Leonard Bernstein’s Masterful Lectures on Music (11+ Hours of Video Recorded at Harvard in 1973)

in Harvard, Music | March 13th, 2012

In 1972, the com­pos­er Leonard Bern­stein returned to Har­vard, his alma mater, to serve as the Charles Eliot Nor­ton Pro­fes­sor of Poet­ry, with “Poet­ry” being defined in the broad­est sense. The posi­tion, first cre­at­ed in 1925, asks fac­ul­ty mem­bers to live on cam­pus, advise stu­dents, and most impor­tant­ly, deliv­er a series of six pub­lic lec­tures. T.S. Eliot, Aaron Cop­land, W.H. Auden, e.e. cum­mings, Robert Frost, Jorge Luis Borges — they all pre­vi­ous­ly took part in this tra­di­tion. And Bern­stein did too.

Deliv­ered in the fall of 1973 and col­lec­tive­ly titled “The Unan­swered Ques­tion,” Bern­stein’s lec­tures cov­ered a lot of ter­rain, touch­ing on poet­ry, lin­guis­tics, phi­los­o­phy and physics. But the focus inevitably comes back to music — to how music works, or to the under­ly­ing gram­mar of music. The lec­tures run over 11 hours. They’re con­sid­ered mas­ter­pieces, beau­ti­ful exam­ples of how to make com­pli­cat­ed mate­r­i­al acces­si­ble. And they’re avail­able in full on YouTube. You can watch the first lec­ture (on Musi­cal Phonol­o­gy) above, and find the remain­ing five lec­tures below. The lec­tures can also be pur­chased as DVDs or in book for­mat.

Lec­ture 2: Musi­cal Syn­tax

Lec­ture 3: Musi­cal Seman­tics

Lec­ture 4: The Delights & Dan­gers of Ambi­gu­i­ty

Lec­ture 5: The 20th Cen­tu­ry Cri­sis

Lec­ture 6: The Poet­ry of Earth

This lec­ture series has been added to our exten­sive col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

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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Science & Cooking: Harvard Profs Meet World-Class Chefs in Unique Online Course

in Harvard, Science | March 8th, 2012

Put Har­vard researchers and world-class chefs togeth­er and what do you get? An unex­pect­ed com­bi­na­tion and a course called Sci­ence and Cook­ing: From Haute Cui­sine to the Sci­ence of Soft Mat­ter. Dur­ing the past sev­er­al decades, researchers have pushed the bound­aries of soft mat­ter sci­ence, a sci­en­tif­ic field that looks at how ther­mal stress­es and ther­mal fluc­tu­a­tions change the phys­i­cal prop­er­ties of every­day mate­ri­als. Nat­u­ral­ly this all applies to food and cook­ing. Hence the premise of the course which uses cook­ing to explain fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples in applied physics and engi­neer­ing.

You can watch the intro­duc­to­ry lec­ture here and the third tasty lec­ture, The Many Faces of Choco­late, above. The full course can be watched on YouTube. And, of course, we’ve added it to our col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

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!

via Har­vard School of Engi­neer­ing and Applied Sci­ences

Relat­ed Con­tent:

MIT Teach­es You How to Speak Ital­ian & Cook Ital­ian Cui­sine All at Once (Free Online Course)

Learn to Code with Harvard’s Intro to Com­put­er Sci­ence Course And Oth­er Free Tech Class­es

1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties

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Harvard Thinks Big 2012: 8 All-Star Professors. 8 Big Ideas.

in Harvard, TED Talks | February 23rd, 2012

Ear­li­er this month, Har­vard stu­dents made their way to the Sanders The­atre for the 2012 edi­tion of Har­vard Thinks Big. It’s a TED-style event which gets pitched like this: “8 all-star pro­fes­sors. 8 big ideas. All ten min­utes each.” You get the gist.

This year’s ver­sion had as much sub­stance, though per­haps not quite the same siz­zle, as the 2011 ver­sion, which fea­tured talks by Steven Pinker, Lawrence Lessig, Daniel Gilbert and Elaine Scar­ry. Above, we have one talk from the lat­est Har­vard Thinks Big. It fea­tures Daniel Lieber­man, the renowned biol­o­gist (per­haps you know his work on bare­foot run­ning?) talk­ing about how evo­lu­tion­ary biol­o­gy explains why obe­si­ty is on the rise in the Unit­ed States.

Oth­er speak­ers at the event includ­ed Doug Melton, Eleanor Duck­worth, Nicholas Chris­takis, Kaia Stern, Don­hee Ham, Stephen Green­blatt, and Jill Lep­ore. The lec­tures can be watched via YouTube (fol­low the pre­vi­ous links) or via iTunes. Regret­tably the talks by Green­blatt, Ham and Lep­ore haven’t made it to the web, at least not yet. When they do, we’ll men­tion it on our Twit­ter stream, where we post lots of oth­er cul­tur­al good­ies.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Har­vard Presents Free Cours­es with the Open Learn­ing Ini­tia­tive

Har­vard Thinks Green: Big Ideas from 6 All-Star Envi­ron­ment Profs

Why is the U.S. F’ed Up? 8 Lec­tures from Occu­py Har­vard Teach-In Pro­vide Answers

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Harvard Thinks Green: Big Ideas from 6 All-Star Environment Profs

in Current Affairs, Harvard, Science, Video - Science | January 10th, 2012

On Decem­ber 8th, six “all-star envi­ron­men­tal pro­fes­sors” came togeth­er at an event called “Har­vard Thinks Green” and pre­sent­ed short, TED-style talks about the envi­ron­ment and strate­gies for revers­ing cli­mate change. The event start­ed with James McCarthy (Pro­fes­sor of Bio­log­i­cal Oceanog­ra­phy) ask­ing the ques­tion (see above), “Is it too late to avoid seri­ous impacts of cli­mate change?” A good ques­tion to ask giv­en that 2010 wit­nessed the biggest annu­al jump in glob­al car­bon emissions—5.9%. This set the stage for Richard Lazarus (Pro­fes­sor of Law) to dis­cuss ways that our polit­i­cal sys­tem could become more respon­sive to the cri­sis. (Did you know that Barack Oba­ma only men­tioned cli­mate change once in pub­lic last year? Just once?) And then Rebec­ca Hen­der­son (Co-Direc­tor of the Busi­ness and Envi­ron­ment Ini­tia­tive) tries to make the dif­fi­cult case that mon­ey-mak­ing and sav­ing the world can go hand-in-hand — that cap­i­tal­ism can become envi­ron­men­tal­ly sus­tain­able. You can watch the remain­ing talks online here, or on iTunes here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Har­vard Thinks Big 2010

Why is the U.S. F’ed Up? 8 Lec­tures from Occu­py Har­vard Teach-In Pro­vide Answers

Har­vard Presents Free Cours­es with the Open Learn­ing Ini­tia­tive

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Why is the U.S. F’ed Up? 8 Lectures from Occupy Harvard Teach-In Provide Answers

in Current Affairs, Economics, Harvard | December 12th, 2011

Last Wednes­day, the Occu­py move­ment gained a lit­tle more intel­lec­tu­al momen­tum when eight fac­ul­ty mem­bers from Har­vard, Boston Col­lege, and N.Y.U. gath­ered in Cam­bridge to present a day­long Teach-In. In one talk, Archon Fung (Ford Foun­da­tion Pro­fes­sor of Democ­ra­cy and Cit­i­zen­ship and Co-Direc­tor of Trans­paren­cy Pol­i­cy Project at Har­vard) took a vague the­sis of the Occu­py move­ment — “Shit is Fucked Up and Bull­shit” — and gave it some aca­d­e­m­ic depth in a data-filled talk called “Why Has Inequal­i­ty Grown in Amer­i­ca? And What Should We Do About It?” The oth­er talks are avail­able on YouTube (see links below) or via audio stream:

Het­ero­dox Eco­nom­ics: Alter­na­tives to Manki­w’s Ide­ol­o­gy - Stephen Mar­glin, Wal­ter Bark­er Pro­fes­sor of Eco­nom­ics, Fac­ul­ty of Arts and Sci­ences, Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty

Wall Street’s Role in the Euro­pean Finan­cial Cri­sis - Richard Park­er, Lec­tur­er in Pub­lic Pol­i­cy and Senior Fel­low at the Shoren­stein Cen­ter, Kennedy School of Gov­ern­ment, Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty

The Occu­py Move­ment and Stu­dent Debt Refusal — Andrew Ross, Pro­fes­sor of Social and Cul­tur­al Analy­sis, New York Uni­ver­si­ty

Eco­nom­ics for the 99% — Juli­et Schor, Pro­fes­sor of Soci­ol­o­gy, Boston Col­lege

Booms and Busts: The Legal Dynam­ics of Mod­ern Mon­ey — Chris­tine Desan, Pro­fes­sor of Law, Har­vard Law School, Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty

Fear and Pow­er — Brad Epps, Pro­fes­sor of Romance Lan­guages & Lit­er­a­tures and Depart­ment Chair for Stud­ies in Women, Gen­der, and Sex­u­al­i­ty, Fac­ul­ty of Arts and Sci­ences, Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty

Vig­i­lance, Inquiry, Alien­ation & Hope at Har­vard and in the USA - John Wom­ack, Robert Woods Bliss Pro­fes­sor of Latin Amer­i­can His­to­ry and Eco­nom­ics, Fac­ul­ty of Arts and Sci­ences, Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Noam Chom­sky at Occu­py Boston

Har­vard Thinks Big, a TED-Esque Event

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The Harvard Classics: A Free, Digital Collection

in Harvard, History, Literature, Philosophy | July 5th, 2011

Dur­ing his days as Har­vard’s influ­en­tial pres­i­dent, Charles W. Eliot made a fre­quent asser­tion: If you were to spend just 15 min­utes a day read­ing the right books, a quan­ti­ty that could fit on a five foot shelf, you could give your­self a prop­er lib­er­al edu­ca­tion. The pub­lish­er P. F. Col­lier and Son loved the idea and asked Eliot to assem­ble the right col­lec­tion of works. The result wasa 51-vol­ume series pub­lished in 1909 called Dr. Eliot’s Five Foot Shelf. Lat­er it would sim­ply be called The Har­vard Clas­sics.

You can still buy an old set off of eBay for $399. But, just as eas­i­ly, you can head to the Inter­net Archive and Project Guten­berg, which have cen­tral­ized links to every text includ­ed in The Har­vard Clas­sics (Wealth of Nations, Ori­gin of Species, Plutarch’s Lives, the list goes on below). Please note that the pre­vi­ous two links won’t give you access to the actu­al anno­tat­ed Har­vard Clas­sics texts edit­ed by Eliot him­self. But if you want just that, you can always click here and get dig­i­tal scans of the true Har­vard Clas­sics. Please note that the first two vol­umes appear at the bot­tom of the page. And, in case you want to deep­en your lib­er­al edu­ca­tion yet fur­ther, don’t for­get to check out our col­lec­tion 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties. Also spend some time with these oth­er resources: 800 Free eBooks for iPad, Kin­dle & Oth­er Devices and 1,000 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free.

A big h/t to @eugenephoto

Texts in the Har­vard Clas­sics col­lec­tion (cour­tesy of Wikipedia):

Vol. 1: FRANKLIN, WOOLMAN, PENN
His Auto­bi­og­ra­phy, by Ben­jamin Franklin
The Jour­nal of John Wool­man, by John Wool­man (1774 and sub­se­quent edi­tions)
Fruits of Soli­tude, by William Penn
Vol. 2. PLATO, EPICTETUS, MARCUS AURELIUS
The Apol­o­gy, Phae­do, and Crito, by Pla­to
The Gold­en Say­ings, by Epicte­tus
The Med­i­ta­tions, by Mar­cus Aure­lius
Vol. 3. BACON, MILTON’S PROSE, THOS. BROWNE
Essays, Civ­il and Moral, and New Atlantis, by Fran­cis Bacon
Are­opagit­i­ca and Trac­tate of Edu­ca­tion, by John Mil­ton
Reli­gio Medici, by Sir Thomas Browne
Vol. 4. COMPLETE POEMS IN ENGLISH, MILTON
Com­plete poems writ­ten in Eng­lish, by John Mil­ton
Vol. 5. ESSAYS AND ENGLISH TRAITS, EMERSON
Essays and Eng­lish Traits, by Ralph Wal­do Emer­son
Vol. 6. POEMS AND SONGS, BURNS
Poems and songs, by Robert Burns
Vol. 7. CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE, IMITATIONS OF CHRIST
The Con­fes­sions, by Saint Augus­tine
The Imi­ta­tion of Christ, by Thomas á Kem­p­is
Vol. 8. NINE GREEK DRAMAS
Agamem­non, The Liba­tion Bear­ers, The Furies, and Prometheus Bound, by Aeschy­lus
Oedi­pus the King and Antigone, by Sopho­cles
Hip­poly­tus and The Bac­chae, by Euripi­des
The Frogs, by Aristo­phanes
Vol. 9. LETTERS AND TREATISES OF CICERO AND PLINY
On Friend­ship, On Old Age, and let­ters, by Cicero
Let­ters, by Pliny the Younger
Vol. 10. WEALTH OF NATIONS, ADAM SMITH
The Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith
Vol. 11. ORIGIN OF SPECIES, DARWIN
The Ori­gin of Species, by Charles Dar­win
Vol. 12. PLUTARCH’S LIVES
Lives, by Plutarch
Vol. 13. AENEID, VIRGIL
Aeneid, by Vir­gil
Vol. 14. DON QUIXOTE, PART 1, CERVANTES
Don Quixote, part 1, by Cer­vantes
Vol. 15. PILGRIM’S PROGRESS, DONNE & HERBERT, BUNYAN, WALTON
The Pil­grim’s Progress, by John Bun­yan
The Lives of Donne and Her­bert, by Iza­ak Wal­ton
Vol. 16. THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS
Sto­ries from the Thou­sand and One Nights
Vol. 17. FOLKLORE AND FABLE, AESOP, GRIMM, ANDERSON
Fables, by Aesop
Chil­dren’s and House­hold Tales, by Jacob and Wil­helm Grimm
Tales, by Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­sen
Vol. 18. MODERN ENGLISH DRAMA
All for Love, by John Dry­den
The School for Scan­dal, by Richard Brins­ley Sheri­dan
She Stoops to Con­quer, by Oliv­er Gold­smith
The Cen­ci, by Per­cy Bysshe Shel­ley
A Blot in the ‘Scutcheon, by Robert Brown­ing
Man­fred, by Lord Byron
Vol. 19. FAUST, EGMONT, ETC. DOCTOR FAUSTUS, GOETHE, MARLOWE
Faust, part 1, Egmont, and Her­mann and Dorothea, by Johann Wolf­gang von Goethe
Dr. Faus­tus, by Christo­pher Mar­lowe
Vol. 20. THE DIVINE COMEDY, DANTE
The Divine Com­e­dy, by Dante Alighieri
Vol. 21. I PROMESSI SPOSI, MANZONI
I Promes­si Sposi, by Alessan­dro Man­zoni
Vol. 22. THE ODYSSEY, HOMER
The Odyssey, by Homer
Vol. 23. TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST, DANA
Two Years Before the Mast, by Richard Hen­ry Dana, Jr.
Vol. 24. ON THE SUBLIME, FRENCH REVOLUTION, ETC., BURKE
On Taste, On the Sub­lime and Beau­ti­ful, Reflec­tions on the French Rev­o­lu­tion, and A Let­ter to a Noble Lord, by Edmund Burke
Vol. 25. AUTOBIOGRAPHY, ETC., ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES, J.S. MILL, T. CARLYLE
Auto­bi­og­ra­phy and On Lib­er­ty, by John Stu­art Mill
Char­ac­ter­is­tics, Inau­gur­al Address at Edin­burgh, and Sir Wal­ter Scott, by Thomas Car­lyle
Vol. 26. CONTINENTAL DRAMA
Life is a Dream, by Pedro Calderón de la Bar­ca
Polyeucte, by Pierre Corneille
Phè­dre, by Jean Racine
Tartuffe, by Molière
Min­na von Barn­helm, by Got­thold Ephraim Less­ing
William Tell, by Friedrich von Schiller
Vol. 27. ENGLISH ESSAYS: SIDNEY TO MACAULAY
Vol. 28. ESSAYS: ENGLISH AND AMERICAN
Vol. 29. VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE, DARWIN
The Voy­age of the Bea­gle, by Charles Dar­win
Vol. 30. FARADAY, HELMHOLTZ, KELVIN, NEWCOMB, ETC
The Forces of Mat­ter and The Chem­i­cal His­to­ry of a Can­dle, by Michael Fara­day
On the Con­ser­va­tion of Force and Ice and Glac­i­ers, by Her­mann von Helmholtz
The Wave The­o­ry of Light and The Tides, by Lord Kelvin
The Extent of the Uni­verse, by Simon New­comb
Geo­graph­i­cal Evo­lu­tion, by Sir Archibald Geikie
Vol. 31. AUTOBIOGRAPHY, BENVENUTO CELLINI
The Auto­bi­og­ra­phy of Ben­venu­to Celli­ni
Vol. 32. LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS
Essays, by Michel Eyquem de Mon­taigne
Mon­taigne and What is a Clas­sic?, by Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve
The Poet­ry of the Celtic Races, by Ernest Renan
The Edu­ca­tion of the Human Race, by Got­thold Ephraim Less­ing
Let­ters upon the Aes­thet­ic Edu­ca­tion of Man, by Friedrich von Schiller
Fun­da­men­tal Prin­ci­ples of the Meta­physic of Morals, by Immanuel Kant
Byron and Goethe, by Giuseppe Mazz­i­ni
Vol. 33. VOYAGES AND TRAVELS
An account of Egypt from The His­to­ries, by Herodotus
Ger­many, by Tac­i­tus
Sir Fran­cis Drake Revived, by Philip Nichols
Sir Fran­cis Drake’s Famous Voy­age Round the World, by Fran­cis Pret­ty
Drake’s Great Arma­da, by Cap­tain Wal­ter Bigges
Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s Voy­age to New­found­land, by Edward Haies
The Dis­cov­ery of Guiana, by Sir Wal­ter Raleigh
Vol. 34. FRENCH AND ENGLISH PHILOSOPHERS, DESCARTES, VOLTAIRE, ROUSSEAU, HOBBES
Dis­course on Method, by René Descartes
Let­ters on the Eng­lish, by Voltaire
On the Inequal­i­ty among Mankind and Pro­fes­sion of Faith of a Savo­yard Vic­ar, by Jean Jacques Rousseau
Of Man, Being the First Part of Leviathan, by Thomas Hobbes
Vol. 35. CHRONICLE AND ROMANCE, FROISSART, MALORY, HOLINSHEAD
Chron­i­cles, by Jean Frois­sart
The Holy Grail, by Sir Thomas Mal­o­ry
A Descrip­tion of Eliz­a­bethan Eng­land, by William Har­ri­son
Vol. 36. MACHIAVELLI, MORE, LUTHER
The Prince, by Nic­colò Machi­avel­li
The Life of Sir Thomas More, by William Rop­er
Utopia, by Sir Thomas More
The Nine­ty-Five The­ses, To the Chris­t­ian Nobil­i­ty of the Ger­man Nation, and On the Free­dom of a Chris­t­ian, by Mar­tin Luther
Vol. 37. LOCKE, BERKELEY, HUME
Some Thoughts Con­cern­ing Edu­ca­tion, by John Locke
Three Dia­logues Between Hylas and Philo­nous in Oppo­si­tion to Scep­tics and Athe­ists, by George Berke­ley
An Enquiry Con­cern­ing Human Under­stand­ing, by David Hume
Vol. 38. HARVEY, JENNER, LISTER, PASTEUR
The Oath of Hip­pocrates
Jour­neys in Diverse Places, by Ambroise Paré
On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Ani­mals, by William Har­vey
The Three Orig­i­nal Pub­li­ca­tions on Vac­ci­na­tion Against Small­pox, by Edward Jen­ner
The Con­ta­gious­ness of Puer­per­al Fever, by Oliv­er Wen­dell Holmes
On the Anti­sep­tic Prin­ci­ple of the Prac­tice of Surgery, by Joseph Lis­ter
Sci­en­tif­ic papers, by Louis Pas­teur
Sci­en­tif­ic papers, by Charles Lyell
Vol. 39. FAMOUS PREFACES
Vol. 40. ENGLISH POETRY 1: CHAUCER TO GRAY
Vol. 41. ENGLISH POETRY 2: COLLINS TO FITZGERALD
Vol. 42. ENGLISH POETRY 3: TENNYSON TO WHITMAN
Vol. 43. AMERICAN HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS
Vol. 44. SACRED WRITINGS 1
Con­fu­cian: The say­ings of Con­fu­cius
Hebrew: Job, Psalms, and Eccle­si­astes
Chris­t­ian I: Luke and Acts
Vol. 45. SACRED WRITINGS 2
Chris­t­ian II: Corinthi­ans I and II and hymns
Bud­dhist: Writ­ings
Hin­du: The Bha­gavad-Gita
Mohammedan: Chap­ters from the Koran
Vol. 46. ELIZABETHAN DRAMA 1
Edward the Sec­ond, by Christo­pher Mar­lowe
Ham­let, King Lear, Mac­beth, and The Tem­pest, by William Shake­speare
Vol. 47. ELIZABETHAN DRAMA 2
The Shoe­mak­er’s Hol­i­day, by Thomas Dekker
The Alchemist, by Ben Jon­son
Phi­laster, by Beau­mont and Fletch­er
The Duchess of Mal­fi, by John Web­ster
A New Way to Pay Old Debts, by Philip Massinger
Vol. 48. THOUGHTS AND MINOR WORKS, PASCAL
Thoughts, let­ters, and minor works, by Blaise Pas­cal
Vol. 49. EPIC AND SAGA
Beowulf
The Song of Roland
The Destruc­tion of Dá Der­ga’s Hos­tel
The Sto­ry of the Vol­sungs and Niblungs
Vol. 50. INTRODUCTION, READER’S GUIDE, INDEXES
Vol. 51. LECTURES
The last vol­ume con­tains six­ty lec­tures intro­duc­ing and sum­ma­riz­ing the cov­ered fields: his­to­ry, poet­ry, nat­ur­al sci­ence, phi­los­o­phy, biog­ra­phy, prose fic­tion, crit­i­cism and the essay, edu­ca­tion, polit­i­cal sci­ence, dra­ma, trav­el­ogues, and reli­gion.

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Harvard Thinks Big

in Harvard, TED Talks | March 14th, 2011

10 Har­vard pro­fes­sors. 10 fas­ci­nat­ing ideas. 10 min­utes each. That was the gist of Har­vard Thinks Big, a TED-esque event held on Feb­ru­ary 11th. Now fast for­ward sev­er­al weeks, and the talks all appear online for free. Find them on YouTube, iTunes, or Har­vard’s ded­i­cat­ed web site.

Of all the 10 talks, we decid­ed to fea­ture one: Daniel Gilbert, a psych pro­fes­sor known for his book Stum­bling On Hap­pi­ness, presents a talk called “It’s the End of the World as We Know it, and I Feel Fine.” (Yes, a nod to R.E.M.) And it tries to make sense of a baf­fling ques­tion. Our plan­et is on the brink of an eco­log­i­cal cat­a­stro­phe and we’re calm­ly sit­ting here watch­ing videos. Humans have thrived because we take threats seri­ous­ly. But why not this one?

Oth­er speak­ers at the event include Steven Pinker, Lawrence Lessig, Richard Wrang­ham, and Elaine Scar­ry – some well known Har­vard names. One fig­ure not present was Michael Sandel. But here we have his TED Talk from 2010: The Lost Art of Demo­c­ra­t­ic Debate.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Har­vard Presents Free Cours­es

What’s the Right Thing to Do?: Pop­u­lar Har­vard Course Now Online

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Is TED the New Harvard?

in Education, Harvard, TED Talks | August 16th, 2010

Next mon­th’s edi­tion of Fast Com­pa­ny (avail­able online now) brings you a big, glow­ing trib­ute to TED and its TED Talks. It’s a love­fest in print, the kind that sells mag­a­zines. And, along the way, Anya Kamenetz (author of DIY U) makes some big claims for TED. Let me start with this one:

I would go so far as to argue that [TED’s] cre­at­ing a new Har­vard — the first new top-pres­tige edu­ca­tion brand in more than 100 years.

Of course TED does­n’t look like a reg­u­lar Ivy League col­lege. It does­n’t have any build­ings; it does­n’t grant degrees. It does­n’t have singing groups or secret soci­eties, and as far as I know it has­n’t inspired any strange drink­ing games.

Still, if you were start­ing a top uni­ver­si­ty today, what would it look like? You would start by gath­er­ing the very best minds from around the world, from every dis­ci­pline. Since we’re liv­ing in an age of abun­dant, not scarce, infor­ma­tion, you’d curate the lec­tures care­ful­ly, with a focus on the new and orig­i­nal, rather than offer a course on every pos­si­ble top­ic. You’d cre­ate a sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic mod­el by focus­ing on tech­no­log­i­cal rather than phys­i­cal infra­struc­ture, and by get­ting peo­ple of means to pay for a spe­cial­ized expe­ri­ence. You’d also con­struct a robust net­work so peo­ple could access resources when­ev­er and from wher­ev­er they like, and you’d give them the tools to col­lab­o­rate beyond the lec­ture hall. Why not ful­fill the uni­ver­si­ty’s mil­len­ni­um-old mis­sion by shar­ing ideas as freely and as wide­ly as pos­si­ble?

TED, the new Har­vard. The new uni­ver­si­ty. It’s a nice idea … until you think about it for a few moments. Will watch­ing 18 minute lec­tures – ones that bare­ly scratch the sur­face of an expert’s knowl­edge – real­ly teach you much? And when the 18 min­utes are over, will the experts stick around and help you become a crit­i­cal thinker, which is the main under­tak­ing of the mod­ern uni­ver­si­ty after all? (Will they assign the papers where you grap­ple with the dif­fi­cult ideas? Will they make sure your argu­ments are sound? That your writ­ing is lucid? Or will they even expand on their brief lec­tures and teach you some­thing in-depth?) Nope, you’ll get none of that. The experts will give their 18 minute talks, and then they’re gone. Ulti­mate­ly, Kamenetz seems to know she’s over­reach­ing. She even­tu­al­ly cir­cles around to say, “Sure, these talks have their lim­its as an edu­ca­tion­al medi­um. An 18-minute pre­sen­ta­tion, no mat­ter how expert, can’t accom­mo­date any­thing over­ly the­o­ret­i­cal or tech­ni­cal — the for­mat is more con­ge­nial to Freako­nom­ics than eco­nom­ics.” And so the whole ini­tial, catchy premise falls apart. (Mau­ra John­ston right­ly makes this point too, among oth­er good ones, in her must-read reac­tion to the “breath­less” Fast Com­pa­ny arti­cle.)

I have no beef with TED. Quite the con­trary, I’m a big fan of their open lec­tures. (Get the full list here.) And you can’t blame TED when oth­ers read too much into what they do. But, echo­ing points made last week, I do have an issue with com­men­ta­tors reduc­ing edu­ca­tion to watch­ing TV. So a quick request to the “edupunks” and “edupre­neurs” out there. As you’re democ­ra­tiz­ing edu­ca­tion and low­er­ing tuition through tech­nol­o­gy, could you make sure that what­ev­er you’re final­ly offer­ing is an edu­ca­tion in more than mere name? You feel me?

NOTE: Anya Kamenetz, the author of the Fast Com­pa­ny arti­cle, offers a response in the com­ments below. In fair­ness to her, please give them a read. We also have a lit­tle fol­low up.

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Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.