World Literature in 13 Parts: From Gilgamesh to García Márquez

in Books, Literature | May 11th, 2011

Love and long­ing, hope and fear — these threads run through­out all lit­er­a­ture, whether we’re talk­ing about the great ancient epics, or con­tem­po­rary nov­els writ­ten in the East or the West. That’s the main premise of Invi­ta­tion to World Lit­er­a­ture, a mul­ti­me­dia pro­gram orga­nized by David Dam­rosch (Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty), and made with the back­ing of WGBH and Annen­berg Media.

The pro­gram fea­tures 13 half-hour videos, which move from The Epic of Gil­gamesh (cir­ca 2500 BCE) through Gar­cía Márquez’s One Hun­dred Years of Soli­tude (1967). And, col­lec­tive­ly, these videos high­light over 100+ writ­ers, schol­ars, artists, and per­form­ers with a per­son­al con­nec­tion to world lit­er­a­ture. Philip Glass, Francine Prose, Harold Ramis, Robert Thur­man, Kwame Antho­ny Appi­ah — they all make an appear­ance.

Each video is accom­pa­nied by read­ings and relat­ed mate­ri­als. You can get start­ed with Invi­ta­tion to World Lit­er­a­ture here, or find a trail­er intro­duc­ing the series here.

This course will be added to our list of Free Online Lit­er­a­ture Cours­es, a sub­set of our col­lec­tion 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Lit­er­a­ture Cours­es from Great Uni­ver­si­ties

Learn Lan­guages for Free

Homer’s Ili­ad and Odyssey: Free Trans­la­tions by Lit­er­ary Greats

The Sounds of Ancient Mesopotamia

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Short Film: “Nuit Blanche” Mixes Romance with Matrix-Style Visuals

in Film | May 10th, 2011

If you’ve ever had doubts about the impact of videogame aes­thet­ics on con­tem­po­rary cin­e­ma — not just action movies, but video and inde­pen­dent film as well — this roman­tic short from Spy Films might well dis­pel them. The plot is basic: A man and a woman lock eyes in the street, and dream of what might have been, while sweet notes fill the air. But direc­tor and cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Arev Manoukian updates the famil­iar sto­ry with a com­pelling visu­al style which seems inspired by equal parts Matrix tril­o­gy and PlaySta­tion 3. For more infor­ma­tion about the spe­cial effects, there’s a “mak­ing of” video for your view­ing.

Francophones/francophiles of more lud­dite ten­den­cies might find them­selves imme­di­ate­ly rush­ing to play Georges Brassens’ ode to ephemer­al street romance, “Les Pas­santes.” We strong­ly encour­age you to do so, prefer­ably at sun­set, while sip­ping a hot cup of long­ing-infused tea.

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.

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William F. Buckley Explains How He Flogged Himself to Get Through Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged

in Books, Video - Politics/Society | May 10th, 2011

Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged sold an esti­mat­ed 25 mil­lion copies between its pub­li­ca­tion in 1957 and 2007. Ear­ly on, the book inspired a young gen­er­a­tion of busi­ness lead­ers, and now, decades lat­er, it holds appeal for a new class of con­ser­v­a­tives. But it was­n’t always that way. Back in the 1950s, William F. Buck­ley, the enfant ter­ri­ble of the con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment, launched the Nation­al Review and pub­lished a review by Whit­tak­er Cham­bers — the Sovi­et spy who famous­ly turned against Com­mu­nism (and Alger Hiss), all while build­ing a remark­able career at TIME Mag­a­zine. About Atlas Shrugged, Cham­bers wrote: ”I find it a remark­ably sil­ly book. It is cer­tain­ly a bump­tious one. Its sto­ry is pre­pos­ter­ous.” And, what’s more, he adds: “Out of a life­time of read­ing, I can recall no oth­er book in which a tone of over­rid­ing arro­gance was so implaca­bly sus­tained. Its shrill­ness is with­out reprieve. Its dog­ma­tism is with­out appeal.”

Rand nev­er for­gave Buck­ley for the review. Per­sona non gra­ta, he was. Years lat­er, in 2003, Buck­ley revis­it­ed the whole affair with Char­lie Rose and made known his per­son­al feel­ings for Rand’s book. “I had to flog myself to read it…”

Note: You can down­load Atlas Shrugged as a free audio­book if you sign up for a free 30-Day Tri­al with Audible.com. Find more infor­ma­tion on that pro­gram here.

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:

Mike Wal­lace Inter­views Ayn Rand (1959)

William F. Buck­ley v. Gore Vidal (1968)

Ayn Rand Talks Athe­ism with Phil Don­ahue

Wealthy Donors Pay­ing Uni­ver­si­ties to Teach Rand

via Roger Ebert

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The Existential Star Wars: Sartre Meets Darth Vader

in Film, Philosophy | May 10th, 2011

A few weeks ago we direct­ed you to a won­der­ful three-part BBC doc­u­men­tary about mod­ern phi­los­o­phy called Human, All Too Human, adding that we con­sid­ered the chap­ter on Jean-Paul Sartre the most sat­is­fy­ing of the three.

Now we give you a light-heart­ed chas­er for that doc­u­men­tary’s strong spir­its: The French philoso­pher’s teach­ings as inter­pret­ed by the sci­ence fic­tion over­lord Darth Vad­er. Per­haps more than any oth­er 20th cen­tu­ry supervil­lain, the dis­graced Jedi knight trag­i­cal­ly and per­fect­ly embod­ies the Sar­tri­an notion that “Free­dom is what you do with what has been done to you.”

For those who might con­sid­er the Jok­er a bet­ter can­di­date, we humbly sub­mit that with the Jok­er, it’s more of a Niet­zschean thing.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Down­load 90 Free Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es and Start Liv­ing the Exam­ined Life

The Phi­los­o­phy of Kierkegaard, the First Exis­ten­tial­ist Philoso­pher, Revis­it­ed in 1984 Doc­u­men­tary

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

via Roger Ebert’s Jour­nal

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

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Classical Music: A History According to YouTube

in Music, Video - Arts & Culture | May 9th, 2011


Three cheers for cura­tion. Lime­light, an Aus­tralian cul­ture web site, has select­ed “40 of the most infor­ma­tive, rep­re­sen­ta­tive and enter­tain­ing videos” avail­able on YouTube. And they’ve strung them togeth­er in such a way that they offer a “chrono­log­i­cal his­to­ry of west­ern clas­si­cal music from the twelfth cen­tu­ry to the mod­ern age,” tak­ing you from The Mid­dle Ages and The Renais­sance, through the Baroque, Clas­si­cal, and Roman­tic peri­ods, and end­ing with The Birth of Mod­ernism and Post-WWII inno­va­tions. The clip above comes from Anton van Mun­ster’s film on Vival­di, I Musi­ci, which is avail­able on Net­flix. (If you’re not a sub­scriber, a one month free tri­al is avail­able here.) Oth­er clips put a spot­light on Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Ver­di, Wag­n­er and oth­ers.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

85,000 Clas­si­cal Music Scores (and Free MP3s) on the Web

The Com­plete Organ Works of Johann Sebas­t­ian Bach

The Great­est Com­posers: Accord­ing to The New York Times

via Metafil­ter

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A Daily Dose of Jerry Seinfeld

in Comedy | May 9th, 2011

Jer­ry Sein­feld has decid­ed to go on tour, and as if to remind us that his stand-up life pre­ced­ed his decade-plus dom­i­nance of net­work TV, he’s also archived the best bits from a com­e­dy career that now spans over 25 years. (He first appeared on nation­al tele­vi­sion in 1977.) The new site/archive will fea­ture just a few clips, mak­ing new ones avail­able each day. It’s a smart move; the steady trick­le of new jokes will no doubt keep fans hun­gry.

For a reminder of the days when it was Sein­feld him­self who was hun­gry, here’s a set from 1981, his first appear­ance on HBO. He’s being pre­sent­ed by the pitch-per­fect Smoth­ers Broth­ers, who intro­duce the bare­ly known come­di­an as “Jer­ry Ste­in­feld.”

via NYT

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

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David Hume in 3 Minutes … For His 300th Birthday

in Philosophy | May 8th, 2011

The Stan­ford Ency­clo­pe­dia of Phi­los­o­phy calls David Hume (1711–1776) “the most impor­tant philoso­pher ever to write in Eng­lish,” and this week the phi­los­o­phy world cel­e­brates the 300th birth­day of the great Scot­tish empiricist/skeptic. Around the web, you can find more seri­ous com­men­tary on Hume’s phi­los­o­phy. Just head over to The Philoso­pher’s Zone, Phi­los­o­phy Bites, or The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life to lis­ten to their enlight­en­ing pod­casts. And then you have this: Hume’s phi­los­o­phy summed up in three slight­ly rib­ald min­utes. It’s part of a series of YouTube clips that offer idio­syn­crat­ic sum­maries of the phi­los­o­phy of Aris­to­tle, Kant, Descartes and oth­er giants.

Mean­while, let us note that you can down­load free ver­sions of Hume’s major works online. Let us list a few for you:

  • An Enquiry Con­cern­ing Human Under­stand­ing Audio — Text
  • Dia­logues Con­cern­ing Nat­ur­al Reli­gion Audio — Text
  • Trea­tise of Human Nature Audio — Text

Find more great works in our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books and eBooks

via The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life

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Orson Welles’ Birthday Bash: Three Movies, One Radio Classic, and Two Great Narrations

in Film, Radio | May 6th, 2011

96 years ago today, Orson Welles, the “ulti­mate auteur,” was born in Kenosha, Wis­con­sin. Hence his ear­ly nick­name, The Kenosha Kid. Nowa­days, we remem­ber Welles as arguably the great­est direc­tor of the 20th cen­tu­ry, a superb actor on stage and screen, and a pio­neer­ing radio drama­tist. To cel­e­brate his 96th birth­day, we have dipped into our archives and pulled togeth­er some of Welles’ finest artis­tic works, all now freely avail­able online:

The Stranger

Welles’ third film, The Stranger, a 1946 film noir thriller, was a com­mer­cial suc­cess upon release. The same could­n’t be said for Cit­i­zen Kane. The Stranger fea­tures Edward G. Robin­son hunt­ing a Nazi fugi­tive (Welles him­self) who mar­ries the daugh­ter (Loret­ta Young) of a Supreme Court jus­tice. The film, now avail­able online in its entire­ty, is one of the first post WWII films to show footage of con­cen­tra­tion camps. You can find this film, and oth­ers men­tioned below, in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

The Third Man


The Third Man by crazedig­i­tal­movies

Welles famous­ly starred in The Third Man, a must-see noir film, which won the Grand Prix at the 1949 Cannes Film Fes­ti­val and an Acad­e­my Award for Best Black and White Cin­e­matog­ra­phy in 1950. A half cen­tu­ry lat­er, the British Film Insti­tute named The Third Man the best British film of the 20th cen­tu­ry. Quite a state­ment. You can watch it here.

Free­dom Riv­er

Almost 40 years (and sev­en pres­i­den­tial admin­is­tra­tions) have passed since Orson Welles nar­rat­ed Free­dom Riv­er. And although the ani­ma­tion shows some age, the para­ble, a com­men­tary on Amer­i­ca, still res­onates today. Or, at least I sus­pect many view­ers will think so. You can get the back­sto­ry on this intrigu­ing lit­tle project here.

The War of the Worlds

Back in the late 1930s, Orson Welles launched The Mer­cury The­atre on the Air, a radio pro­gram ded­i­cat­ed to bring­ing dra­mat­ic pro­duc­tions to the Amer­i­can air­waves. The show had a fair­ly short run. It last­ed from 1938 to 1941. But it made its mark. Dur­ing these few years, The Mer­cury The­atre aired The War of the Worlds, an episode nar­rat­ed by Welles that led many Amer­i­cans to believe their coun­try was under Mar­t­ian attack. The leg­endary pro­duc­tion was based on H.G. Wells’ ear­ly sci-fi nov­el, and you can lis­ten to it here. We have more links to Mer­cury The­atre pro­duc­tions here.

Welles Reads Moby Dick

He only gives you two tan­ta­liz­ing min­utes. And he’s para­phras­ing more than read­ing the text itself. But it’s vin­tage Welles. You can find him read­ing anoth­er pas­sage from Melville’s clas­sic here…

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Stanley Kubrick’s Filmography Animated

in Film, Video - Arts & Culture | May 6th, 2011

French graph­ic artist Mar­tin Woutis­seth has put togeth­er this love­ly fil­mog­ra­phy of Stan­ley Kubrick, based on ani­mat­ed posters of his own design, and set to a won­der­ful score by com­pos­er Romain Trouil­let. Woutis­seth’s visu­al inter­pre­ta­tions of each film, from Killer’s Kiss (1955) to Eyes Wide Shut (1999) are works of art in their own right. We espe­cial­ly loved the details on the mask for Eyes Wide Shut at minute 3:00.

You can watch Killer’s Kiss for free at our online movie archive, plus Kubrick­’s first film, Fear & Desire, on Google Video.

via Curios­i­ty Counts

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

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Bubbles Over Stinson Beach

in Art | May 6th, 2011

Ster­ling John­son, oth­er­wise known as the Bub­ble­smith, goes to work at Stin­son Beach, a lit­tle north of San Fran­cis­co. Mark Day cap­tures the artis­tic dis­play with his Canon 550D, and it’s all set to Bach’s Pre­lude in C Major. Like the kid said in Amer­i­can Beau­ty, “Some­times there’s so much beau­ty in the world, I feel like I can’t take it, like my heart’s going to cave in…”

via Sci­ence Dump

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RIP Arthur Laurents, Writer of West Side Story

in Film, Theatre | May 5th, 2011

A sad, lov­ing farewell to the great play­wright, libret­tist and direc­tor Arthur Lau­rents, who died in his sleep today at the age of 93. Mr. Lau­rents was best known for writ­ing Gyp­sy (1959), The Way We Were (1973), and of course the incom­pa­ra­ble West Side Sto­ry (1959), about which this author has noth­ing to say, except that with­out West Side Sto­ry the world as she knows and loves it would cease to exist.

He will be missed.

via  @SteveSilberman

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.

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