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This course offers an in-depth look at 11 carefully selected figures: Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zora Neale Hurston, Sherwood Anderson, Flannery O’Connor, William S. Burroughs, Kurt Vonnegut, Robert Coover, Toni Morrison, and Don DeLillo.

Our greatest public orator, Abraham Lincoln’s speeches still stir the heart of any American who encounters them.

The Aeneid is ancient Rome’s great national epic. It was basic to the education of generations of Romans and inspired such writers and artists as St. Augustine, Dante, Chaucer, Tennyson, and T. S. Elliot.

The story of Africa is the oldest and most event-filled chronicle of human activity on the planet. These 36 half-hour lectures cover this great historical drama, tracing the story of the sub-Saharan region of the continent from the earliest evidence of human habitation to the latest challenges facing African nations in the 21st century.

The writings that make up the New Testament stand at the very foundation of Christianity.

Henry VIII (r. 1509-1547), one of his biographers wrote, “changed the heart, mind, and face of Britain more than anything between the coming of the Normans and the coming of the factory.”

We call it the "Golden Age"—the period during the 5th century B.C. when the Greek city-state of Athens experienced a cultural flowering of extraordinary power and importance for Western culture.

In May 1905, an unknown 26-year-old Swiss patent clerk wrote to a friend about four scientific papers he had been working on in his spare time. He casually alluded to one as "revolutionary," and he confidently asserted that another would modify the "theory of space and time."

This series of lectures examines a crucial period in the history of the ancient world, the age ushered in by the extraordinary conquests of Alexander the Great.

With the exception of Jesus Christ, virtually no figure in antiquity is more renowned in the history of the West than Alexander the Great. His feats are the stuff of legend, inspiring medieval romances, painting and sculptures, and even blockbuster movies.

After a historical overview of the evolution of algebra, this course explores the various families of functions, from linear to quadratic to rational and, finally, to the family of exponential functions.

Algebra II is the crucial high school mathematics course in preparing for a college education.

This riveting 36-lecture course takes you beyond the economy of the United States and reveals the recent history of economies in Asian countries, including Japan, India, and China, as well as in other regions.

It was a transformation unprecedented in global history. In barely more than two centuries, the United States evolved from a sparsely settled handful of colonies whose very survival was in grave doubt into the most powerful nation the world has ever known—militarily, economically, technologically, culturally, politically, and even ideologically.

From 1861 to 1865, slavery ended and a loose-knit republic became a unified, continent-spanning power. The price in human lives was greater than that for all other American wars combined.

The United States is often thought of as a "young" nation. But in fact, it is the oldest continuing democracy in the world.

What defines an American? Is it the love of liberty, the pursuit of justice, the urge to invent, the desire for wealth, the drive to explore, the quest for spiritual values?

Americans pride themselves on being doers rather than thinkers.

This course explores the particularly rich history of religion in the U.S.

Why did those 13 colonies, with nothing resembling a unified and trained army, and with no navy to speak of, believe they could defeat the most powerful nation on the planet?

The revolution that created the U.S. was only one of many "American revolutions." From 1776 to 1825, wars for independence erupted throughout the Americas—from Boston to Buenos Aires—creating 19 new nations.

Although realms such as Akkad, Assyria, Babylon, Hatti, and Ur dwell on the fringes of recorded history, they nevertheless represent human civilization's first experiments in empire building.

Starting with the period from the late Bronze Age, c. 1500 B.C.E., these lectures proceed chronologically and concentrate on the 200-year interval from 600 to 400 B.C.E.

Paul is one of the most important, most controversial, and least understood figures in earliest Christianity. This course addresses many questions concerning his embattled life and work.

Argumentation: The Study of Effective Reasoning is a rigorous introduction to the formal study of argumentation—communication that seeks to persuade others through reasoned judgment.