Catalog Search Results
21) Aristotle
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English
Description
In this program, the far-reaching philosophical ideas of Plato's star pupil are examined by world-renowned author and professor Bryan Magee and noted Brown University professor Martha Nussbaum. Aristotle overcomes Plato's dualism of the intelligible and sensible worlds with his principle of the inseparable nature of eternal matter and form. The principles of potentiality and actuality are examined, along with Aristotle's theory of the four causes-material,...
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English
Description
What is "the good," and why is it that one can never step into the same river twice? This program featuring Princeton University's Alexander Nehamas and Richard Sorabji, honorary fellow at Wolfson College, the University of Oxford, addresses core topics in ancient philosophy such as freedom and fate, permanence and change, happiness, the nature of the cosmos, and the immortality of the soul. Concepts as articulated by key figures including Socrates,...
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English
Description
Systematic thought about the true nature of things is the very foundation of philosophical reasoning: idealism and materialism.realism, nominalism, and conceptualism.the noumenal and the phenomenal.logical positivism, emergentism, and modal realism. In this program, Rutgers philosophers Brian McLaughlin, Barry Loewer, John Hawthorne, Ted Sider, and Dean Zimmerman discuss the nature of this most ancient branch of philosophy, exploring concepts of causation,...
24) Dante's inferno
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English
Description
This ambitious program, produced by the award-winning film director Peter Greenaway and internationally known artist Tom Phillips, brings to life the first eight cantos of Dante's Inferno. Featuring a cast that includes Sir John Gielgud as Virgil, the cantos are not conventionally dramatized. Instead, the feeling of Dante's poem is conveyed through juxtaposed imagery that conjures up a contemporary vision of hell, and its meaning is deciphered by...
25) Decameron Nights
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English
Description
This fascinating film combines an adaptation of stories from Giovanni Boccaccio's bawdy medieval classic The Decameron with a storyline featuring the author himself. The film is known for its beautiful setting and overall visual appeal.
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English
Description
The most celebrated work of Dante Alighieri is certainly the Divina Commedia-a vision of hell, purgatory, and heaven that provides a strangely surrealistic view of medieval attitudes on religious dogma and the price of disobedience. In this program, dramatizations of scenes depicting courtly love, sexual love, love of God, and love of the Virgin Mary are featured.
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English
Description
If wisdom were given me under the express condition that it must be kept hidden and not uttered, I should refuse it. Thus wrote the 1st-century Roman philosopher Seneca in one of the many letters he wrote to his disciple, Lucilius. These letters were later collected together to form Moral Epistles, one of the central ethical works of the classical period. This program examines Seneca's particular brand of stoic philosophy and chronicles an extraordinary...
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English
Description
With a novelist's attention to psychological detail, a diarist's love of personal history, and a moralist's penchant for spinning parables, the Roman writer Plutarch created an altogether new kind of biographical history with his Parallel Lives, a series of paired portraits of major figures from classical Greece and Rome. In this program, Plutarch himself is held up for scrutiny, and he gives an extraordinary accounting of himself. Philosopher, priest...
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English
Description
The Shahnameh, Iran's national epic, has been illustrated again and again over the course of Persian history. This epic poem, written by the poet Firdausi in the early 11th century, recounts Persia's mythological and historical past. This program traces the development of Shahnameh painting over three centuries and under the patronage of three distinct Persian dynasties. Parallels between miniature painting and other art forms of the time are drawn,...
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English
Description
Bearer of an almost unspeakable, immutable fate, Oedipus yet feels himself a man chosen-that is, favored-by the gods. Now an old man, blind and outcast, Oedipus wanders through Greece guided by his daughter Antigone until he comes to Colonus, where he knows he will die. Protected by the ruler of Thebes against the armies of Creon who have come in pursuit, he curses his son Polynices for indifference and ingratitude. Oedipus in this play is old and...
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English
Description
This A&E Special tracks The Egyptian Book of the Dead from its creation around 1800 BC near the site of the city of Thebes, to its rediscovery - and theft - in the 19th century, to its 21st-century resurrection through the use of digital technology. Biblical scholars agree that portions of the Old Testament are direct descendants of that Egyptian text, and some archaeologists argue that Moses must have read and carried a copy of it with him when he...
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English
Description
Drawing upon the insights of numerous international scholars-and illustrating crucial passages with stunning animation sequences-this program guides viewers through the Inferno of Dante's Divine Comedy. With detailed analysis of the poet's descent into Hell and navigation through its various levels, the program interprets Dante's motives for embarking on such a journey, explains his relationship and interaction with both Virgil and Beatrice, and describes...
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English
Description
Tragedy upholds traditional values and comedy attacks them-which explain much of the change from Aristophanes to Plautus, from Old Comedy to New, reflecting as it does the change from Athenian democracy to Roman totalitarianism. Wary of creating permanent spaces that might be used for mass meetings, the Romans constructed temporary wooden structures to house their theatrical productions. Since these structures were made of wood, they did not survive....
34) Antigone
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English
Description
Antigone is perhaps the most easily accessible of all the great classical tragedies, its theme clear and up-to-date: the conflict between moral and political law. Now the tale of Oedipus and his family comes to its end-he, his wife Jocasta, his sons, and now, at the last, his daughter, all dead. Antigone is not the only victim in the play; Creon too comes to a tragic downfall-although he repents in time, bureaucratic ritual results in the deaths of...
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English
Description
Questions about the language and construction of the Jewish Bible, especially its first five books, are among the most fascinating in paleography. Was Moses the sole originator of the Pentateuch? Did other writers have a hand in it? How does archaeology complement textual research? In this program, theologian Robert Beckford travels through the Middle East in search of definitive answers. A wide range of scholarship and deep-seated beliefs-encountered...
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English
Description
Few literary works have inspired as diverse and impassioned opinions as Machiavelli's The Prince. While some have denounced it as epitomizing the immorality and cynicism of despotic political rulers, others have considered it a paragon of pragmatism and lucidity in political affairs-including Napoleon Bonaparte, who deemed The Prince the only book that deserved to be read. In this program, the treatise that gave birth to modern political theory is...
37) Ancient Bibles
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English
Description
The Codex Sinaiticus is the world's oldest surviving bible. Made around 350 AD, it is a unique insight into early Christians and their effort to find a single version of the biblical text that everyone could accept. Approximately 800 years later, an illuminated bible rich in gold and lapis lazuli and produced in Winchester, recalls a time when bibles were at the center of the Church's struggle with the State for ultimate authority. Both of these bibles...
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English
Description
In the 50 years separating Aeschylus from the later works of Euripides, theater changed: plays had been performed in honor of the god Dionysus and for the enjoyment of spectators; now they were targeted at spectators who took pleasure in the spectacle itself. Where once the text itself set the stage and described the scene, sets came into use-at first to stimulate imagination, later to imitate it; in Roman times, there were troupes of traveling actors;...
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English
Description
Where does the familiar image of Satan come from? Does it predate the writing of the Bible? Or did the Devil's persona develop after the New Testament and organized Christianity appeared? This absorbing documentary sheds new light on the Prince of Darkness by examining his manifestations in various religious traditions, in literature and the arts, and in our collective psychology. Experts in theology, history, and culture share their knowledge of...