A Master List of 500 Free Courses From Great Universities

in Online Courses | June 15th, 2012

Dur­ing the past two days, our list of Free Online Movies has been get­ting some good expo­sure. And we’ve got no com­plaints. But while assem­bling the movie list, we were also busy putting togeth­er a list of 500 Free Online Cours­es from top uni­ver­si­ties. Here’s the low­down: This mas­ter list lets you down­load free cours­es from schools like Stan­ford, Yale, MIT, Oxford, Har­vard and UC Berke­ley. Gen­er­al­ly, the cours­es can be accessed via YouTube, iTunes or uni­ver­si­ty web sites. Right now you’ll find 55 cours­es in Phi­los­o­phy, 50 in His­to­ry, 50 in Com­put­er Sci­ence, 35 in Physics, and that’s just begin­ning to scratch the sur­face. Most of the cours­es were recent­ly pro­duced. But, in some cas­es, we’ve lay­ered in lec­ture series by famous intel­lec­tu­als record­ed years ago. Here are some high­lights from the com­plete list.

  • African-Amer­i­can His­to­ry: Mod­ern Free­dom Strug­gle – YouTube– iTunes – Clay Car­son, Stan­ford
  • Finan­cial Mar­kets 2011 - YouTube — iTunes — Web Site – Robert Shiller, Yale
  • Grow­ing Up in the Uni­verse – YouTube – Richard Dawkins, Oxford
  • Human Behav­ioral Biol­o­gy – iTunes Video – YouTube – Robert Sapol­sky, Stan­ford
  • Intro­duc­tion to the Old Tes­ta­ment (Hebrew Bible) – Down­load Course – Chris­tine Hayes, Yale.
  • Heidegger’s Being & Time – iTunes — Hubert Drey­fus, UC Berke­ley
  • Inten­sive Intro­duc­tion to Com­put­er Sci­ence Using C, PHP, and JavaScript – Mul­ti­ple For­mats – iTunes – David Malan, Har­vard
  • Intro­duc­tion to Cos­mol­o­gy and Par­ti­cle Physics – YouTube – Sean Car­roll, Cal­tech
  • Invi­ta­tion to World Lit­er­a­ture – Web Site — David Dam­rosch, Har­vard
  • iPhone Appli­ca­tion Devel­op­ment in iOS5 - HD Video iTunes — Stan­dard-Def Video iTunes — Paul Hegar­ty, Stan­ford
  • Jus­tice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? – YouTube — Web Site- Michael Sandel, Har­vard
  • Phi­los­o­phy of Lan­guage – iTunes – John Sear­le, UC Berke­ley
  • Physics for Future Pres­i­dents – YouTube – Richard Muller, UC Berke­ley
  • Quan­tum Elec­tro­dy­nam­ics – Web Site - Richard Feyn­man, Pre­sent­ed at Uni­ver­si­ty of Auck­land
  • Sci­ence, Mag­ic and Reli­gion - iTunes — YouTube – Courte­nay Raiai, UCLA
  • The Amer­i­can Nov­el Since 1945 – YouTube – iTunes Audio – iTunes Video — Down­load Course – Amy Hunger­ford, Yale
  • The Art of Liv­ing – Web Site – Team taught, Stan­ford

Vis­it this list of Free Cours­es for many more hours of free enrich­ment. Sep­a­rate­ly, you might also want to check out our col­lec­tion of Free Lan­guage Lessons. It offers free lessons in over 40 lan­guages.

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James Cameron Revisits the Making of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey

in Film | June 15th, 2012

2001: A Space Odyssey, so its fans will tell you, is awe­some, amaz­ing, aston­ish­ing, astound­ing — and that does­n’t even exhaust their list of “A” adjec­tives. But how­ev­er emphat­i­cal­ly they’re spo­ken, those words don’t tell you much. I fear they some­times even put off poten­tial 2001-lovers — or at least those who would enjoy a screen­ing or three — who fear them­selves unequal to the impos­ing labor of appre­ci­a­tion ahead. You’ll learn more mean­ing­ful things about Kubrick­’s film in 2001: The Mak­ing of a Myth (made in 2001), a 45-minute doc­u­men­tary on its con­cep­tion, its pro­duc­tion, and its undi­min­ished res­o­nance in our cul­tur­al imag­i­na­tion.

Intro­duced by film­mak­er James Cameron — he of The Ter­mi­na­tor, Avatar, and Aliens, sci­ence-fic­tion spec­ta­cles of an entire­ly dif­fer­ent nature — the pro­gram brings in a host of the orig­i­nal con­trib­u­tors to 2001’s look, feel, and psy­cho­log­i­cal and tech­no­log­i­cal verisimil­i­tude. We hear from those involved in the pho­tog­ra­phy, design, edit­ing, and even tech­ni­cal con­sul­tan­cy. Actor Keir Dul­lea, still best known for his role as astro­naut Dave Bow­man, has much to say about work­ing with his co-star HAL, and even the fel­lows in the ape suits offer insights into their non-ver­bal craft. Crit­i­cal minds such as Elvis Mitchell and Camille Paglia weigh in on the pic­ture’s simul­ta­ne­ous vis­cer­al and intel­lec­tu­al impact, but Arthur C. Clarke, who wrote 2001 the book while Kubrick shot 2001 the film, puts it most sharply when describ­ing the intent of his direc­tor coun­ter­part: “He want­ed to make the prover­bial good sci­ence-fic­tion movie.” Mis­sion accom­plished.

H/T Maria Popo­va (aka Brain­Pick­er)

Relat­ed con­tent:

Rare 1960s Audio: Stan­ley Kubrick’s Inter­view with The New York­er

Dark Side of the Moon: A Mock­u­men­tary on Stan­ley Kubrick and the Moon Land­ing Hoax

Arthur C. Clarke Pre­dicts the Inter­net & PC in 1974

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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Inside the 1969 Bob Dylan-Johnny Cash Sessions

in Music | June 14th, 2012

Bob Dylan and John­ny Cash had formed a mutu­al admi­ra­tion soci­ety even before they met in the ear­ly 1960s.

“Of course, I knew of him before he ever heard of me,” Dylan wrote short­ly after Cash’s death in 2003. “In ’55 or ’56, ‘I Walk the Line’ played all sum­mer on the radio, and it was dif­fer­ent than any­thing else you had ever heard. The record sound­ed like a voice from the mid­dle of the Earth. It was so pow­er­ful and mov­ing.”

When the young Dylan arrived on the scene in 1962, Cash was impressed.

“I was deeply into folk music in the ear­ly 1960s,” he wrote in Cash: The Auto­bi­og­ra­phy, “both the authen­tic songs from var­i­ous peri­ods and areas of Amer­i­can life and the new ‘folk revival’ songs of the time, so I took note of Bob Dylan as soon as the Bob Dylan album came out in ear­ly ’62 and lis­tened almost con­stant­ly to The Free­wheel­in’ Bob Dylan in ’63. I had a portable record play­er I’d take along on the road, and I’d put on Free­wheel­in’ back­stage, then go out and do my show, then lis­ten again as soon as I came off.”

Cash wrote the young Dylan a fan let­ter, and they began cor­re­spond­ing. When they met at the 1964 New­port Folk Fes­ti­val, Cash gave Dylan his gui­tar as a ges­ture of respect and admi­ra­tion. Five years lat­er, when Dylan was in Nashville record­ing his ninth stu­dio album, Cash was record­ing in the stu­dio next door. He decid­ed to drop in. On Feb­ru­ary 17 and 18, 1969, Cash and Dylan record­ed more than a dozen duets. Only one of them, a ver­sion of Dylan’s “Girl From the North Coun­try,” made it onto the album, Nashville Sky­line. The oth­ers were nev­er offi­cial­ly released, but have long been cir­cu­lat­ing as bootlegs. In the video above, Dylan and Cash work on one of two ver­sions they made of “One Too Many Morn­ings,” a song orig­i­nal­ly record­ed by Dylan in 1964 for The Times They Are a‑Changin’.  The out­takes Dylan and Cash record­ed togeth­er are all scat­tered around Youtube. One Youtu­ber post­ed a com­pi­la­tion back in 2013.

A few weeks after the release of Nashville Sky­line, Dylan and Cash per­formed “Girl From the North Coun­try” on The John­ny Cash Show. It was taped on May 1, 1969 at the Ryman Audi­to­ri­um in down­town Nashville. A rough video clip (around the 30 minute mark) cap­tures the moment. Despite Dylan’s report­ed ner­vous­ness, the per­for­mance was well-received. “I did­n’t feel any­thing about it,” Cash said lat­er. “But every­body said it was the most mag­net­ic, pow­er­ful thing they ever heard in their life. They were just rav­ing about elec­tric­i­ty and mag­net­ism. And all I did was just sit there hit­ting G chords.”

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

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Thomas Pynchon Novels Coming to eBook, at Long Last

in Books, e-books, Literature | June 14th, 2012

Thomas Pyn­chon has nev­er made things par­tic­u­lar­ly easy for his pub­lish­ers. He has famous­ly shunned any kind of media atten­tion for decades. (Book tours? No thanks.) And, dur­ing recent years, he resist­ed the idea of repub­lish­ing his books in elec­tron­ic for­mat. But that has all offi­cial­ly changed with Pen­guin’s announce­ment that you can now pur­chase eight of Pyn­chon’s works in elec­tron­ic for­mat, with prices rang­ing from $9.99 to $12.99. The books (list­ed below) can be found on Ama­zon right here.

Against the Day
Grav­i­ty’s Rain­bow
Inher­ent Vice
Mason & Dixon
Slow Learn­er
The Cry­ing of Lot 49
V.
Vineland

Find a great num­ber of clas­sics in our col­lec­tion of 300 Free eBooks.

via Media Decoder

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Marlon Brando Screen Tests for Rebel Without A Cause (1947)

in Film | June 14th, 2012

Dur­ing the 1940s, Warn­er Broth­ers bought the rights to Robert Lind­ner’s book, Rebel With­out a Cause: The Hyp­no­analy­sis of a Crim­i­nal Psy­chopath, and began turn­ing it into a film. A par­tial script was writ­ten, and a 23-year old Mar­lon Bran­do was asked to do a five-minute screen test in 1947. For what­ev­er rea­son, the stu­dio aban­doned the orig­i­nal project, and even­tu­al­ly revived it eight years lat­er with a new script and a new actor — James Dean, of course. Dean’s own screen test for Rebel With­out a Cause appears here.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The God­fa­ther With­out Bran­do?: It Almost Hap­pened

The James Dean Sto­ry by Robert Alt­man (Com­plete Film)

Paul New­man and James Dean Screen­test for East of Eden

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Watch Ray Bradbury: Story of a Writer, a 1963 Film That Captures the Creative Process of the Legendary Sci-Fi Author

in Literature, Television, Writing | June 14th, 2012

Sto­ry of a Writer shows all the con­tra­dic­tions the late Ray Brad­bury embod­ied: An unstop­pably curi­ous admir­er of sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy who some called a “mechan­i­cal moron,” a non-dri­ver in mid­cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les, an imag­in­er of the future who worked in a base­ment crowd­ed with paper files and trib­al masks. We watch the clas­sic IBM mot­to “THINK” catch the 43-year-old writer’s eye, yet we notice anoth­er sign post­ed above his type­writer: “DON’T THINK!” This half-hour tele­vi­sion doc­u­men­tary cap­tures that most instinc­tu­al of crafts­men in the ratio­nal genre of sci­ence fic­tion in all sorts of activ­i­ties ground­ed in his time, place, and pro­fes­sion: telling sto­ries and per­form­ing mag­ic for his daugh­ters, offer­ing guid­ance to younger writ­ers, “work­shop­ping” a piece with a cir­cle of asso­ciates in his liv­ing room, bicy­cling through town to get ideas, and tour­ing a fall­out shel­ter show­ground.

Pro­duced by David L. Wolper, best known for pro­grams like Roots, The Thorn Birds, and This is Elvis, Sto­ry of a Writer inter­weaves with these scenes from Brad­bury’s dai­ly life a jagged­ly cin­e­mat­ic adap­ta­tion of his short sto­ry “Dial Dou­ble Zero.” In it, a man receives a series of unwant­ed phone calls from what even­tu­al­ly starts to sound like the phone sys­tem itself, which has, for unex­plained rea­sons, spon­ta­neous­ly devel­oped intel­li­gence. In Brad­bury’s imag­i­na­tion, tech­nol­o­gy may do trou­bling things, but rarely malev­o­lent ones. “I’ve always been in favor of sci­ence that can pro­long and beau­ti­fy our lives,” he says in voiceover. The broad­cast even includes one of Brad­bury’s many plain­spo­ken but enthu­si­as­tic lec­tures about the craft of writ­ing, which has much in com­mon with his sim­i­lar­ly themed 2001 speech pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured on Open Cul­ture. As he sums up his rec­om­men­da­tions to aspi­rants con­cerned about the qual­i­ty of their work: “It does­n’t have to be the great­est. It does have to be you.”

You can find Ray Brad­bury: Sto­ry of a Writer list­ed in our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

via The Atlantic

Relat­ed con­tent:

Ray Brad­bury: Lit­er­a­ture is the Safe­ty Valve of Civ­i­liza­tion

Ray Brad­bury Gives 12 Pieces of Writ­ing Advice to Young Authors (2001)

Ray Brad­bury Reads Mov­ing Poem on the Eve of NASA’s 1971 Mars Mis­sion

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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World Cinema: Joel and Ethan Coen’s Playful Homage to Cinema History

in Film | June 14th, 2012

Cha­cun son ciné­ma (To Each His Own Cin­e­ma) is a 2007 French anthol­o­gy film that brings togeth­er short films by 36 acclaimed direc­tors. Lars von Tri­er, Jane Cam­pi­on, Gus Van Sant, and Abbas Kiarosta­mi all con­tributed to the project. Meant to com­mem­o­rate the 60th anniver­sary of the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val, the film orig­i­nal­ly aired on Canal+ in France. And, for rea­sons that remain unknown to us, that broad­cast did­n’t include the short film con­tributed by Joel and Ethan Coen, World Cin­e­ma. Nor did it appear on a lat­er DVD release. If you wait long enough, these kinds of films even­tu­al­ly sur­face on YouTube. And, as luck would have it, you can watch World Cin­e­ma above. Fans of the Coen Broth­ers will imme­di­ate­ly rec­og­nize Josh Brolin, who played a very sim­i­lar char­ac­ter in their Acad­e­my Award-win­ning film, No Coun­try for Old Men. Grant Heslov and Brooke Smith also make appear­ances. H/T Bib­liok­lept

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Tui­leries: A Short, Slight­ly Twist­ed Film by Joel and Ethan Coen

40 Great Film­mak­ers Go Old School, Shoot Short Films with 100 Year Old Cam­era

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Simon Schama Presents Van Gogh and the Beginning of Modern Art

in Art, Television | June 13th, 2012

We like to think of Vin­cent van Gogh as the arche­typ­al tor­tured artist. While per­haps he fits the bill, there’s more to the sto­ry, and this episode of Pow­er of Art (above) takes pains to fill out the Dutch painter’s char­ac­ter. He did­n’t slice off his entire ear, we learn — just part of it. And while he did indeed enjoy his peaks of cre­ativ­i­ty between ago­niz­ing “spasms of crazi­ness,” he expe­ri­enced both as an “insa­tiable book­worm” fueled by a deep-seat­ed reli­gious dri­ve. All this infor­ma­tion comes from the mouth of his­to­ri­an Simon Schama, author of pop­u­lar books and host of tele­vi­sion pro­grams includ­ing Land­scape and Mem­o­ry, Rem­brandt’s Eyes, and this par­tic­u­lar video’s source, Pow­er of Art. The series enters the world of eight artists through eight paint­ings. Van Gogh’s 1890 Wheat­field with Crows, accord­ing to Schama, marks the start of mod­ern art.

Two per­son­al­i­ties take us through the sto­ry of paint­ing and painter: Schama and van Gogh him­self, por­trayed in dra­mat­ic scenes that come between sec­tions of Schama’s nar­ra­tion. The pro­gram does­n’t keep these two time frames strict­ly sep­a­rate: while we hear Schama describe van Gogh’s pecu­liar­ly ener­getic use of the brush, we also hear the brush itself, loud­ly and clear­ly, as we watch van Gogh wield it. (Pow­er of Art’s sound design shows an uncom­mon atten­tion to detail.) Lat­er, we see van Gogh lament the episodes of insan­i­ty that have him eat­ing dirt off the floor. Cut to Schama: “It’s worse, actu­al­ly.” A har­row­ing extend­ed shot fol­lows of the painter eat­ing his paint. Nev­er has tele­vi­sion taught art his­to­ry quite so dra­mat­i­cal­ly.

All episodes of The Pow­er of Art are avail­able on YouTube. It’s also avail­able in one tidy col­lec­tion on Ama­zon:

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Art His­to­ry Web Book

Robert Hugh­es, Famed Art Crit­ic, Demys­ti­fies Mod­ern Art: From Cézanne to Andy Warhol

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.