This course will survey the conditions of material life and changing social and economic conditions in medieval Europe with reference to the comparative context of contemporary Islamic, Chinese, and central Asian experiences. Subject covers the emergence and decline of feudal institutions, the transformation of peasant agriculture, living standards and the course of epidemic disease, and the ebb and flow of long-distance trade across the Eurasian system. Particular emphasis will be placed on the study of those factors, both institutional and technological, which have contributed to the emergence of capitalist organization and economic growth in Western Europe in contrast to the trajectories followed by the other major medieval economies.

The course explores the literary masterworks of three of the most celebrated authors of the Middle Ages in their original literary and historical contexts. The various themes they take up - the importance of writing in the vernacular; the discourse of love as a form of discipline practised upon the self; the personal and political aspirations of the self in society; the constitution of ideal forms of social organization; the role of religion in the life and works of lay authors - transformed the course of much of Western literature for the next five centuries. Readings will include the entire Divine Comedy, generous selections from the Decameron, and all of Troilus and Criseyde in the original Middle English, together with samplings from the Troubadour tradition and the dolce stil nuovo.

As a quasi-historical, quasi-legendary figure of consistently great popularity, King Arthur has been subject to an extraordinary amount of reinvention and rewriting: as a Christian hero and war-leader; as an ineffective king and pathetic cuckold; and as a tragic figure of noble but doomed intentions. As we trace Arthur’s evolution and that of principal knights, we will ask what underlies the appeal of this figure whose consistent reappearance in western culture has performed the medieval prophecy that he would be rex quondam et futurus: the once and future king.

It is easy to think of love as a “universal language” - but do ideas about love translate easily across history, culture, and identity? In this course, we will encounter some surprising, even disturbing ideas about love and sex from medieval writers and characters: For instance, that married people can never be in love, that the most satisfying romantic love incorporates pain and violence, and that intense erotic pleasure can be found in celibate service to God. Through Arthurian romances, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, love letters, mystical visions, and more, we will explore medieval attitudes toward marriage, sexuality, and gender roles. What can these perspectives teach us about the uniqueness of the Middle Ages—and how do medieval ideas about love continue to influence the beliefs and fantasies of our own culture?

This survey provides a general introduction to medieval European literature (from Late Antiquity to the Fifteenth Century) from the perspective of women writers from a variety of cultures, social backgrounds, and historical timeperiods. Though much of the class will be devoted to exploring the evolution of a new literary tradition by and for women from its earliest emergence in the West, wider historical and cultural movements will also be addressed: the Fall of the Roman Empire, the growth of religious communities, the shift from orality to literacy, the culture of chivalry and courtly love, the emergence of scholasticism and universities, changes in devotional practices, the persecution of heretics, the rise of nationalism and class consciousness. Authors will include some of the most famous women of the period: Hildegard of Bingen, Heloise of Paris, Marie de France, Christine de Pizan, Joan of Arc, Margery Kempe, along with many interesting and intriguing though lesser known figures.

Short Description:
Meditations on First Philosophy (1641)—full titles Meditations on First Philosophy, in which the existence of God and the immortality of the soul are demonstrated—is a philosophical treatise by French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes. First published in Latin, the book is made up of six meditations written as if Descartes had meditated for six days; each meditation refers to the last one as "yesterday." The author rejects all belief in things that are not absolutely certain and then attempts to establish what can be absolutely certain.

Long Description:
Meditations on First Philosophy (1641)—full titles Meditations on First Philosophy, in which the existence of God and the immortality of the soul are demonstrated—is a philosophical treatise by French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes. First published in Latin, the book is made up of six meditations written as if Descartes had meditated for six days; each meditation refers to the last one as “yesterday.” The author rejects all belief in things that are not absolutely certain and then attempts to establish what can be absolutely certain.

Word Count: 30979

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

Description:

Original text written by Leonor López de Córdoba (c.1362-1430)

Spanish modernized by María-Milagros Rivera Garretas

Guided-reading edition prepared by Christopher C. Oechler

Memory in Place brings together Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars and practitioners grappling with the continued potency of memories and experiences of colonialism. While many of these conversations have taken place on a national stage, this collection returns to the rich intimacy of the local. From Queensland’s sweeping Gulf Country, along the shelly beaches of south Sydney, Melbourne’s city gardens and the rugged hills of South Australia, through Central Australia’s dusty heart and up to the majestic Kimberley, the collection charts how interactions between Indigenous people, settlers and their descendants are both remembered and forgotten in social, political, and cultural spaces. It offers uniquely diverse perspectives from a range of disciplines including history, anthropology, memory studies, archaeology, and linguistics from both established and emerging scholars; from Indigenous and non-Indigenous contributors; and from academics as well as museum and cultural heritage practitioners. The collection locates some of the nation’s most pressing political issues with attention to the local, and the ethics of commemoration and relationships needed at this scale. It will be of interest to those who see the past as intimately connected to the future.

This is a repository of various sites where OER materials can be found related to art history. Some, like that for the Smithsonian Museum, is useful for finding specific objects and information about them held by that museum. Other sites like Art Story (reviewed elsewhere on OER Commons) are more general textual sites for art historical periods. It is a good starting place for finding OER materials.

This course considers a range of philosophical questions about the foundations of morality, such as whether and in what sense morality is objective, the nature of moral discourse, and how we can come to know right from wrong.

Metaethics from a First Person Standpoint addresses in a novel format the major topics and themes of contemporary metaethics, the study of the analysis of moral thought and judgement. Metathetics is less concerned with what practices are right or wrong than with what we mean by ‘right’ and ‘wrong.’
Looking at a wide spectrum of topics including moral language, realism and anti-realism, reasons and motives, relativism, and moral progress, this book engages students and general readers in order to enhance their understanding of morality and moral discourse as cultural practices. Catherine Wilson innovatively employs a first-person narrator to report step-by-step an individual’s reflections, beginning from a position of radical scepticism, on the possibility of objective moral knowledge. The reader is invited to follow along with this reasoning, and to challenge or agree with each major point. Incrementally, the narrator is led to certain definite conclusions about ‘oughts’ and norms in connection with self-interest, prudence, social norms, and finally morality. Scepticism is overcome, and the narrator arrives at a good understanding of how moral knowledge and moral progress are possible, though frequently long in coming.
Accessibly written, Metaethics from a First Person Standpoint presupposes no prior training in philosophy and is a must-read for philosophers, students and general readers interested in gaining a better understanding of morality as a personal philosophical quest.

Short Description:
This book is about Islamic history and how it pertains to us in the world forum of Christians and Muslims as well.

Word Count: 105883

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

Hitherto it had gone by the original Indian name Manna-hatta, or as some still have it, ‘The Manhattoes’; but this was now decried as savage and heathenish… At length, when the council was almost in despair, a burgher, remarkable for the size and squareness of his head, proposed that they should call it New-Amsterdam. The proposition took every body by surprise; it was so striking, so apposite, so ingenious. The name was adopted by acclamation, and New-Amsterdam the metropolis was thenceforth called.
—Washington Irving, 1808

In less tongue-in-cheek style, this course examines the evolution of New York City from 1607 to the present. The readings focus on the city’s social and physical histories, and the class discussions compare New York’s development to patterns in other cities.

A complete curriculum for introductory Russian organized around the experiences of four American students spending an academic year in the Russian Federation. Web-based textbook and paper-based classroom activities and homework (available as downloadable pdf and print-on-demand). Teacher materials also available on request. Winner of the 2016 Access to Language Education Award from the Computer Assisted Language Instruction Consortium and the 2017 Best Book in Pedgogy from the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages.

Reviews
Russian Language Journal 67 (2017): 77-80.
Slavic and East European Journal 61.4 (Winter 2017): 938-940.
Language Learning and Technology 21.1 (February 2017): 46-51.
Canadian Slavonic Papers 58.4 (2016): 448-449.

The University of North Georgia Press and Affordable Learning Georgia bring you British Literature I: From the Middle Ages to Neoclassicism and the Eighteenth Century. Featuring over 50 authors and full texts of their works, this anthology follows the shift of monarchic to parliamentarian rule in Britain, and the heroic epic to the more egalitarian novel as genre.

Features:

Original introductions to The Middle Ages; The Sixteenth Century: The Tudor Age; The Seventeenth Century: The Age of Revolution; and Neoclassicism and the Eighteenth Century
Over 100 historical images
Instructional Design, including Reading and Review Questions and Key Terms
Forthcoming ancillary with open-enabled pedagogy, allowing readers to contribute to the project
This textbook is an Open Access Resource. It can be reused, remixed, and reedited freely without seeking permission.

Accessible files with optical character recognition (OCR) and auto-tagging provided by the Center for Inclusive Design and Innovation.

This course surveys the history of the Middle East, from the end of the 19th century to the present. It examines major political, social, intellectual and cultural issues and practices. It also focuses on important events, movements, and ideas that prevailed during the last century and affect its current realities.

This book was created as an open educational resource in the course Philosophy beyond Academia at the University of Groningen in 2023. Except for this introduction and the chapter Martin Buber’s I-It versus I-You Distinction, all of the chapters have been created by students of the MA Philosophy Programme of the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Groningen.

About the book:
Migration has been part of human history for as long as we can remember. The geographic movements of large groups of people have shaped human history, and also individuals have moved from one place to another in search of a better life. Migration has also been investigated from a philosophical perspective. In particular, immigration has been considered philosophically from the perspective of political philosophy and ethics. Next to various arguments for open and closed borders, there has also been work looking at more applied questions.

The approach of the present collection of articles on the philosophy of migration has been guided by a concern for philosophical methodology. This book explores the application of both philosophical methods and philosophical tools to the topic of migration. The aim is on the one hand to demonstrate what these tools and methods are and how they can be applied, and on the other hand to demonstrate how rich the topic of migration is from a philosophical perspective.

A study of Milton's poetry, with some attention to his literary sources, his contemporaries, his controversial prose, and his decisive influence on the course of English poetry.

This course is an introduction to many of the central issues in a branch of philosophy called philosophy of mind.

Mind the Gap encourages you to be mindful of that gap that takes place in various transitions in life: when you go away to college, travel to a foreign country, move to a new city, or start a new job. Until you start to feel at home in your new environment, you must negotiate feelings of discomfort. Mindfulness draws attention to your experience of transition, enabling you to cultivate an embodied presence, receptivity, and awareness of whatever arises in yourself and your surroundings, without judging or rejecting your experience. All too often, when we feel uncomfortable or unsettled, we immediately want to alleviate our feelings of discomfort by seeking comfort or distraction. When we do this, we rob ourselves of the opportunity to grow and develop in new ways.