Leo Strauss: 15 Political Philosophy Courses Online

in Online Courses, Philosophy | May 23rd, 2011

In 1949, Leo Strauss, the Ger­man-Jew­ish emi­gré, land­ed at The Uni­ver­si­ty of Chica­go, where he spent decades teach­ing and writ­ing on polit­i­cal phi­los­o­phy, espe­cial­ly the polit­i­cal thought of the Ancients. Strauss’ think­ing skewed con­ser­v­a­tive, and if he was some­times con­tro­ver­sial while alive, he has become only more so in death (1973). Nowa­days he’s con­sid­ered right­ly or wrong­ly the “intel­lec­tu­al god­fa­ther of the neo-con­ser­v­a­tive polit­i­cal move­ment,” if not an “intel­lec­tu­al force behind the Bush admin­is­tra­tion’s plan to invade Iraq.” Although Strauss com­ment­ed occa­sion­al­ly on con­tem­po­rary pol­i­tics (Harper’s has more on that), he spent most of his time work­ing through major philo­soph­i­cal texts, and through his com­men­taries, devel­op­ing his own philo­soph­i­cal posi­tions, which were gen­er­al­ly hos­tile to the Enlight­en­ment project and mod­ern individualism/liberalism.

Strauss was unques­tion­ably an influ­en­tial fig­ure even if he still divides us, and now, cour­tesy of U. Chica­go, you can lis­ten to 15 of his phi­los­o­phy sem­i­nars online. They were record­ed between 1959 and 1973, and some rep­re­sen­ta­tive titles include Montesquieu’s The Spir­it of the Laws (a course that Paul Wol­fowitz took dur­ing the ear­ly 70s), Niet­zsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, Hobbes’ Leviathan, and Hegel’s The Phi­los­o­phy of His­to­ry.

More sem­i­nars will be com­ing online. For now, we have cat­a­logued all 15 exist­ing sem­i­nars in the Phi­los­o­phy sec­tion of our big col­lec­tion of 1100 Free Online Cours­es.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Wal­ter Kaufmann’s Lec­tures on Niet­zsche, Kierkegaard and Sartre (1960)

Phi­los­o­phy with John Sear­le: Three Free Cours­es

Exis­ten­tial­ism with Hubert Drey­fus: Four Free Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es

3 Dreams of Black: A Mind-blowing Interactive Music Video

in Music, Video - Arts & Culture | May 20th, 2011

So this is def­i­nite­ly not your grand­ma’s MTV. The clip we’ve post­ed above explains the mak­ing of “3 Degrees of Black,” an inter­ac­tive video made for your brows­er, which was the prod­uct of a col­lab­o­ra­tion between the mul­ti-hyphen­at­ed artist/filmmaker Chris Milk and a group of 20-some­thing genius­es at Plan­et Google. But before you delve into the (admit­ted­ly fas­ci­nat­ing) back­sto­ry, be sure to expe­ri­ence the video for your­self and move your mouse around a bit.

“Three Dreams of Black” is a song from the new album “Rome,” itself a col­lab­o­ra­tion between Amer­i­can pro­duc­er Dan­ger Mouse and Ital­ian com­pos­er Daniel Lup­pi, fea­tur­ing Jack White and Norah Jones. The song is a per­fect choice for a trip­py, mul­ti-faceted project like this, which com­bines video, 2D and 3D graph­ics, and the user her­self. And yes, we know the whole “exper­i­ment” is basi­cal­ly just an adver­tise­ment for Google Chrome, but after spend­ing some time in their dream­scape, we’re cool with that.

via Metafil­ter

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly

The Climate Scientist Rap (Warning: Offensive Language)

in Science, Video - Science | May 19th, 2011

In this high­ly NSFW video pro­duced by the Aus­tralian tele­vi­sion show Hun­gry Beast, a posse of bona fide, degree-hold­ing cli­mate sci­en­tists put the ulti­mate smack­down on cli­mate change deniers. By NSFW, we mean that the rap is “more exple­tive-rid­den than the lat­est Lil’ Wayne sin­gle.” Still, after a few lis­tens we did find a cou­plet clean enough to quote:

We’re scientists/What we speak is true
Unlike Andrew Bolt/Our work is PEER REVIEWED!

If you feel like drop­ping $1.69, you can also buy the extend­ed sin­gle on iTunes.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hayek vs. Keynes Rap

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

The National Jukebox: Play 10,000 Songs Released Between 1901 and 1925

in History, Music | May 19th, 2011

The Nation­al Juke­box, the new dig­i­tal musi­cal play­er of the Library of Con­gress, fea­tures more than 10,000 songs released by the Vic­tor Talk­ing Machine Com­pa­ny between 1901 and 1925 (with the promise of more to come). You can build your own playlist from the many gen­res of music avail­able, which include some extreme­ly rare record­ings from dif­fer­ent gen­res includ­ing 0pera, blues, yodel­ing, jazz, and much, much more.

We also love the dis­claimer on the web­site’s front page: WARNING: His­tor­i­cal record­ings may con­tain offen­sive lan­guage. It’s quite easy to see why the warn­ing is nec­es­sary, espe­cial­ly after some time spent lis­ten­ing to the com­e­dy sec­tion.

If you want to see a Vic­tor Talk­ing Machine in action, you can watch one get­ting demoed here.

via @kirstinbutler

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly

Kepler, Galileo & Nostradamus in Color, on Google

in Books, e-books, Google | May 19th, 2011

To date, Google Books has scanned 50,000 books from the 16th and 17th cen­turies. And by work­ing with great Euro­pean libraries (Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty Library and the Nation­al Libraries of Flo­rence and Rome, to name a few), the Moun­tain View-based com­pa­ny expects to index hun­dreds of thou­sands of pre-1800 titles in the com­ing years.

Tra­di­tion­al­ly, most his­tor­i­cal texts have been scanned in black & white. But these new­fan­gled scans are being made in col­or, giv­ing read­ers any­where the chance to read old­er books “as they actu­al­ly appear” and to appre­ci­ate the “great flow­er­ing of exper­i­men­ta­tion in typog­ra­phy that took place in the 16th and 17th cen­turies.”

Some of the foun­da­tion­al texts now avail­able in col­or include Nos­tradamus’ Prog­nos­ti­ca­tion nou­velle et pre­dic­tion por­ten­teuse (1554), Johannes Kepler’s Epit­o­me Astrono­mi­ae Coper­ni­canae from 1635, and Galileo’s Sys­tema cos­micum from 1641. All texts can be viewed online, or down­loaded as a PDF (although the PDF’s lack col­or)…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Google “Art Project” Brings Great Paint­ings & Muse­ums to You

Google Lit Trips

Google to Pro­vide Vir­tu­al Tours of 19 World Her­itage Sites

via Inside Google Books

Collision: Award-Winning Film Explores Politics Through Shapes

in Art, Film, Politics | May 18th, 2011

The Ger­man mul­ti-media artist Max Hat­tler describes his award-win­ning short film “Col­li­sion” (2005) as “Islam­ic pat­terns and Amer­i­can quilts and the col­ors and geom­e­try of flags as an abstract field of reflec­tion,” which will make no sense what­so­ev­er until you watch the video. It’s bare­ly over two min­utes long, so just give it a shot and let the images do their own explain­ing. Be sure to wear head­phones, or at least keep the vol­ume low … but not off. The expe­ri­ence is def­i­nite­ly equal parts sound and sight.

via @matthiasrascher

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

The Wild Kingdom: Brought to You by Mutual of Omaha (and It’s Now on YouTube)

in Television, Video - Science | May 18th, 2011

If you’re a Gen-X’er or old­er, this will like­ly dust off some old mem­o­ries, unleash­ing one of those “Yes, I remem­ber that” moments.

From 1963 through 1988, Mar­lin Perkins and Jim Fowler host­ed Mutu­al of Oma­ha’s Wild King­dom, a 30 minute pro­gram that aired Sun­day nights on NBC. An ear­ly pre­cur­sor to Ani­mal Plan­et and The Dis­cov­ery Chan­nel, Wild King­dom let Amer­i­can audi­ences trav­el (at least vir­tu­al­ly) to exot­ic des­ti­na­tions and observe wild ani­mals in their nat­ur­al habi­tats. It all hap­pened dur­ing prime time with mil­lions watch­ing. And the show, oth­er­wise cred­it­ed with rais­ing eco­log­i­cal and envi­ron­men­tal aware­ness, won 41 major awards, includ­ing four Emmys.

There are two ways to revis­it Wild King­dom. One is to pur­chase The Defin­i­tive 50 Episode Col­lec­tion on DVD. The cheap­er option (actu­al­ly, it’s free) is to vis­it Wild King­dom’s Chan­nel on YouTube, which hosts hours and hours of free pro­gram­ming. The episode above takes you into the mys­ter­ies of the Ama­zon. Enjoy…

via metafil­ter

How TV Ruined Your Life

in Television | May 18th, 2011

The world is in sham­bles. Civ­i­liza­tion is in free fall. And it’s all because of that ubiq­ui­tous elec­tron­ic box spew­ing Snoo­ki and Ozzy and The Don­ald into the homes of inno­cent peo­ple, pol­lut­ing their minds and cor­rupt­ing their souls. Or any­way, that’s what British come­di­an Char­lie Brook­er thinks.

Brook­er is in a posi­tion to know. He makes his liv­ing off the offend­ing medi­um, writ­ing and appear­ing on such caus­tic pro­grams as Char­lie Brooker’s Screen­wipe, his hilar­i­ous and mer­ci­less bit­ing of the hand that feeds. Ear­li­er this year BBC Two pre­sent­ed its fol­low-up to Screen­wipe, a six-part series titled How TV Ruined Your Life. The result is one part social satire, two parts rav­ing luna­cy, as the mis­an­throp­ic Brooker—remote con­trol clenched furi­ous­ly in hand—takes us on a man­ic chan­nel-surf­ing tour of the deprav­i­ty.

In the win­dow above we fea­ture Episode 3: “Aspi­ra­tion.” The oth­er five install­ments can be accessed through the links below. Warn­ing: How TV Ruined Your Life con­tains harsh lan­guage that would not be safe for work. (But then, if you’re watch­ing half-hour com­e­dy shows at the office you’re prob­a­bly skat­ing on thin ice any­way.)

Episode 1: “Fear”
Episode 2: “The Life­cy­cle”
Episode 4: “Love”
Episode 5: “Progress”
Episode 6: “Knowl­edge”

Richard Dawkins to Publish Children’s Book This Fall

in Books, Science | May 17th, 2011

Richard Dawkins, the Oxford evo­lu­tion­ary biol­o­gist, has a new book com­ing out this fall. This time, it’s a chil­dren’s book called The Mag­ic of Real­i­ty: How We Know What’s Real­ly True. Inter­viewed in Der Spiegel in March, Dawkins talked a lit­tle about what he hoped to accom­plish here, say­ing:

Each chap­ter is a ques­tion like: What is an earth­quake? What is a rain­bow? What is the sun? Each chap­ter begins with a series of myths seem­ing­ly answer­ing those ques­tions, and then I counter that with expla­na­tions about the true nature of things. There is some­thing very cheap about mag­ic in the super­nat­ur­al sense, like turn­ing a frog into a prince with a mag­ic wand. Real­i­ty has a grander, poet­ic mag­ic of its own, which I hope I can get across.

Already you can see some pre­lim­i­nary art­work for the book. We have one cov­er design above, and anoth­er one here. We’ll have more on the book when it comes out…

Jacques Demy’s Lyrical Masterpiece, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

in Film | May 17th, 2011

Romance and real­ism are mixed togeth­er in sur­pris­ing and unfor­get­table ways in Jacques Demy’s 1964 mas­ter­piece, The Umbrel­las of Cher­bourg. At first glance the film appears to be anoth­er piece of escapist fluff—a bright­ly col­ored musi­cal about a beau­ti­ful girl who falls in love with a hand­some young man. But as the sto­ry unfolds, those fairy tale trappings—the col­ors, the melodies, the impos­si­bly beau­ti­ful faces—carry a gath­er­ing weight of irony.

As film crit­ic A.O. Scott of the New York Times says in the video above, the film is one of the most roman­tic ever made, yet at the same time the sto­ry is “pure kitchen sink real­ism, suit­able maybe for a Ray­mond Carv­er sto­ry or a Bruce Spring­steen song.” It fea­tures Cather­ine Deneuve as a 17-year-old girl who works in her mother’s umbrel­la shop and falls in love with a 20-year-old garage mechan­ic, played by Nino Castel­n­uo­vo. “All of the char­ac­ters face very dif­fi­cult, very real prob­lems,” says Scott, “and all of them try to do the right thing, which turns out to be pret­ty defin­i­tive­ly unro­man­tic.”

Unlike Hol­ly­wood musi­cals, in which the char­ac­ters speak dia­logue and peri­od­i­cal­ly break into song, every word in The Umbrel­las of Cher­bourg is sung. The film received the Palme d’Or at the 1964 Cannes Film Fes­ti­val, and was an inter­na­tion­al hit. Despite all the suc­cess, the film has been wide­ly mis­un­der­stood, as Pauline Kael lament­ed dur­ing a 2000 inter­view. “One of the sad things about our time, I think,” Kael said, “is that so many peo­ple find a movie like that friv­o­lous and neg­li­gi­ble. They don’t see the beau­ty in it, but it’s a love­ly film—original and fine.”

The Umbrel­las of Cher­bourg has recent­ly become avail­able for free view­ing on the Inter­net, and we have added it to our archive of free movies. You can watch it here.