VIII and his reign.

Buddhism challenges some of the most important Western ideas about God, human life, and the self. In Buddhism, there is no single almighty God who created the world. Instead, Buddhism teaches that all of life is suffering, and there is no permanent self. Moreover, it teaches that in accepting that all life is suffering, bliss can be achieved in this life. Buddhism's core philosophy that nothing is permanent--all is change--has made it an astonishingly...

Provides an overview of Hinduism and discusses why Hinduism is perhaps the most diverse religion of all. Covers topics such as arranged marriages and the caste system, the Indus Valley Civilization, the sacred writings in the Vedas, the Bhagavad-gita, and the Upanishads, ritual purity rites, the Aryan language of Sanskrit, and Hinduism's rejection of the notion that there is but one path to the divine. Introduces Hinduism's wealth of gods, terms,...

During the 229-year period 1485-1714, England transformed itself from a minor feudal state into "the first modern society," emerging as the wealthiest, most powerful nation in the world. The English people survived epidemics, famines, one failed invasion and two successful ones, two civil wars, violent religious reformations and counter-reformations, and confrontations with two of the most powerful monarchs on Earth, Louis XIV of France and Philip...

In the period 1700-1900, kings and empires rose and fell, but science conquered all, taking the world by storm. Yet, as the 1700s began, the mysteries of the universe were pondered by "natural philosophers" whose explanations couldn't help but be influenced by religious thought, and political and social contexts shaping their world. The ideas of the Enlightenment were especially important and influential, and the work of these natural philosophers...

Pt. 1 begins with Sophocles' Oedipus the King, and continues through Shakespeare and Moliere, on to the realist and naturalist work of the 19th century to close with Beckett's Waiting for Godot.

An intensive lecture course that explores all aspects of biology, providing the background and guidance to explore in depth the fundamental principles of how living things work.