The Kasual Kafe

12/1/2007- I listened to the first two so far - IT has reinvigorated my reading and thirst for knowledge. I want to know everything.

Odyssey of the West I: A Classic Education through the Great Books: Hebrews and Greeks
Course Syllabus
Lecture 1 From Sumer to Athens

Lecture 2 The Epic of Gilgamesh

Lecture 3 The Hebrew Bible: Historical Background and Genesis

Lecture 4 The Hebrew Bible: Exodus and the Covenant

Lecture 5 The Hebrew Bible: Psalms, Prophets, The Song of Songs, and Job

Lecture 6 Greece: From the Bronze Age to the Archaic Age

Lecture 7 The Iliad

Lecture 8 Homer: The Odyssey

Lecture 9 Hesiod and Lyric Poetry

Lecture 10 Greek Tragedy: Aeschylus

Lecture 11 Greek Tragedy: Sophocles

Lecture 12 Greek Tragedy: Euripides

Lecture 13 Herodotus of Halicarnassus

Lecture 14 Greek Art

Course OverviewThis course is an interdisciplinary series of connected lectures delivered by eminent scholars from several colleges and universities. Each professor addresses an area of personal expertise and focuses not only on the matter at hand, but on the larger story-on the links between the works and the figures discussed. The lectures address-in chronological sequence-a series of major works that have shaped the ongoing development of Western thought both in their own right and in cultural dialogue with other traditions. In the process, the course engages many of the most perennial and far-reaching questions that we face in our daily lives.

The lectures draw upon the resources of history, philosophy, literary study, art history, religious studies, political science, and the history of science and technology, in hopes of engaging the rich and profoundly interactive discussions that, over the course of forty centuries, have made Western culture what it is.

In addition to the series editor, Professor Timothy B. Shutt, other eminent scholars featured in this course are Eric H. Cline from The George Washington University, Kim J. Hartswick from the City University of New York, and Peter Meineck, and Lawrence H. Schiffman from New York University.

Professor
Professor Timothy B. Shutt
(Kenyon College)
For eighteen years Professor Timothy Baker Shutt has taught at Kenyon College in rural Gambier, Ohio, famed for its splendid teaching, for its literary tradition, and for its unwavering commitment to the liberal arts. No teacher at Kenyon has ever been more often honored, both by the college and by ...

Odyssey of the West II: A Classic Education through the Great Books: From Athens to Rome and the Gospels
Course Syllabus

Lecture 1 Thucydides's The Peloponnesian War

Lecture 2 The Rise and Fall of Athens, Early Greek Philosophy, Xenophon

Lecture 3 Plato's Euthyphro

Lecture 4 Plato's Theaetetus

Lecture 5 Plato's Theory of Forms

Lecture 6 Aristotle's Philosophic System

Lecture 7 Aristotle's Ethics

Lecture 8 Alexander of Macedon and the Graeco-Roman World

Lecture 9 Virgil's Aeneid

Lecture 10 Ovid's Metamorphoses

Lecture 11 Roman Art and Engineering

Lecture 12 Plotinus and Neoplatonism

Lecture 13 The Christian Bible: The Gospels

Lecture 14 The Christian Bible: Acts and Epistles of St. Paul

Odyssey of the West III: A Classic Education through the Great Books: The Medieval World
Course Syllabus
Lecture 1 St. Augustine of Hippo and the Confessions and City of God

Lecture 2 Constantine, Boethius, and the Fall of the Western Roman Empire

Lecture 3 The Germanic North: Beowulf and The Poetic Edda

Lecture 4 Byzantium and the Eastern Empire

Lecture 5 The Rise of Islam

Lecture 6 Monasticism

Lecture 7 Scholastic Philosophy and St. Thomas Aquinas

Lecture 8 Troubadours and Celts in The Lais of Marie de France

Lecture 9 The Matter of Britain: Chrétien de Troyes

Lecture 10 Dante: Vita Nuova and Inferno

Lecture 11 Dante: The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso

Lecture 12 Gothic Art and Architecture

Lecture 13 Late Scholasticism and Early Modern Science

Lecture 14 Early Renaissance Culture

Course OverviewOdyssey of the West I and II explored timeless works from the ancient world that shaped, and continue to shape, the culture and philosophies of life today. In part three of this fascinating series, Professor Timothy B. Shutt of Kenyon College is joined by Professors Thomas F. Madden (Saint Louis University) and Monica Brzezinski Potkay (College of William & Mary) as they examine the most influential thinkers and works of the medieval world.

The Odyssey of the West series addresses in chronological sequence the works that have shaped-and indeed questioned -the ongoing development of Western thought both in its own right and in cultural dialogue with other traditions. Part three is a richly detailed look at St. Augustine, Beowulf, St. Thomas Aquinas, Authurian legends, Dante, Gothic art, and other highlights of the period. Through the course of these lectures, it becomes apparent that the "dark" ages were in fact a time of immense achievement, and a time that richly rewards those who study its art and philosophies.