Timothy B. Shutt Audio

In this lecture professor Timothy Shutt provides an overview of the life and literature of C.S. Lewis. He mentions various viewpoints that people have had about Lewis and says why he thinks Lewis is more popular now than he was in his time.

By near universal agreement, Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy stands very high among the greatest literary works ever written. This may come as a surprise, because Dante is best known for the Inferno, the first cantica of the Commedia, which is, by any standard, fairly grim in some respects.

Our purpose in this course will be to examine the foundations of Western Civilization in antiquity. We will look at the culture of the ancient Hebrews, of the ancient Greeks, and of the Romans...

Naval battles have long captured the popular imagination, from confrontations between Athens and Sparta in the ancient world to the epic conflicts that took place during the World Wars and beyond.

A born teacher and lecturer, Professor Timothy B. Shutt examines the history and culture of ancient Sparta, a society renowned for military excellence and adherence to the values of courage, discipline, duty, and the overcoming of fear.

C. S. Lewis produced a body of work as diverse as it is beloved. He is known the world over for his cherished Chronicles of Narnia, but he is also the author of novels for adults, scholarly work, and the writings that rival his Narnia series in terms of continued popularity: his eloquent defences of Christianity.

It is during the Middle Ages that modern Europe, indeed, modern Western culture as we know it, comes to be.

From the very outset in the West—from the time of Homer himself in about 750 BCE—the epic has been the most highly regarded of literary genres.

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.

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.

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.

Part four provides a close look at the period from the Renaissance to the Scientific Revolution and into the early Enlightenment.

The Odyssey of the West series continues it grand exploration of the literature, revolutionary theories, and feats of intellectual progress that have shaped-and continue to shape-the modern world.

The Odyssey of the West series, a grand exploration of art, literature, revolutionary theories, and intellectual progress through the ages, concludes with a fascinating look at the twentieth century.

Baseball has been celebrated as "America's National Pastime" for more than one hundred and fifty years, and recalls what, at least in retrospect, seems to be an earlier, more innocent age- long summer afternoons and sandlot ball, fresh rural air or brownstone stoops.

Each of these wars helped, in profound and perhaps surprising ways, to shape, even still, our ideals, our identity, and our values.