Online courses directory (457)

Videos attempting to grasp a little bit about our Universe (many of the topics associated with "Big History"). Scale of Earth and Sun. Scale of Solar System. Scale of Distance to Closest Stars. Scale of the Galaxy. Intergalactic Scale. Hubble Image of Galaxies. Big Bang Introduction. Radius of Observable Universe. (Correction) Radius of Observable Universe. Red Shift. Cosmic Background Radiation. Cosmic Background Radiation 2. Cosmological Time Scale 1. Cosmological Time Scale 2. Four Fundamental Forces. Birth of Stars. Becoming a Red Giant. White and Black Dwarfs. A Universe Smaller than the Observable. Star Field and Nebula Images. Parallax in Observing Stars. Stellar Parallax. Stellar Distance Using Parallax. Stellar Parallax Clarification. Parsec Definition. Hubble's Law. Lifecycle of Massive Stars. Supernova (Supernovae). Supernova clarification. Black Holes. Cepheid Variables 1. Why Cepheids Pulsate. Why Gravity Gets So Strong Near Dense Objects. Supermassive Black Holes. Quasars. Quasar Correction. Galactic Collisions. Earth Formation. Beginnings of Life. Ozone Layer and Eukaryotes Show Up in the Proterozoic Eon. Biodiversity Flourishes in Phanerozoic Eon. First living things on land clarification. Plate Tectonics-- Difference between crust and lithosphere. Structure of the Earth. Plate Tectonics -- Evidence of plate movement. Plate Tectonics -- Geological Features of Divergent Plate Boundaries. Plate Tectonics-- Geological features of Convergent Plate Boundaries. Plates Moving Due to Convection in Mantle. Hawaiian Islands Formation. Compositional and Mechanical Layers of the Earth. Seismic Waves. Why S-Waves Only Travel in Solids. Refraction of Seismic Waves. The Mohorovicic Seismic Discontinuity. How we know about the Earth's core. Pangaea. Scale of the Large. Scale of the Small. Detectable Civilizations in our Galaxy 1. Detectable Civilizations in our Galaxy 2. Detectable Civilizations in our Galaxy 3. Detectable Civilizations in our Galaxy 4. Detectable Civilizations in our Galaxy 5. Human Evolution Overview. Understanding Calendar Notation. Correction Calendar Notation. Development of Agriculture and Writing. Introduction to Light. Seasons Aren't Dictated by Closeness to Sun. How Earth's Tilt Causes Seasons. Milankovitch Cycles Precession and Obliquity. Are Southern Hemisphere Seasons More Severe?. Precession Causing Perihelion to Happen Later. What Causes Precession and Other Orbital Changes. Apsidal Precession (Perihelion Precession) and Milankovitch Cycles. Firestick Farming. Carbon 14 Dating 1. Carbon 14 Dating 2. Potassium-Argon (K-Ar) Dating. K-Ar Dating Calculation. Chronometric Revolution. Collective Learning. Land Productivity Limiting Human Population. Energy Inputs for Tilling a Hectare of Land. Random Predictions for 2060.

This is a survey of ancient Greek history from the Bronze Age to the death of Socrates in 399 BCE. Along with studying the most important events and personalities, we will consider broader issues such as political and cultural values and methods of historical interpretation.

This Film History course explores how fundamental changes in film technology affected popular Hollywood storytelling. We will consider the transition to sound, and the introduction of color. This online educational experience is not equivalent to a college course.

Sumerian Art: Standard of Ur. Ptolemaic: Rosetta Stone. Ancient Rome. Ara Pacis. Sutton Hoo Ship Burial. Charlemagne: An Introduction (1 of 2). Charlemagne and the Carolingian Revival (part 2 of 2). Coronation Mantle. Sumerian Art: Standard of Ur. Ptolemaic: Rosetta Stone. Ancient Rome. Ara Pacis. Sutton Hoo Ship Burial. Charlemagne: An Introduction (1 of 2). Charlemagne and the Carolingian Revival (part 2 of 2). Coronation Mantle.

You cannot properly understand current world events without understanding the history of the 20th Century. This topic takes us on a journey from the end of Imperialism through two world wars and the Cold War and brings us to our modern world. Empires before World War I. German and Italian Empires in 1914. Alliances leading to World War I. Language and religion of the former Yugoslavia. Assassination of Franz Ferdinand by Gavrilo Princip. The Great War begins. Causes of World War I. Blockades, u-boats and sinking of the Lusitania. Zimmermann Telegram. United States enters World War I. Wilson's war message to Congress -- April 2, 1917. 1917 speech by Senator George Norris in opposition to American entry. WWI Blockades and America. Schlieffen Plan and the First Battle of the Marne. Comparing the Eastern and Western Fronts in WWI. World War I Eastern Front. Battles of Verdun, Somme and the Hindenburg Line. Closing stages of World War I. Technology in World War I. Eastern and Western Fronts of World War I. Serbian and Macedonian Fronts. Serbian losses in World War I. Italy backs out of Triple Alliance. Italian front in World War I. Japan in World War I. Secondary fronts of WWI. Theodor Herzl and the birth of political Zionism. Sinai, Palestine and Mesopotamia Campaigns. Sykes-Picot Agreement and the Balfour Declaration. Arabia after World War I. The Middle East during and after WWI. Gallipoli Campaign and ANZAC Day. Sinai, Palestine and Mesopotamia Campaigns. Armenian massacres before World War I. Young Turks and the Armenians. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and the Turkish War for Independence. Ottoman Empire and birth of Turkey . Deaths in World War I. Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points. Paris Peace Conference and Treaty of Versailles. More detail on the Treaty of Versailles and Germany. Arabia after World War I. WWI Aftermath. World War I. Initial rise of Hitler and the Nazis. Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch. Hitler and the Nazis come to power. Night of the Long Knives. Nazi Aggression and Appeasement. Rise of Hitler. Fascism and Mussolini. Mussolini becomes Prime Minister. Mussolini becomes absolute dictator (Il Duce). Mussolini aligns with Hitler. Fascism and Mussolini. Overview of Chinese History 1911 - 1949. Communism. Korean War Overview. Bay of Pigs Invasion. Cuban Missile Crisis. Vietnam War. Allende and Pinochet in Chile. Pattern of US Cold War Interventions. Empires before World War I. German and Italian Empires in 1914. Alliances leading to World War I. Language and religion of the former Yugoslavia. Assassination of Franz Ferdinand by Gavrilo Princip. The Great War begins. Causes of World War I. Blockades, u-boats and sinking of the Lusitania. Zimmermann Telegram. United States enters World War I. Wilson's war message to Congress -- April 2, 1917. 1917 speech by Senator George Norris in opposition to American entry. WWI Blockades and America. Schlieffen Plan and the First Battle of the Marne. Comparing the Eastern and Western Fronts in WWI. World War I Eastern Front. Battles of Verdun, Somme and the Hindenburg Line. Closing stages of World War I. Technology in World War I. Eastern and Western Fronts of World War I. Serbian and Macedonian Fronts. Serbian losses in World War I. Italy backs out of Triple Alliance. Italian front in World War I. Japan in World War I. Secondary fronts of WWI. Theodor Herzl and the birth of political Zionism. Sinai, Palestine and Mesopotamia Campaigns. Sykes-Picot Agreement and the Balfour Declaration. Arabia after World War I. The Middle East during and after WWI. Gallipoli Campaign and ANZAC Day. Sinai, Palestine and Mesopotamia Campaigns. Armenian massacres before World War I. Young Turks and the Armenians. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and the Turkish War for Independence. Ottoman Empire and birth of Turkey . Deaths in World War I. Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points. Paris Peace Conference and Treaty of Versailles. More detail on the Treaty of Versailles and Germany. Arabia after World War I. WWI Aftermath. World War I. Initial rise of Hitler and the Nazis. Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch. Hitler and the Nazis come to power. Night of the Long Knives. Nazi Aggression and Appeasement. Rise of Hitler. Fascism and Mussolini. Mussolini becomes Prime Minister. Mussolini becomes absolute dictator (Il Duce). Mussolini aligns with Hitler. Fascism and Mussolini. Overview of Chinese History 1911 - 1949. Communism. Korean War Overview. Bay of Pigs Invasion. Cuban Missile Crisis. Vietnam War. Allende and Pinochet in Chile. Pattern of US Cold War Interventions.

This is a survey of modern history from a global perspective. It begins with the revolutions of the late 1700s, tracks the transformation of the world during the 1800s, and analyzes the cataclysms of last century, concluding with the new phase of world history we are experiencing today.

This course will discuss issues regarding vaccines and vaccine safety: the history, science, benefits, and risks of vaccines, together with the controversies and common questions surrounding vaccines, and an update on newly created vaccines and recent outbreaks of previously controlled diseases.

This course covers the history of American foreign policy since 1914, current policy questions, and the future of U.S. Policy. We focus on policy evaluation. What consequences did these policies produce for the U.S. and for other countries? Were/are these consequences good or bad?

US History Overview 1: Jamestown to the Civil War. US History Overview 2: Reconstruction to the Great Depression. US History Overview 3: WWII to Vietnam. Appomattox Court House and Lincoln's Assassination. Communism. Korean War Overview. Bay of Pigs Invasion. Cuban Missile Crisis. Vietnam War. Pattern of US Cold War Interventions. Allende and Pinochet in Chile. When Capitalism is Great and Not-so-great. 20th Century Capitalism and Regulation in the United States. US History Overview 1: Jamestown to the Civil War. US History Overview 2: Reconstruction to the Great Depression. US History Overview 3: WWII to Vietnam. Appomattox Court House and Lincoln's Assassination. Communism. Korean War Overview. Bay of Pigs Invasion. Cuban Missile Crisis. Vietnam War. Pattern of US Cold War Interventions. Allende and Pinochet in Chile. When Capitalism is Great and Not-so-great. 20th Century Capitalism and Regulation in the United States.

This course will study the question of Global Architecture from the point of view of producing a set of lectures on that subject. The course will be run in the form of a writing seminar, except that students will be asked to prepare for the final class an hour-long lecture for an undergraduate survey course. During the semester, students will study the debates about where to locate "the global" and do some comparative analysis of various textbooks. The topic of the final lecture will be worked on during the semester. For that lecture, students will be asked to identify the themes of the survey course, and hand in the bibliography and reading list for their lecture.

This course is an introduction to modern Indian culture and society through films, documentaries, short stories, novels, poems, and journalistic writing. The principal focus is on the study of major cultural developments and social debates in the last sixty five years of history through the reading of literature and viewing of film clips. The focus will be on the transformations of gender and class issues, representation of nationhood, the idea of regional identities and the place of the city in individual and communal lives. The cultural and historical background will be provided in class lectures. The idea is to explore the "other Indias" that lurk behind our constructed notion of a homogeneous national culture.

Advanced Igneous Petrology covers the history of and recent developments in the study of igneous rocks. Students review the chemistry and structure of igneous rock-forming minerals and proceed to study how these minerals occur and interact in igneous rocks. The course focuses on igneous processes and how we have learned about them through studying a number of significant sites worldwide.

The purpose of this course is to examine the African American experience in the United States from 1863 to the present. Prominent themes include the end of the Civil War and the beginning of Reconstruction; African Americans’ urbanization experiences; the development of the modern civil rights movement and its aftermath; and the thought and leadership of Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X.

Warning: Some of the lectures in this course contain graphic content and/or adult language that some users may find disturbing.

This course is a seminar on the history of institutions and institutional change in American cities from roughly 1850 to the present. Among the institutions to be looked at are political machines, police departments, courts, schools, prisons, public authorities, and universities. The focus of the course is on readings and discussions.

An analysis of historical structures is presented themed sections based around construction materials. Structures from all periods of history are analyzed. The goal of the class is to provide an understanding of the preservation of historic structures for all students.

What is a "life" when it's written down? How does memory inform the present? Why are autobiographies and memoirs so popular? This course will address these questions among others, considering the relationship between biography, autobiography, and memoir and between personal and social themes. We will examine classic authors such as Mary Rowlandson, Benjamin Franklin, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, and Mark Twain; then more recent examples like Tobias Wolff, Art Spiegelman, Sherman Alexie, Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Edwidge Danticat, and Alison Bechdel.

This class examines how and why twentieth-century Americans came to define the "good life" through consumption, leisure, and material abundance. We will explore how such things as department stores, nationally advertised brand-name goods, mass-produced cars, and suburbs transformed the American economy, society, and politics. The course is organized both thematically and chronologically. Each period deals with a new development in the history of consumer culture. Throughout we explore both celebrations and critiques of mass consumption and abundance.

This course examines the causes and consequences of American foreign policy since 1898. Course readings cover both substantive and methods topics. Four substantive topics are covered:

1. major theories of American foreign policy;
2. major episodes in the history of American foreign policy and historical/interpretive controversies about them;
3. the evaluation of major past American foreign policies--were their results good or bad? and
4. current policy controversies, including means of evaluating proposed policies.

Three methods topics are covered:

1. basic social scientific inference--what are theories? what are good theories? how should theories be framed and tested?
2. historical investigative methodology, including archival research, and, most importantly,
3. case study methodology.

Historical episodes covered in the course are used as raw material for case studies, asking "if these episodes were the subject of case studies, how should those studies be performed, and what could be learned from them?"

This course provides a basic history of American social, economic, and political development from the colonial period through the Civil War. It examines the colonial heritages of Spanish and British America; the American Revolution and its impact; the establishment and growth of the new nation; and the Civil War, its background, character, and impact. Readings include writings of the period by J. Winthrop, T. Paine, T. Jefferson, J. Madison, W. H. Garrison, G. Fitzhugh, H. B. Stowe, and A. Lincoln.

The television landscape has changed drastically in the past few years; nowhere is this more prevalent than in the American daytime serial drama, one of the oldest forms of television content. This class examines the history of these "soap operas" and their audiences by focusing on the production, consumption, and media texts of soaps. The class will include discussions of what makes soap operas a unique form, the history of the genre, current experimentation with transmedia storytelling, the online fan community, and comparisons between daytime dramas and primetime serials from 24 to Friday Night Lights, through a study of Procter & Gamble's As the World Turns.