Great writing begins--and ends--with the sentence. Whether two words ("Jesus wept.") or 1,287 words (a sentence in William Faulkner's Absalom! Absalom!), sentences have the power to captivate, entertain, motivate, educate, and, most importantly, delight. Understanding the variety of ways to construct sentences, from the smallest clause to the longest sentence, is important to enhancing your appreciation of great writing and potentially improving your...

Presents a history and criticism of music and how to listen and appreciate it.

The "Long Debate" on the nature of truth, the scale of real values, the life one should aspire to live, the character of justice, the sources of law, and the terms of civic and political life is encompassed by the name philosophy. Three persistent themes--understood as problems--are knowledge, conduct, and governance, on which there is a storehouse of insights, some so utterly persuasive as to have shaped thought itself. Beginning with Plato and Aristotle,...

Presents a series of twenty-four lectures that examines in detail the New Testament. Professor Bart D. Ehrman discusses its form, the methods of composition, its authors and their original audiences, and the surrounding historical context. He focuses on questions of historical evidence and explanation rather than on issues of religious belief and theological truth.

Lectures by Dr. David Zarefsky, Professor of Argumentation and Debate and Professor of Communication Studies, Northwestern University, cover the history of rhetoric and debate as well as analysis of different types of arguments in various situations.

Presents 12 lectures (ca. 30 min. each) by Edward M. Murphy on astronomy.

Presents an overview of jazz, its elements, and its history.