The Ancient History Learning Guide

in History | July 21st, 2009

For life­long learn­ers, cours­es on Ancient Greece and Rome always remain in steady demand. While these cours­es are poor­ly rep­re­sent­ed in under­grad­u­ate pro­grams (at least in the States), they’re pop­u­lar in con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion pro­grams designed for old­er stu­dents. Even­tu­al­ly, it seems, many stu­dents come to the con­clu­sion that you can’t skip over the foun­da­tions and still make sense of it all. And so they go back to basics.

The Teach­ing Com­pa­ny, a com­mer­cial provider of cours­es for life­long learn­ers, has rec­og­nized this demand and built a very rich col­lec­tion of lec­tures ded­i­cat­ed to the Ancients. (NOTE: Our read­ers can get $10 off of their cours­es, by click­ing here and using the code word “CULTURE”. Be sure to check out the cours­es in mp3 for­mat, par­tic­u­lar­ly the ones on sale. They’re very afford­able.) These cours­es are pol­ished and well thought out. I rec­om­mend them high­ly.

Then you should know about some of the free alter­na­tives. Thanks to the “open course” move­ment, you can now find a series of free cours­es online, includ­ing some from top-ranked uni­ver­si­ties. Let me give you a quick overview of your options:

Last fall, Yale Uni­ver­si­ty intro­duced a new round of open cours­es that includ­ed Don­ald Kagan’s Intro­duc­tion to Ancient Greek His­to­ry. A lead­ing fig­ure in the field, Kagan takes stu­dents from the Greek Dark Ages, through the rise of Spar­ta and Athens, The Pelo­pon­nesian War, and beyond. You’ll cov­er more than a mil­len­ni­um in 24 lec­tures. As I’ve not­ed else­where, Yale’s cours­es are high touch. And what’s par­tic­u­lar­ly nice is that the course can be down­loaded in one of five for­mats (text, audio, flash video, low band­width quick­time video, and high band­width quick­time video). Sim­ply choose the for­mat that works for you, and you’re good to go.

When you’ve com­plet­ed the arc of Greek his­to­ry, you can move next to the UC Berke­ley course, The Roman Empire. The course taught by Isabelle Paf­ford moves from Julius Cae­sar to Con­stan­tine (rough­ly 40 BC to 300 AD) in 42 lec­tures. And the audio comes straight from the class­room, which means that you’ll get sol­id infor­ma­tion but you’ll also have to endure some extra­ne­ous talk about home­work assign­ments and exams. (It’s free, so don’t com­plain.) You can down­load this course in one of three ways: iTunes or  streamed audio. Last­ly, I should note that Paf­ford has taught anoth­er relat­ed course at Berke­ley — The Ancient Mediter­ranean World (iTunes — Feed - MP3s).

Once you have the big sur­vey cours­es under your belt, you can switch to some more focused cours­es com­ing out of Stan­ford. Let’s start with Patrick Hunt’s course Han­ni­bal (iTunes). As I’ve not­ed in a pre­vi­ous post, this pod­cast­ed course takes you inside the life and adven­tures of Han­ni­bal, the great Carthagin­ian mil­i­tary tac­ti­cian who maneu­vered his way across the Alps and stunned Roman armies in 218 BC. The course also gives you glimpses into cut­ting-edge trends in mod­ern archae­ol­o­gy. Because Han­ni­bal still remains a fig­ure of intense his­tor­i­cal inter­est, it’s not sur­pris­ing that this course has ranked as one of the more pop­u­lar cours­es on iTune­sU.

Anoth­er short course worth your time is Virgil’s Aeneid: Anato­my of a Clas­sic. Pre­sent­ed by Susan­na Braund (a Stan­ford clas­sics pro­fes­sor at the time), the course teas­es apart the epic poem that was an instant when it was writ­ten 29–19 BC), and still endures today. Divid­ed into 5 install­ments, each run­ning about two hours, this pod­cast offers a good intro­duc­tion to one of the cen­tral texts in the Latin tra­di­tion.

Final­ly, let me throw in a quick bonus course. The His­tor­i­cal Jesus, anoth­er Stan­ford course taught by Thomas Shee­han, looks inside the historical/Roman world of Jesus of Nazareth. This is a his­to­ry course, not a reli­gion course, and it uses the best lit­er­ary and his­tor­i­cal evi­dence to answer the ques­tions: “Who was the his­tor­i­cal Jesus of Nazareth? What did he actu­al­ly say and do…? What did the man Jesus actu­al­ly think of him­self and of his mis­sion…? In short, what are the dif­fer­ences — and con­ti­nu­ities — between the Jesus who lived and died in his­to­ry and the Christ who lives on in believ­ers’ faith?

UPDATE: Thanks to a read­er, I was remind­ed of anoth­er relat­ed course: 12 Byzan­tine Rulers: The His­to­ry of the Byzan­tine Empire (iTunes  — Site). These pod­casts cov­er the lega­cy of the Roman Empire that emerged in the East (after it had col­lapsed in the West). You can read more about this course in one of my ear­ly blog posts.

All of these cours­es can be found in our larg­er col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es. There you will find 200 high qual­i­ty cours­es that you can lis­ten to any­time, any­where.

The Open Culture iPhone App

in Apple, iPhone | July 15th, 2009

A quick heads up. We’ve now start­ed rolling out our new iPhone app. It will let you lis­ten to audio­books, uni­ver­si­ty cours­es, for­eign lan­guage lessons, and oth­er intel­li­gent con­tent on the iPhone. The app is free. And so is the con­tent. So there’s noth­ing to lose by check­ing it out.

We’ve designed it so that all media files open in native iPhone soft­ware — iTunes, Safari, the YouTube play­er, etc. You will need wi-fi (Apple says so) to down­load the con­tent. This app, which was very gen­er­ous­ly devel­oped by Fred Hsu, is a work in progress. Don’t hes­i­tate to give us feed­back. And, if you don’t mind, please leave a nice review/rating in the App Store and spread the word. Get it here.

Writing in the Digital Age: It’s All About the Platform

in Audio Books, Books, e-books | June 8th, 2009

A cou­ple of weeks ago, crime writer Seth Har­wood wrote a very pop­u­lar piece here — How I Sold My Book by Giv­ing It Away. Now he’s back and telling us about the new chal­lenge of writ­ing in the dig­i­tal age. Take it away Seth (and check out his new book JACK WAKES UP )…

The num­ber of ebook read­ers and read­ing devices is grow­ing rather than shrink­ing these days. We’re enter­ing a world where indi­vid­ual read­ers will decide not only what books they want to read, but how they want to read them. And here there’s some­thing to think about for authors: As read­ers choose the read­ing plat­form they like best, they’ll see a cer­tain set of books in that space. Dif­fer­ent books show up at Wal-Mart than at your local inde­pen­dent book­seller. On the Kin­dle there are dif­fer­ent books—with dif­fer­ent prices—than on the iTunes App store. And even with­in the iTunes store, you’ll find dif­fer­ent books in the Audio­books sec­tion (owned by Audible.com), the Podcasts»Arts»Literature sec­tion (where many of the titles are free), and in the App store.

As an author, I want to be wher­ev­er a read­er can look. On every plat­form and every new plat­form, I want my book to be avail­able. My nov­el JACK WAKES UP start­ed out as a pod­cast (via iTunes, RSS Feed, & MP3). Peo­ple liked it. It got to print on demand, and Ama­zon sold it in print and Kin­dle for­mats. Guess what? It did pret­ty well. Now, it’s out from Three Rivers Press, a divi­sion of Ran­dom House, and read­ers can find it at all the online out­lets, as well as brick and mor­tar book­stores nationwide—both big box and indy. But that’s still miss­ing part of the mar­ket: soon more and more peo­ple will be buy­ing their books on their iPhones as Apps—both audio and text—or on Kin­dle, Scribd, eRead­er and who knows where else. All I can do is work toward mak­ing JACK WAKES UP avail­able in as many places and ways as pos­si­ble.

At the Pub­lish­ing 3.0 pan­el ses­sion dur­ing April’s LA Times Fes­ti­val of Books, the experts spoke about the prob­lem of pub­lish­ing in the 20th cen­tu­ry being demand—how do you gen­er­ate the inter­est in your book and get peo­ple to buy it—and that the new prob­lem in the 21st cen­tu­ry is sup­ply. With so many books pub­lished, many will fail. There’s lit­er­al­ly just too much, a glut of books that no one has a good idea how to fix.

The oth­er sup­ply-side issue is plat­form. As the pub­lish­ing game steams quick­ly toward dif­fer­ent plat­forms, vir­tu­al­ly unlim­it­ed choic­es for read­ers, dif­fer­ent pric­ing mod­els, read­ing expe­ri­ences, and pref­er­ences, my duty as an author now involves mak­ing sure my work is offered on as many plat­forms as pos­si­ble to ensure my book is an option for the great­est num­ber of read­ers.

Time Magazine Picks Favorite Open Courses

in Online Courses | May 19th, 2009

Recent­ly, Time Mag­a­zine ran a piece called “Log­ging On to the Ivy League” that tells a sto­ry we’re all famil­iar with here — many major uni­ver­si­ties are now record­ing cours­es and mak­ing them freely avail­able online. (See our full list of cours­es here.) Some­what iron­i­cal­ly, the arti­cle most­ly fea­tures cours­es from non ivy league uni­ver­si­ties (Berke­ley, Stan­ford, MIT, etc.) But maybe I’m being too picky in men­tion­ing that. Per­haps I should sim­ply tell you what cours­es Time likes best. (These are high­light­ed in the print edi­tion.) First up: the often-men­tioned physics cours­es taught by MIT’s Wal­ter Lewin (more on that here). Next, Mar­tin Lewis’ course, The Geog­ra­phy of US Elec­tions, which comes out of Stan­ford Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies (my day job). Loy­al read­ers will remem­ber that we fea­tured Lewis’ course on Open Cul­ture last fall. And then there’s Mar­i­an Dia­mond’s Human Anato­my course. We’ve post­ed the first lec­ture of this pop­u­lar UC Berke­ley course above. You can access the com­plete course via these links: iTunes — Feed — YouTube. Enjoy.

Jack Wakes Up: Get the First Three Chapters Here

in Books | May 5th, 2009

It start­ed as an audio pod­cast (iTunes — RSS Feed — MP3) and now it’s being released in print by Ran­dom House today. Seth Har­wood’s Jack Wakes Up is out, and you can read the first three chap­ters as a free pdf here. A cou­ple of weeks back, we fea­tured a short video show­ing how Har­wood has used web 2.0 (pod­casts, videos, etc.) to get his crime fic­tion in front of new audi­ences. If you’re a writer, no mat­ter what your age, you’ll want to see what Seth is doing here. It’s smart and let’s you take charge of your lit­er­ary career. In the mean­time, you can fol­low his enthu­si­as­tic book launch over on Twit­ter: @sethharwood. And we’re at @openculture, bring­ing even more bits of open cul­ture to the world.

Pete Seeger on “Turn! Turn! Turn!”

in Music | April 29th, 2009

Pete Seeger, the great Amer­i­can folk singer who turns 90 next week, sits down here with biog­ra­ph­er Alec Wilkin­son, and talks about Turn! Turn! Turn!. It’s a song that Seeger wrote in 1959, using lyrics tak­en from the Book of Eccle­si­astes in the Bible. And it was then famous­ly cov­ered by The Byrds in 1965 (watch a per­for­mance here) and that ver­sion lives on today. To see Seeger per­form­ing this tune, click here. This one is for you Bob!

via Knopf’s Twit­ter feed (Get our Twit­ter feed here)

Open Culture on Facebook

in Random | April 24th, 2009

Just a quick fyi, we cre­at­ed a lit­tle Face­book page where you can access our dai­ly con­tent. So head over and become a “Fan.” And tell a friend.

Also, please note, you can find us on Twit­ter or sub­scribe to our RSS feed. And remem­ber that we’re now locat­ed at www.openculture.com  

Have a good week­end.

Adult Content. For Mature Thinkers Only

in History, Literature, Philosophy, Stanford | April 22nd, 2009

A new sea­son of Enti­tled Opin­ions (iTunes Feed Web Site) recent­ly got off the ground, and it does­n’t take long to under­stand what this pro­gram is all about. Robert Har­ri­son, the Stan­ford lit­er­a­ture pro­fes­sor who hosts the show, opens the new sea­son with these very words:

Our stu­dios are locat­ed below ground, and every time I go down the stairs to do a new show, I feel like I’m descend­ing into the cat­a­combs where those of us who still read great lit­er­a­ture, probe ideas, and explore the recess­es of cul­tur­al his­to­ry, prac­tice a per­se­cut­ed reli­gion. In this neuras­thenic world of ours, we are like a dis­persed soci­ety of secret ini­ti­ates. We live covert­ly, as it were. And it’s in spe­cial shel­ters that our read­ing, think­ing and exchange of ideas take place. Maybe some­day we’ll once again be able to prac­tice our per­sua­sion pub­licly. But mean­while Enti­tled Opin­ions comes to you from the cat­a­combs.

You get the drift. This is a show that takes ideas, lit­er­a­ture, and life seri­ous­ly. It’s heady, and it does­n’t dumb things down. If you’re a faith­ful read­er of Open Cul­ture, you’ll find some­thing here for you. If you take a spin through the archives, you’ll find Har­ri­son in con­ver­sa­tion with Orhan Pamuk (the Nobel Prize win­ning nov­el­ist) and Richard Rorty (one of Amer­i­ca’s most impor­tant con­tem­po­rary philoso­phers). You’ll also find him talk­ing with schol­ars about  Vladimir Nabokov and his Loli­ta, World War II and the Ger­man bomb­ing of Lon­don, the His­to­ry of Psy­chi­a­try, and The His­tor­i­cal Jesus. Each pro­gram starts with a 10 minute (or so) mono­logue, and then Har­ri­son gets down to talk­ing with his guest for anoth­er 50. Give a lis­ten. Let us know your thoughts. And know that Enti­tled Opin­ions (iTunes Feed Web Site) is includ­ed in our Ideas & Cul­ture Pod­cast Col­lec­tion.

PS I shame­less­ly bor­rowed this titled from a com­ment made about Enti­tled Opin­ions on iTunes. To be hon­est, my cre­ative well was run­ning dry.

Web 2.0 to Book Deal in 3 Minutes

in Books, Media | April 21st, 2009

After Seth Har­wood got his MFA at the Iowa Writ­ers’ Work­shop, he began pub­lish­ing in tra­di­tion­al mag­a­zines and jour­nals, as most young writ­ers do. But those pub­li­ca­tions were slow to launch his career. Things changed, how­ev­er, once he start­ed pub­lish­ing online. And they real­ly changed when he released his crime nov­el Jack Wakes Up as a free pod­cast (via iTunes, RSS Feed, & MP3) and dis­trib­uted it through social net­works. Web 2.0 broad­ened the reach of his work, attract­ed fans world­wide, and ulti­mate­ly land­ed Har­wood a nice book deal with Ran­dom House. (RH will be pub­lish­ing Jack Wakes Up in print ear­ly next month). In the short video above, Har­wood gives you a quick look inside the mak­ing of his pod­cast, and how it brings expo­sure to his work. If you’re an up-and-com­ing writer, there’s cer­tain­ly some­thing here to think about. You can find out more about Seth’s work at SethHarwood.com.

Watch Super Size Me and Other Feature Films on YouTube

in Film | April 19th, 2009

Mor­gan Spur­lock­’s 2004 doc­u­men­tary, Super Size Me, is avail­able on YouTube for all to watch. Spend 30 days eat­ing noth­ing but McDon­ald’s fast food and what hap­pens? It’s not pret­ty. But you’ll get the pic­ture in an enter­tain­ing 100 min­utes. Super Size Me was nom­i­nat­ed for an Acad­e­my Award, and won prizes at Sun­dance and else­where. Give it a watch. And note that you can now watch oth­er fea­ture-length films on YouTube here. You’ll find some good ones in the doc­u­men­tary & biog­ra­phy sec­tion.