The best free cultural & educational media on the web
The best free cultural & educational media on the web
≡ Category: Philosophy, Politics | ≅ 2 Comments
If you think that civic discourse & engagement still matter, then Michael Sandel, the Harvard philosopher, has a little something for you: a refresher (presented at TED) that gets you back into the practice of civic debate. Some of the topics covered here dovetail with themes covered in Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?, a [...]
≡ Category: Art, Film | ≅ Leave a Comment
A quick fyi:Â Film Annex is now making available two films by the great Soviet filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky:Â Stalker and Andrei Rublev (Part 1 and Part 2). You can also find them listed in our collection of Free Movies Online. When not making movies, Tarkovsky snapped some polaroids too…
≡ Category: Business, Economics, Psychology | ≅ Leave a Comment
You’ve perhaps heard the buzz around Dan Ariely’s new book, The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home. (If not, read this review in the NY Times.) Appearing at PopTech! last year, Ariely spent 20 minutes fleshing out an argument in his book. A professor of behavioral economics at Duke [...]
≡ Category: Education | ≅ 7 Comments
Reading the press lately, you’d think the American university system is the next mortgage market. And the humanities? They’re toxic debt. Here’s a quick recap of the grim parade of stories: Last week, The New York Times set the stage with this: an article detailing how students are drowning in debt, which raises the questions: Can students still [...]
≡ Category: Psychology | ≅ 3 Comments
Positive psychology is a discipline tailor made for American culture. Our cultural DNA inclines us towards optimism and positive thinking. These days we’ll even send positive vibes your way, and what can be wrong with that? If you ask Barbara Ehrenreich, the author of the bestselling book Nickel and Dimed, she’ll tell you what’s the problem in [...]
≡ Category: Film, Philosophy | ≅ 5 Comments
In Book VII of The Republic, Plato paints a dark scene for readers. Imagine prisoners shackled in a cave, their heads chained in such a way they can’t look out into the world itself. They can only see manipulated shadows on walls, and that’s about all. Known as the “allegory of the cave,” this passage [...]
≡ Category: Literature | ≅ 3 Comments
Even at the age of 81, the Beat writer William S. Burroughs was still resisting literary convention. This footage was shot in Lawrence, Kansas, just two years before his death in 1997. Related Content: Gus Van Sant Adapts William S. Burroughs: An Early 16mm Short William S. Burroughs Reads His First Novel, Junky William S. [...]
≡ Category: Current Affairs, Film | ≅ 1 Comment
Almost a year ago, the Green Revolution was ignited in Iran when Ahmadinejad and the ruling clerics stole an election from Mir-Hossein Mousavi and his millions of supporters. A young generation, intent upon putting Mousavi in office, took to the streets en masse. Protests broke out across the nation … until the holy men decided [...]
≡ Category: Life, TED Talks | ≅ 1 Comment
Back in 1934, John Wooden started fleshing out his definition of success – something that shaped his teaching and coaching for decades to come. His definition is not about power, prestige, and material possessions. It’s about something more uplifting. Filmed back at the TED conference in 2001, Wooden elaborates on this philosophy handed down by [...]
≡ Category: Psychology | ≅ 7 Comments
Philip Zimbardo, a longtime Stanford psychology professor, is perhaps most well known for the famous Stanford Prison Experiment conducted in 1971. But, more recently, he published a book called The Time Paradox (2008) that makes some pretty intriguing arguments about how our attitudes toward time, often unconscious ones, can strongly shape our personalities and the kind [...]
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