Courses tagged with "KIx" (52)

Alienation, overcrowding, sensory overload, homelessness, criminality, violence, loneliness, sprawl, blight. How have the realities of city living influenced literature's formal and thematic techniques? How useful is it to think of literature as its own kind of "map" of urban space? Are cities too grand, heterogeneous, and shifting to be captured by writers? In this seminar we will seek answers to these questions in key city literature, and in theoretical works that endeavor to understand the culture of cities.

This survey provides a general introduction to medieval European literature (from Late Antiquity to the Fifteenth Century) from the perspective of women writers from a variety of cultures, social backgrounds, and historical timeperiods. Though much of the class will be devoted to exploring the evolution of a new literary tradition by and for women from its earliest emergence in the West, wider historical and cultural movements will also be addressed: the Fall of the Roman Empire, the growth of religious communities, the shift from orality to literacy, the culture of chivalry and courtly love, the emergence of scholasticism and universities, changes in devotional practices, the persecution of heretics, the rise of nationalism and class consciousness. Authors will include some of the most famous women of the period: Hildegard of Bingen, Heloise of Paris, Marie de France, Christine de Pizan, Joan of Arc, Margery Kempe, along with many interesting and intriguing though lesser known figures.

This seminar provides intensive study of exciting texts by four influential American authors. In studying paired works, we can enrich our sense of each author's distinctive methods, get a deeper sense of the development of their careers, and shake up our preconceptions about what makes an author or a work "great." Students will get an opportunity to research an author in depth, as well as making broader comparisons across the syllabus.

Great managers are made, not born. Learn about the qualities and skills of great managers in this Business 101 course. Instructor Sherri Hartzell holds both an MBA and Ed.D., so she's an excellent choice to teach you about principles of management.

Start by learning about the different levels of management in organizations and then dive into how good managers lead to great employees. Students of business, budding entrepreneurs and independent online learners alike can benefit from these short, engaging video lessons and interactive online quizzes. Business 101: Principles of Management can prepare you to earn real, widely transferable college credit by taking the Principles of Management CLEP exam or the Excelsior Principles of Management exam .

Great managers are made, not born. Learn about the qualities and skills of great managers in this Business 101 course. Instructor Sherri Hartzell holds both an MBA and Ed.D., so she's an excellent choice to teach you about principles of management.

Start by learning about the different levels of management in organizations and then dive into how good managers lead to great employees. Students of business, budding entrepreneurs and independent online learners alike can benefit from these short, engaging video lessons and interactive online quizzes. Business 101: Principles of Management can prepare you to earn real, widely transferable college credit by taking the Principles of Management CLEP exam or the Excelsior Principles of Management exam .

Build your earth science vocabulary and learn about cycles of matter and types of sedimentary rocks through the Education Portal course Earth Science 101: Earth Science. Our series of video lessons and accompanying self-assessment quizzes can help you boost your scientific knowledge ahead of the Excelsior Earth Science exam . This course was designed by experienced educators and examines both science basics, like experimental design and systems of measurement, and more advanced topics, such as analysis of rock deformation and theories of continental drift.

This subject, cross-listed in Literature and Women's Studies, examines a range of American women authors from the seventeenth century to the present. It aims to introduce a number of literary genres and styles- the captivity narrative, slave novel, sensational, sentimental, realistic, and postmodern fiction- and also to address significant historical events in American women's history: Puritanism, the American Revolution, industrialization and urbanization in the nineteenth century, the Harlem Renaissance, World War II, the 60s civil rights movements. A primary focus will be themes studied and understood through the lens of gender: war, violence, and sexual exploitation (Keller, Rowlandson, Rowson); the relationship between women and religion (Rowlandson, Rowson, Stowe); labor, poverty, and working conditions for women (Fern, Davis, Wharton); captivity and slavery (Rowlandson, Jacobs); class struggle (Fern, Davis, Wharton, Larsen); race and identity (Keller, Jacobs, Larsen, Morrison); feminist revisions of history (Stowe, Morrison, Keller); and the myth of the fallen woman (take your pick). Essays and in-class reports will focus more particularly on specific writers and themes and will stress the skills of close reading, annotation, research, and uses of multimedia where appropriate.

This course, the first installment of the multi-part Poetry in America series, covers American poetry in cultural context through the year 1700. The course begins with Puritan poets--some orthodox, some rebel spirits--who wrote and lived in early New England. Focusing on Anne Bradstreet, Edward Taylor, and Michael Wigglesworth, among others, we explore the interplay between mortal and immortal, Europe and wilderness, solitude and sociality in English North America.

Led by Harvard Professor Elisa New, Poetry in America surveys nearly 400 years of American poetry. Through video lectures, archival images and texts, expeditions to historic sites, interpretive seminars with large and small groups, interviews with poets and scholars, and conversations about poems with distinguished Americans, Poetry in America embarks on a journey through the literature of a nation. Distinguished guests, including President Bill Clinton, Elena Kagan, Henry Louis Gates, Eve Ensler, John McCain, Andrea Mitchell, Michael Pollan, Drew Faust, Tony Kushner, and Nas, among others, bring fresh perspectives to the study of American Poetry.

HarvardX pursues the science of learning. By registering as an online learner in an HX course, you will also participate in research about learning. Read our research statement to learn more.

Shakespeare wrote for a popular audience and was immensely successful. Shakespeare is also rightly regarded as one of the greatest playwrights the world has known. This course will try to understand both Shakespeare’s popularity and his greatness by starting from a simple premise: that the fullest appreciation of Shakespeare can be achieved only when literary study is combined with analysis of the plays as theatre. Hence, as we delve into the dimensions that make Shakespeare’s plays so extraordinary--from the astonishing power of their language to their uncanny capacity to illuminate so much of human life--we will also explore them in performance from Shakespeare’s own theatre to the modern screen. At the same time, actors will occasionally join our effort and demonstrate ways of bringing the text alive as living theatre. Plays to be studied will include Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, King Lear, and The Winter's Tale.

Image courtesy Castle Rock Entertainment/The Kobal Collection

Before your course starts, try the new edX Demo where you can explore the fun, interactive learning environment and virtual labs. Learn more.

Is there a required textbook?
The texts of all six plays will be required. Free, electronic versions can be found on numerous sites on the internet, including the following, which offers pdf downloads: http://www.folgerdigitaltexts.org/download.html. However, free, internet editions do not provide glosses or notes that explain difficult words and phrases. We strongly recommend that participants purchase texts (paper or electronic) that provide important aids to reading.

Poetry lives in any reader, not necessarily in performance by the poet or a trained actor. The pleasure of actually saying a poem, or even saying it in your imagination—your mind’s ear—is essential. That is a central idea of “The Art of Poetry,” well demonstrated by the videos at favoritepoem.org: the photographer saying Sylvia Plath’s “Nick and the Candlestick,” the high school student saying Langston Hughes’ “Minstrel Man.” Those readers base what they say about each poem upon their experience of saying it.

The course is demanding, and based on a certain kind of intense reading, requiring prolonged, thorough— in fact, repeated—attention to specific poems.

The focus will be on elements of the art such as poetry’s historical relation to courtship; techniques of sound in free verse; poetry and difficulty; kidding and tribute—with only incidental attention to “schools,” jargons, categories, and coteries.

Learners are encouraged to think truly, carefully and passionately about what the poem says, along with how the poem feels in one’s own, actual or imagined voice. As Robert Pinsky says, in the Preface to Singing School: “this anthology will succeed if it encourages the reader to emulate it by replacing it . . . create your own anthology.” In a comparable way, this course hopes to inspire a lifelong study of poetry.

This module, the third installment of the multi-part Poetry in America series, focuses on the poetry of Walt Whitman, a quintessentially American writer whose work continues to bear heavily upon the American poetic tradition. We will explore Whitman’s relationship to the City, the Self, and the Body through his life and poetry. Distinguished guests in this module include Tour de France champion Greg LeMond, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, and Whitman scholar Karen Karbiener.

Led by Harvard Professor Elisa New, Poetry in America surveys nearly 400 years of American poetry. Through video lectures, archival images and texts, expeditions to historic sites, interpretive seminars with large and small groups, interviews with poets and scholars, and conversations about poems with distinguished Americans, Poetry in America embarks on a journey through the literature of a nation. Distinguished guests, including President Bill Clinton, Elena Kagan, Henry Louis Gates, Eve Ensler, John McCain, Andrea Mitchell, Michael Pollan, Drew Faust, Tony Kushner, and Nas, among others, bring fresh perspectives to the study of American Poetry.

HarvardX pursues the science of learning. By registering as an online learner in an HX course, you will also participate in research about learning. Read our research statement to learn more.