Online courses directory (457)

This course teaches scientists to become more effective writers, using practical examples and exercises. Topics include: principles of good writing, tricks for writing faster and with less anxiety, the format of a scientific manuscript, and issues in publication and peer review.

This course is an introduction to writing prose for a public audience—specifically, prose that is both critical and personal, that features your ideas, your perspective, and your voice to engage readers. The focus of our reading and your writing will be American popular culture, broadly defined. That is, you will write essays that critically engage elements and aspects of contemporary American popular culture and that do so via a vivid personal voice and presence. In the coming weeks we will read a number of pieces that address current issues in popular culture. These readings will address a great many subjects from the contemporary world to launch and elaborate an argument or position or refined observation. And you yourselves will write a great deal, attending always to the ways your purpose in writing and your intended audience shape what and how you write. The end result of our collaborative work will be a new edition, the seventh, of Culture Shock!, an online magazine of writings on American popular culture, which we will post on the Web for the worldwide reading public to enjoy.

"What people do with food is an act that reveals how they construe the world."
- Marcella Hazan, The Classic Italian Cookbook

If you are what you eat, what are you? Food is at once the stuff of life and a potent symbol; it binds us to the earth, to our families, and to our cultures. In this class, we explore many of the fascinating issues that surround food as both material fact and personal and cultural symbol. We read essays by Toni Morrison, Michael Pollan, Wendell Berry, and others on such topics as family meals, eating as an "agricultural act" (Berry), slow food, and food's ability to awaken us to "our own powers of enjoyment" (M. F. K. Fisher). We will also read Pollan's most recent book, In Defense of Food, and discuss the issues it raises as well as its rhetorical strategies. Assigned essays will grow out of memories and the texts we read, and may include personal narrative as well as essays that depend on research. Revision of essays and workshop review of writing in progress are an important part of the class. Each student will make one oral presentation in this class.

This course provides the opportunity for students-as readers, viewers, writers and speakers-to engage with social and ethical issues they care deeply about. Over the course of the semester, through discussing the writing of classic and contemporary authors, we will explore different perspectives on a range of social issues such as free speech, poverty and homelessness, mental illness, capital punishment and racial and gender inequality. In addition, we will analyze selected documentary and feature films and photographs that represent or dramatize social problems or issues. In assigned essays, students will have the opportunity to write about social and ethical issues of their own choice. This course aims to help students to grow significantly in their ability to understand and grapple with arguments, to integrate secondary print and visual sources and to craft well-reasoned and elegant essays. Students will also keep a reading journal and give oral presentations. In class we will discuss assigned texts, explore strategies for successful academic writing, freewrite and respond to one another's essays.

This course is presented in Mandarin.

《世界文化地理》是介绍世界文化地理的格局、形成、发展过程，培养学 生用地理学的眼光去观察和分析世界上文化现象的发生、发展与空间分布特点。 《世界文化地理》是北京大学最受本科生同学欢迎的通选课之一。课程内容信息量很大，包罗万象，把世界地理同世界历史、文化、艺术等融合在一起。任课教师带 领学生用地理空间的观点、时间变化的角度，去观察和分析世界上的文化现象。课程内容兼具科学性和趣味性，每年吸引了大量学生选课。  《世界文化地理》具体内容包括：世界文化地理的基本研究方法，世界文化区的划分，世界人口分布与人口迁移，农业的起源、传播与区域差异，城市的起源与扩 散，城市形态的区域差异与特点，世界主要语言、宗教、人种的空间分布及其相互关系，地理大发现与世界殖民体系的形成，世界地缘政治与世界地理系统的空间结 构特点，全球经济议题化、城市化现象及其伴随的政治、经济、社会问题，等等。  《世界文化地理》的授课内容兼及自然地理和文化地理两大方面，课程综合吸收国内外相关的最新教材和研究论著的内容，采取地图、照片、图表等表现形式，力图 生动浅显地展示世界文化地理格局的基本空间差异和变化过程，注意专题介绍与综合分析相结合，空间差异分析与世界变化分析相结合，重视培养大学生的两种能 力：运用地理学的、空间的眼光来观察、分析世界上文化现象的能力和从时间的角度来看待世界上文化现象发展变化过程的能力。  课程有期中和期末两次考试，最终有期末成绩。

点击上方绿色按钮报名。

Cultural Geography of the World is one of the most popular undergraduate courses at Peking University. It is an inclusive, general introductory course, combining natural and cultural geography with history and art. Through the lens of humanism and independent thinking, learners will be encouraged to observe and analyze cultural phenomena from spatial and time perspectives. This course has 12 chapters: The basic research method of world cultural geography; The division of world culture areas; The world's population distribution and migration of population; Origin of agriculture; Diffusion and regional differences; The origin and spread of the city; Regional differences and characteristics of urban morphology; The spatial distribution of the major languages, religions, ethnicities in the world and their relationship; The great geographical discovery and the formation of the world colonial system; World geopolitics and the spatial structures of the world geography system; Global economic integration; Urbanization and its political, economic, social impacts. Using relevant domestic and foreign textbooks, publications, maps, photos, and charts to show the difference and the changing progress of spatial patterns of the cultures, learners will be asked to observe and analyze cultural phenomena with geographic and spatial vision and to consider the development and changing process of the cultural phenomena in light of time sequence. The course will include a midterm and final exam.

The course is one of the PKU-DeTao MOOCs, which is a joint effort by Peking University and DeTao Masters Academy.

本课程旨在加深学员对中国历史与古代社会生活的认识；促进对传统文化核心观点与基本精神的理解与把握；培养文化研究初步方法。

本課程是作為歷史入門通識而設計，重點在於藉由歷史教育啟發同學的思維，而非背誦歷史知識。具體的課程目標，是為了讓修課同學感到： （一）有趣：重新發現學習歷史的樂趣。 （二）有用：重新認識學習歷史的價值。

人文學，其特色在於「慢熱」，需要耐心細嚐、咀嚼古聖先賢的智慧結晶與其文字背後所隱含的真正意義。史記系列課程將透過對《史記》一書的導讀，引領同學們探究史學之「真」與「善」。 不管你是對中華文化感興趣者、想更深入了解傳統史學者、喜歡論理分析者、或是久仰太史公司馬遷之名之愛好者，這門課一定會讓你收穫良多。因為《史記》不僅記載了無數精彩非凡的歷史人事，更貫串了在它之前的多數古代典籍，可說是集中國上古文明精粹於一書。更重要的是，這門課程中將引導大家如何讀《史記》，進而學會如何讀中國史書、如何讀中國書。 這是一場史學的思辨之旅，希望各位同學千萬不要錯過！

媒介批评是立足于批判的价值立场，对媒介活动及其产品和传播观念进行研究。

社会调查与研究方法， 首先，是一套观察社会现象、测量社会现象的工具； 其次，是一套分析和运用社会现象数据的科学方法； 最高境界，则是一套针对社会、经济、教育、政治、法律、管理、公共卫生、新闻报道等人类的生产与生活现象，进行科学沟通的思维逻辑与表达方式。

社会调查与研究方法， 首先，是一套观察社会现象、测量社会现象的工具； 其次，是一套分析和运用社会现象数据的科学方法； 最高境界，则是一套针对社会、经济、教育、政治、法律、管理、公共卫生、新闻报道等人类的生产与生活现象，进行科学沟通的思维逻辑与表达方式。

《紅樓夢》不只是一部青春紀事，更是一闋母神的頌歌；它既熱烈地宣揚了少女之美，卻也莊嚴地禮讚著母性力量。本次課程將聚焦在女媧─警幻─賈母─元妃─王夫人─劉姥姥六位成熟女性，針對其在書中扮演角色的功能與位置，進行深入的剖析，重新辨明這些「母神」具備的崇高形象。