The Great Courses
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What was your reaction when members of the Charleston, SC, church publicly forgave Dylann Roof, the young man who had murdered nine of their members? Could you forgive him? Did that forgiveness seem morally right or wrong to you? Explore how Christian and Buddhist philosophers explain forgiveness and the redemption of human sinners. Do you believe anyone is truly beyond redemption?
62) Theory of Everything: The Quest to Explain All Reality: What Pushes The Universe Apart: Dark Energy
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Great Courses volume 19
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Turn to dark energy, the ghostly energy field that appears to be pushing the universe apart at an ever-greater rate. Learn how this extraordinary discovery was made in 1998, and explore theories that attempt to explain dark energy and its strange consequences.
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Language A to Z volume 23
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Take a quick trip to southern Africa on an investigation of one of a whole group of click languages called the Khoi-San family that could very well be one of Earth's first languages. Then, follow the odd story of the "death" of a language that actually isn't dying at all: Yiddish.
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Trace the origins of human habitation on the mainland and islands of Greece. Study the Bronze Age cultures of the Cycladic islands; the famed Minoan civilization centered on Crete, with its palaces and religious ritual; and the Mycenaean civilization, with its monumental architecture. Learn about Mycenae's connection with the Trojan War, and what may have led to its collapse.
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The modern workplace can be a stressful environment. But whether that stress is harmful or helpful depends on an individual's mindset, which can be changed. Examine specific strategies that can help develop resilience. A more resilient workforce can lead to increased performance and decreased employee turnover.
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Are psychopaths responsible for their actions? You might be surprised to learn that many psychologists and philosophers think they are not, due to their inability to recognize important moral facts. Guided by a variety of philosophers, you will consider how much responsibility evil-doers can and should accept for their crimes, and in what ways they might not be so different from the rest of us.
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Turn to the 2,000-year-old Hindu Bhagavad Gita to study the roles played by our desires and expectations, and why we are so often disappointed in our lives. But how could we live without desire and expectations? One path provided by the Gita, being so absorbed in an activity that we lose our sense of self, leads to the experience we know of today as "flow."
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Great Courses volume 20
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Learn how to make your prose writing flow and avoid choppiness through key syntactic choices. Study the known-new contract, a principle for presenting information by placing known information before new information, sentence to sentence. Examine three different ways to use this principle, and look at how to present information clearly in scientific writing.
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Reflexive verbs direct the action onto the subject, as in "I wash myself." Practice key Italian reflexive verbs along with their pronouns for talking about daily routines and wellness. In the Marches region, reflect on its picturesque scenery, Renaissance and medieval architecture, and the legacy of Raphael and Rossini, and learn the vocabulary of the body as well as how to tell time in Italian.
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Life and Works of Jane Austen volume 17
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Take a tour of the finer points of Regency clothing and luxury items, and see how Austen uses descriptions of dress and accessories to make subtle (and not-so-subtle) observations on both the social status and the moral values of her characters. Better understand how "frivolous" distinctions about what one wears take on significant meanings in Austen's fiction.
73) What Darwin Didn't Know: The Modern Science of Evolution: Coevolution: Peace Accords and Arms Races
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Darwin saw that natural selection not only leads to species that evolve to their mutual advantage, but to enemies that wage an evolutionary arms race that ends up benefiting both sides. Study coevolutionary cases - from the yucca plant and its symbiotic partner, the yucca moth, to the fastest animal on Earth, the cheetah, and its prey the springbok antelope, which has evolved to be almost as fast.
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Great Tours France through the Ages volume 21
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Explore famous artists' haunts of Paris, beginning with the neighborhood of Montmartre, where the quality of light and bohemian culture were a magnet for painters and writers during the Belle Epoque. Visit the cemeteries of Montmartre and Pere Lachaise, the resting places of many famous Parisians and expats. Learn about the literary culture of Montparnasse and enjoy two of its most famous cafes.
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Great Courses volume 16
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Gravity is by far the weakest of the fundamental forces. Learn how Newton achieved the first major unification in physics by showing that terrestrial and celestial gravity are the same. He also tacitly equated inertial mass and gravitational mass, leading to the startling theory 250 years later.
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Discover how an elected official with a self-admitted seventh-grade proficiency in math earned fabulous returns as treasurer of Orange County, California, and then plunged the system into the largest municipal default in United States history up to that time. His strategy - and downfall - relied on two financial instruments. Track down where he went wrong.
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A voyage to another star would require exact information on distances and properties of the stars. This lecture shows how astronomers measure the distance to nearby stars and how they determine their surface temperatures, which are the basis for stellar classification.
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Test Professor Fullenkamp's theory that all rogue traders are the same by studying two infamous insiders: Jerome Kerviel, who cost the French bank Societe Generale more than $6 billion, and Nick Leeson, whose errant trading bankrupted Baring Brothers. Find out how trading firms are organized, and pinpoint the Achilles heel that allowed both men to go rogue.
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Creative Thinker's Toolkit volume 20
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To maximize the power of creative thinking, you need the right emotional mindset. Professor Puccio offers you tips for doing so by investigating emotional intelligence, revealing the dangers of emotional hijacking, and stressing the importance of reflecting and redirecting to help stave off your fear, anxiety, and uncertainty.