Students will trace the development and impact of absolute monarchies in England. Students will also describe the progression of events that led to a constitutional monarch, such as the English Civil War.

A series of lectures delivered by Peter Millican to first-year philosophy students at the University of Oxford. The lectures comprise of the 8-week General Philosophy course, delivered to first year undergraduates. These lectures aim to provide a thorough introduction to many philosophical topics and to get students and others interested in thinking about key areas of philosophy. Taking a chronological view of the history of philosophy, each lecture is split into 3 or 4 sections which outline a particular philosophical problem and how different philosophers have attempted to resolve the issue. Individuals interested in the 'big' questions about life such as how we perceive the world, who we are in the world and whether we are free to act will find this series informative, comprehensive and accessible.

This class explores the creation (and creativity) of the modern scientific and cultural world through study of western Europe in the 17th century, the age of Descartes and Newton, Shakespeare, Milton and Ford. It compares period thinking to present-day debates about the scientific method, art, religion, and society. This team-taught, interdisciplinary subject draws on a wide range of literary, dramatic, historical, and scientific texts and images, and involves theatrical experimentation as well as reading, writing, researching and conversing.
The primary theme of the class is to explore how England in the mid-seventeenth century became “a world turned upside down” by the new ideas and upheavals in religion, politics, and philosophy, ideas that would shape our modern world. Paying special attention to the “theatricality” of the new models and perspectives afforded by scientific experimentation, the class will read plays by Shakespeare, Tate, Brecht, Ford, Churchill, and Kushner, as well as primary and secondary texts from a wide range of disciplines. Students will also compose and perform in scenes based on that material.

This course provides an introduction to major political, social, cultural and intellectual changes in Europe from the beginnings of the Renaissance in Italy around 1300 to the outbreak of the French Revolution at the end of the 1700s. It focuses on the porous boundaries between categories of theology, magic and science, as well as print. It examines how developments in these areas altered European political institutions, social structures, and cultural practices. It also studies men and women, nobles and commoners, as well as Europeans and some non-Europeans with whom they came into contact.

This course explores the creation (and creativity) of the modern scientific and cultural world through study of western Europe in the 17th century, the age of Descartes and Newton, Shakespeare, Rembrandt and Molière. The class compares period thinking to present-day debates about the scientific method, art, religion, and society. This team-taught, interdisciplinary subject draws on a wide range of literary, dramatic, historical, and scientific texts and images, and involves theatrical experimentation as well as reading, writing, researching and conversing.