Online Classes and Lectures: Some Recommendations

In recent years, many colleges and universities have decided to open their doors to the public free of charge. These schools haven’t increased their enrollment rates or suspended tuition costs, but they have made a number of their classes freely available to the public online, and many have made individual talks and symposia freely available online as well. It costs over $40,000 to attend MIT, Harvard, Yale, or Stanford each year, but you can download hundreds of hours of classes and talks from those universities free of charge. How can you find these materials? Well, there are a number of ways, but perhaps the simplest is to go to iTunes and browse the iTunesU (that’s “iTunes University”) service. Alternatively, you can search for individual schools or subjects by name and see what comes up. The range of available materials is truly impressive. You can listen to classes or lectures on subjects ranging from Assyriology to Zoology. And again, it’s all free. Listening to these materials is a great way to improve your education, and it’s also convenient – I download them to my iPod and listen to them while driving, while doing housework, or even while cooking. (See my previous post on using your iPod to learn more about the Bible.)

I have listened to a number of classes and lectures over the years. Here are some of my favorites:

Isabelle Pafford, “Hist 4A – The Ancient Mediterranean World” (Berkeley, Fall 2007)

Donald Kagan, “Introduction to Ancient Greek History” (Yale)

Paul Freedman, “The Early Middle Ages, 284-1000” (Yale)

Keith E. Wrightson, “Early Modern England” (Yale)

Isabelle Pafford, “Hist 106B – The Roman Empire” (Berkeley, Spring 2008)

Joanne Freeman, “The American Revolution” (Yale)

Margaret Lavinia Anderson, “Hist 5 - “The Making of Modern Europe, 1453 to Present” (Berkeley, Spring 2007)

John Merriman, “European Civilization, 1648-1945” (Yale)

Daniel Sargent, “Hist 130B – The United States and the World Since 1945” (Berkeley, 2010)

Robert J. Shiller, “Financial Markets” (Yale, 2011)

Christine Hayes, “Introduction to the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible)” (Yale)

Dale B. Martin, “Introduction to New Testament History and Literature” (Yale)

John Goldingay, various courses at Fuller Theological Seminary

Thomas Sheehan, “Historical Jesus” (Stanford)

J.I. Packer, “History and Theology of the Puritans” (Reformed Theological Seminary)

David Calhoun, “Reformation and Modern Church History” (Covenant Theological Seminary)

David Calhoun, “Ancient and Medieval Church History” (Covenant Theological Seminary)

Martin W. Lewis, “GEOG 3 – Geography of World Cultures” (Stanford)

Giuseppe Mazzotta, “Dante in Translation” (Yale)

John Rogers, “Milton” (Yale)

These classes are all outstanding, and I have enjoyed them all. If you are interested in history, then I highly recommend the classes by Pafford, Kagan, Merriman, and Anderson. They are some of the best history professors that I have ever heard, and I took a lot of history classes as an undergraduate student. Shiller’s class on financial markets is a great introduction to the subject, and anyone who is interested in geography, linguistics, or languages should listen to Lewis’s class. With regards to religion, the classes by Hayes, Martin, and Sheehan are all excellent, but they are also critical – conservatives may find them disagreeable, though they might want to listen to them anyway. (I should say that I agree with much of what Hayes and Martin say about the Bible, but that I disagree with much of what Sheehan says about it. Still, I find it challenging to listen to Sheehan, and I have learned a lot from him. Calhoun, Packer, and Goldingay are conservative.) The classes on Dante and Milton are special favorites of mine; I plan to listen to them again soon.

In addition to these classes, I would also like to recommend some of the lectures that I have heard over the years. Many of these were originally given as free-standing talks, but some were delivered as parts of symposia, and others were interviews:

Bryan Ward-Perkins, "The Fall of the Roman Empire" (Oxford)

Oliver Taplin, “Oliver Taplin on Classics” (Oxford)

John Broome, “John Broome on Rationality” (Oxford)

David Abernethy, “Trans-Saharan Trade Routes and Medieval Kingdoms of the Sahel” (Stanford)

David Abernethy, “A Tale of Two States: Development in Karnataka and Kerala” (Stanford)

Vali Nasr, “The Shia Revival and Politics of Change in the Middle East” (Stanford)

Abbas Milani, “Iran and the Rise of Radical Islam” (Stanford)

Martha C. Nussbaum, “The Real Clash of Civilizations: Democracy, Religious Violence, and the Case of India” (Yale)

Sinclair Ferguson, “Blessed Assurance and Bickering Theologians: A Doubtful Debate” (Reformed Theological Seminary)

N.T. Wright, “Jesus and the People of God: Whence and Whither Historical Jesus Studies and the Life of the Church” (Wheaton College)

Kevin J. Vanhoozer, “Wrighting the Wrongs of the Reformation? The State of the Union with Christ in St. Paul and in Protestant Soteriology” (Wheaton College)

David Bevington, “The Collected Works of Ben Jonson” (University of Chicago)

Martha Roth, “Chicago Assyrian Dictionary: The Final Chapter” (University of Chicago)

Larry Zbikowski, “Dissecting the Language of Music” (University of Chicago)

There are a number of classes that I plan to listen to in the near future. I have decided to include these as well (in case they should interest anyone):

John Geanakoplos, “Financial Theory” (Yale)

Jonathan Holloway, “African American History: From Emancipation to the Present” (Yale)

Charles Bailyn, “Frontiers and Controversies in Astrophysics” (Yale)

Paul H. Fry, “Introduction to Theory of Literature” (Yale)

John Merriman, “France Since 1871” (Yale)

David W. Blight, “The Civil War and Reconstruction Era, 1845-1877” (Yale)

Craig Wright, “Listening to Music” (Yale)

Roberto Gonázlez Echevarría, “Cervantes’ Don Quixote” (Yale)

Ian Shapiro, “The Moral Foundations of Politics” (Yale)

Thomas W. Laqueur, “Hist 5 – European Civilization from the Renaissance to the Present” (Berkeley)

Daniel Sargent, “International and Global History Since 1945” (Berkeley, 2012)

Martin W. Lewis, “Global Geopolitics” (Stanford)

Susanna Braund, “Virgil’s Aeneid” (Stanford)

Emma Smith, “Approaching Shakespeare” (Oxford)

Emma Smith, “Not Shakespeare: Elizabethan and Jacobean Popular Theater” (Oxford)

Before closing, I should mention Shelly Kagan’s “Death” class at Yale. It is one of the most popular of Yale’s online classes, and it is also incredibly popular with undergraduate students at Yale. (I was fortunate enough to serve as a teaching assistant for the class when I was at Yale; it was one of the most memorable teaching experiences that I have had.)

Finally, if you’re interested in philosophy, then you should try listening to Philosophy Talk. Philosophy Talk is a radio program hosted by Stanford professors Ken Taylor and John Perry. The shows are engaging and accessible, and most of the guests are interesting. I spent many hours listening to Philosophy Talk in graduate school, and I have fond memories of the program. My favorite shows include those on Hegel, Friendship, Mental Imagery, and Separation of Powers. I have heard good things about Philosophy Bites as well, but I haven’t really listened to it yet. Still, you may want to try it. (Philosophy Talk and Philosophy Bites can both be found online. Philosophy Talk was free when I listened to it years ago, but it may now cost a few dollars to download each show. Philosophy Bites is free, I believe.)