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Category Archives: Idea of the week
A new look at Rococo
The Rococo style of European art has always left me cold: too pastel, too frivolous, too pretty. I’m more into the Renaissance painters and the Impressionists. But with UCSD art historian William Norman Bryson as my guide in his new … Continue reading
Posted in Academic podcasts, Art, Courses, Five-star professors, Idea of the week
Tagged art history, Rococo, UCSD, William Norman Bryson
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The Democratic Peace: a figment of our imagination?
Ever since Immanuel Kant argued that democracies were bound to be more peace loving than autocracies, theorists and policy makers have been in love with the “democratic peace.” Today it’s a bedrock of American foreign policy. Both Democrats and Republicans … Continue reading
American News Media course from UCSD
News media surround us like the air we breathe, but we’re barely aware of how they operate and how they influences the way we think. But if you tune into American News Media (feed, booklist), a new course taught by … Continue reading
Posted in Academic podcasts, Courses, Five-star professors, History, Idea of the week, Political Science
Tagged Daniel Hallin, journalism, News Media, UCSD
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Why are we so fat?
Robert Lustig, professor of pediatrics at University of California, San Francisco, thinks he knows the culprit. It’s the sugar in all those sugary sodas, sugary sports drinks and fruit juices that we down so casually each day. He lays out … Continue reading
What’s wrong with the war on drugs?
What is the single policy change that would bring about the largest reduction in drug abuse and the largest reduction in crime? Is it Legalize marijuana, cocaine and heroin? Increase enforcement and jail the drug kingpins? Double the tax on … Continue reading
Posted in Academic podcasts, Courses, Five-star professors, Idea of the week, Political Science
Tagged crime policy, Mark Kleiman, UCLA, war on drugs
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Why the West Rules – For Now
Ian Morris is nothing if not ambitious. A professor of history and archaeology at Stanford University, Morris has written a new book, Why the West Rules – For Now in which he attempts an audacious unified field theory of history … Continue reading
Posted in Academic podcasts, Archaeology, Books, Five-star professors, History, Idea of the week, iTunesU
Tagged book review, Ian Morris, Stanford University
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Does God have a physical body?
Brace yourself for this one: the God of the Hebrew Bible has a real physical body. That’s what biblical scholar Benjamin Sommer argues in his lecture The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel: Part I (website, iTunes) … Continue reading
Posted in Archaeology, Bible, Five-star professors, History, Idea of the week, iTunesU, Jewish studies, Lectures, Religion
Tagged ancient Israel, Benjamin Sommer
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Lyric poetry reveals China’s individualistic side
Want to really annoy a Harvard professor? Just tell Comparative Literature Professor Stephen Owen that Western tradition is individualistic while Chinese tradition is collective. “I thought I’ve told people for 20 years this is not true, and it keeps coming … Continue reading
Posted in Asian Studies, Five-star professors, Idea of the week, Literature
Tagged China, Harvard University, poetry, Stephen Owen
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The pursuit of happiness
Just what did Thomas Jefferson mean when he wrote that our inalienable rights include life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Modern Americans are pretty sure they knew what he was talking about: our freedom to build our families and … Continue reading
Critiquing social psychology
A few years back I listened to a UC Berkeley class on social psychology, and heard about scores of experiments that had tried to tease out basic principles of human behavior by bringing people into a laboratory setting and presenting … Continue reading
Posted in Academic podcasts, Courses, Five-star professors, Idea of the week, Psychology
Tagged John Kihlstrom, Stanley Milgram
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