![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckAlexander the Great and the Macedonian Empire - Lecture series by Professor Kenneth W. Harl. Watching this (as opposed to just listening to it) actually matters because the diagrams showing how the battles probably went make a difference in terms of understanding Alexander as a military commander. The lecturer is a big fan of Alexander’s father, Philip of Macedonia.
Building Star Trek - This is mostly about putting together exhibits of surviving props from the original series and about scientific research chasing ideas that come from things shown in the series. There’s a good bit about people at the Smithsonian restoring the original Enterprise model (which makes sense because the film was done by the Smithsonian).
Food: A Cultural Culinary History - Series of thirty six half hour lectures by Professor Ken Albala of the University of the Pacific. I enjoyed the early lectures and those toward the end more than those in the middle. Basically, I got bored when there was too much discussion of recipes and flavors.
A History of Eastern Europe - Twenty four half hour lectures by Professor Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius. This got to WWI in eight lectures, so I think it might more properly be labeled a history of modern Eastern Europe. WWII got three lectures. The last six lectures were the collapse of the Soviet Union and what came after (the date on the lectures seems to be 2015). I don’t think that the DVD version of this has much advantage over the audiobook version. There were a lot of photographs of historical personages and of places and a handful of maps but nothing in that direction that couldn’t be found on Wikipedia.
The Mysterious Etruscans - Series of twenty four half hour lectures by Professor Steven Tuck of Miami University. This is another set of lectures where the visuals matter. A lot of what is ‘known’ about the Etruscans is extrapolated from surviving art, and without seeing the art in question, it’s hard to evaluate the evidence. I remember my step-father telling me about the Etruscans in the 1970s and how nobody knew anything about them at all. I don’t know if that was true then or not, but it certainly seems not to be true now. I would have liked to know more about Etruscan religion and deities. Professor Tuck says that many of the deities were genderfluid and that all of them started out more or less amorphous and disembodied, only being assigned physical form in later years when foreign influences grew stronger. Professor Tuck also believes that existing evidence indicates that men and women were much more equal in Etruscan society than in other civilizations of the Mediterranean during that time. Looking at the art he showed in the lectures, I can definitely say that women are more visible and that the art reflects a value on love/respect between spouses. There’s also art of women doing things they wouldn’t have been allowed to do elsewhere-- Attending formal banquets and sporting events, for example.
A Panda Is Born and Baby Panda's First Year - I’m pretty sure we’d seen both parts of this before, but we weren’t entirely sure about Baby Panda’s First Year. We skipped A Panda Is Born because we weren’t interested in two years of trying to get the pandas to mate. Baby Panda’s First Year had a bit of that but spent most of its time on pandas playing.
Penguins: the Spy in the Huddle - The voiceover here is David Tennant. There are penguins in peril at several points, but the episodes mostly avoid showing death. There is one dead chick shown, but they don’t show us the death, just the sad aftermath. I found the fake penguins and such containing cameras unconvincing, but apparently the penguins didn’t. I wondered a bit about them smelling wrong and about body heat and the lack thereof. There was an amusing scene while predatory birds tried to carry off a fake egg containing a camera.
The Skeptic’s Guide to American History - Series of twenty four lectures by Professor Mark A. Stoler of the University of Vermont. The lecturer’s main point was that popular culture tends to rest on a lot of historical lies. There are a lot of things that were important at the time but that have been forgotten and a lot of bits of history that have been turned into tidy cause and effect stories. I didn’t entirely like the lecturer’s delivery. He tended to pause in odd places for long enough to make me think there was a problem with the DVD. There were bits of history that were new to me because I’d never looked much at those particular eras, but I wasn’t surprised by much of anything in his lecture on the causes of WWII.
The Story of Medieval England: From King Arthur to the Tudor Conquest - 36 half hour lectures by Professor Jennifer Paxton of Georgetown University. I was particularly interested in the lectures that covered the time before the Norman Conquest because I’ve seen/read less about those events. Professor Paxton seemed to have a sense of humor about her subject which helps.
Building Star Trek - This is mostly about putting together exhibits of surviving props from the original series and about scientific research chasing ideas that come from things shown in the series. There’s a good bit about people at the Smithsonian restoring the original Enterprise model (which makes sense because the film was done by the Smithsonian).
Food: A Cultural Culinary History - Series of thirty six half hour lectures by Professor Ken Albala of the University of the Pacific. I enjoyed the early lectures and those toward the end more than those in the middle. Basically, I got bored when there was too much discussion of recipes and flavors.
A History of Eastern Europe - Twenty four half hour lectures by Professor Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius. This got to WWI in eight lectures, so I think it might more properly be labeled a history of modern Eastern Europe. WWII got three lectures. The last six lectures were the collapse of the Soviet Union and what came after (the date on the lectures seems to be 2015). I don’t think that the DVD version of this has much advantage over the audiobook version. There were a lot of photographs of historical personages and of places and a handful of maps but nothing in that direction that couldn’t be found on Wikipedia.
The Mysterious Etruscans - Series of twenty four half hour lectures by Professor Steven Tuck of Miami University. This is another set of lectures where the visuals matter. A lot of what is ‘known’ about the Etruscans is extrapolated from surviving art, and without seeing the art in question, it’s hard to evaluate the evidence. I remember my step-father telling me about the Etruscans in the 1970s and how nobody knew anything about them at all. I don’t know if that was true then or not, but it certainly seems not to be true now. I would have liked to know more about Etruscan religion and deities. Professor Tuck says that many of the deities were genderfluid and that all of them started out more or less amorphous and disembodied, only being assigned physical form in later years when foreign influences grew stronger. Professor Tuck also believes that existing evidence indicates that men and women were much more equal in Etruscan society than in other civilizations of the Mediterranean during that time. Looking at the art he showed in the lectures, I can definitely say that women are more visible and that the art reflects a value on love/respect between spouses. There’s also art of women doing things they wouldn’t have been allowed to do elsewhere-- Attending formal banquets and sporting events, for example.
A Panda Is Born and Baby Panda's First Year - I’m pretty sure we’d seen both parts of this before, but we weren’t entirely sure about Baby Panda’s First Year. We skipped A Panda Is Born because we weren’t interested in two years of trying to get the pandas to mate. Baby Panda’s First Year had a bit of that but spent most of its time on pandas playing.
Penguins: the Spy in the Huddle - The voiceover here is David Tennant. There are penguins in peril at several points, but the episodes mostly avoid showing death. There is one dead chick shown, but they don’t show us the death, just the sad aftermath. I found the fake penguins and such containing cameras unconvincing, but apparently the penguins didn’t. I wondered a bit about them smelling wrong and about body heat and the lack thereof. There was an amusing scene while predatory birds tried to carry off a fake egg containing a camera.
The Skeptic’s Guide to American History - Series of twenty four lectures by Professor Mark A. Stoler of the University of Vermont. The lecturer’s main point was that popular culture tends to rest on a lot of historical lies. There are a lot of things that were important at the time but that have been forgotten and a lot of bits of history that have been turned into tidy cause and effect stories. I didn’t entirely like the lecturer’s delivery. He tended to pause in odd places for long enough to make me think there was a problem with the DVD. There were bits of history that were new to me because I’d never looked much at those particular eras, but I wasn’t surprised by much of anything in his lecture on the causes of WWII.
The Story of Medieval England: From King Arthur to the Tudor Conquest - 36 half hour lectures by Professor Jennifer Paxton of Georgetown University. I was particularly interested in the lectures that covered the time before the Norman Conquest because I’ve seen/read less about those events. Professor Paxton seemed to have a sense of humor about her subject which helps.
no subject
Date: 2017-05-17 07:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-05-17 08:00 pm (UTC)These lecture series are all published by the same company. They've got science lecture series and math and psychology and so on. Just about any sort of introductory course one might think of. (I'm unconvinced the ones that offer courses in Latin or in writing essays. I don't think one can learn those things from taped lectures.)