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Political, satirical, comic and incendiary: from Hogarth's images of London life, through the Golden Age of Punch Magazine, to the present day; the eclectic and vibrant tradition of representing ones life and times in cartoons continues to hold its place in modern Britain in print, in film and now through the internet.
It is obvious that certain narratives in the New Testament contradict each other and cannot be woven into a historically coherent whole. How, then, do scholars construct who the "historical Jesus" was? There are several principles that historical Jesus researchers follow, which include considering data that 1) has multiple attestations and 2) is dissimilar to a text's theological tendencies as more likely to be historical. Using the modern...more
Central Banks, originally created as bankers' banks, implement monetary policy using their leverage over the supply of money and credit standards. Since the Bank of England was founded in 1694, through the gold standard which lasted until the 1930s, and into modern times, central banks have pursued monetary policy to stabilize the banking system. Central banks monitor currency flows and inflation, acting when crises, such as bank runs, eme...more
Early Modern England: Politics, Religion, and Society under the Tudors and Stuarts (HIST 251)Professor Wrightson discusses the Elizabethan settlement of religion and the manner in which it was defended from both 'Papist' and 'Puritan' opponents. The settlement of religion achieved in 1559 (and enforced through the Act of Uniformity) restored the royal supremacy, but was in some respects deliberately ambiguous, combining moderately Protesta...more
Early Modern England: Politics, Religion, and Society under the Tudors and Stuarts (HIST 251)In this lecture Professor Wrightson provides an overview of central political issues of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. He discusses the Queen's personal character and identity-forming experiences (and the challenges posed by her gender), the manner in which she interacted with her political advisors (notably William Cecil) and addresses the foreig...more
Foundations of Modern Social Thought (SOCY 151)We shift from seventeenth century England to eighteenth century France and from the methodological individualism of Hobbes and Locke to the methodological collectivism of Montesquieu and Rousseau. Working from a perspective that there is a general will apart and above the sum of the opinions of individuals, Montesquieu's work focuses primarily on the law and on manners of governing rather tha...more
This course explores the causes, course, and consequences of the American Civil War, from the 1840s to 1877. The primary goal of the course is to understand the multiple meanings of a transforming event in American history. Those meanings may be defined in many ways: national, sectional, racial, constitutional, individual, social, intellectual, or moral. Four broad themes are closely examined: the crisis of union and disunion in an expandi...more
A special event to mark the publication of Professor Barrow's new book, 'The Book of Universes'. This is a book about universes, a story that revolves around a single unusual and unappreciated fact: that Einstein’s famous theory of relativity describe universes – entire universes. Not many solutions of Einstein’s tantalizing universe equations have ever been found, but those that have are all very remarkable. Some of them describe universe...more
Just twenty percent of the members in any group or social system own eighty percent of the assets, indicative that scale indicates a growing concentration of power. The top 2,000 companies employ and influences a million people in the modern world, says author David Rothkopf. With cross-ownership and networking in all circles - business, military, religion, and the Internet among them - a few succeed, but the majority of participants withi...more
Technology and innovation underlie finance. In order to manage risks successfully, particularly long-term, we must pool large amounts of risk among many, diverse people and overcome barriers such as moral hazard and erroneous framing. Inventions such as insurance contracts and social security, and information technology all the way from such simple things as paper, and the postal service to modern computers have helped to manage risks and ...more
There is a longstanding debate over the origins of syphilis, in which arguments over how the disease arrived in Europe have historically been linked to racist and xenophobic ideologies as well as to scientific and historical research. Whatever its provenance, the major syphilis epidemic of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries spread in the train of war, alongside Charles VIII of France's armies. Syphilis was distinguished bot...more
In this lecture, Professor Brownell asks whether modern agriculture is environmentally, culturally, and morally sustainable. First, he explores how genetically modified foods both benefit and hinder world sustainability, such as with the case study of BT corn, and contamination to different parts of the environment. Secondly, he discusses the issue of animal welfare and its relationship with sustainability by exploring how modern food cond...more
