Results for HUMCORE

This course will journey through ancient Greek and Roman literature from Homer to St. Augustine, in constant conversation with the other HumCore travelers in the Ancient Middle East, Africa and South Asia, and Early China. It will introduce participants to some of its fascinating features and big ideas (such as the idea of history); and it will reflect on questions including: What is an honorable life? Who is the Other? How does a society fall apart? Where does human subjectivity fit into a world of matter, cause and effect? Should art serve an exterior purpose? Do we have any duties to the past? This course is part of the Humanities Core, a collaborative set of global humanities seminars that brings all of its students and faculty into conversation. On Mondays you meet in your own course, and on Wednesdays all the HumCore seminars (in session that quarter) meet together: https://humanitiescore.stanford.edu/.

What is the relation between magic and science? Is religion compatible with the scientific method? Are there patterns in the stars? What is a metaphor? This course will read key moments in Greek and Islamic science and philosophy and investigate the philosophy of language, mathematical diagrams, manuscripts, the madrasa, free will, predestination, and semantic logic. We will read selections from Ibn Taymiya, Ibn Haytham, Omar Khayyam, Baha al-Din al-Amili, and others. This course is part of the Humanities Core, a collaborative set of global humanities seminars that brings all of its students and faculty into conversation. On Tuesdays you meet in your own course, and on Thursdays all the HumCore seminars (in session that quarter) meet together: https://humanitiescore.stanford.edu/.

What enabled Leonardo da Vinci to excel in over a dozen fields from painting to engineering and to anticipate flight four hundred years before the first aircraft took off? How did Michelangelo paint the Sistine Chapel Ceiling? What forces and insights led Machiavelli to write "The Prince"? An historical moment and a cultural era, the Italian Renaissance famously saw monumental achievements in literature, art, and architecture, influential developments in science and technology, and the flourishing of multi-talented individuals who contributed profoundly, expertly, and simultaneously to very different fields. In this course on the great thinkers, writers, and achievers of the Italian Renaissance, we will study these "universal geniuses" and their world. Investigating the writings, thought, and lives of such figures as Leonardo da Vinci, Niccol¿ Machiavelli, and Galileo Galilei, we will interrogate historical and contemporary ideas concerning genius, creativity, and the phenomenon of "Renaissance man" known as polymathy. Taught in English. On Tuesdays you meet in your own course, and on Thursday all the HumCore seminars in session that quarter meet together: https://humanitiescore.stanford.edu/.

Before the modern era, how did curious people in China, Korea, and Japan learn about the world? How did geographical information reach them, and how did they interpret it? This class will probe the history of cartographic exchange from the Mongols to Meiji from an East Asian perspective. Every Tuesday, we will examine East Asian maps; Thursday readings will introduce broader comparative perspectives. This course is part of the Humanities Core, a collaborative humanities seminar cluster. On Tuesdays we meet in our own course, while on Thursdays we will gather with two other HumCore classes for joint Plenary Sessions.