Lectures tagged "Anthropology"


Sub Topics:
Eternally Green: Natural Burial and New Cemetery Landscapes
Mark Harris
February 13, 2010
01:05:00
Environmental journalist Mark Harris presents a history of the changes in American burial practices, from natural burials in the 17th and early 18th century, to the beginning of the funeral industry during the Civil War, to today's modern funeral with embalming (and its toxic chemicals), metal caske
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein: 36 Arguments for the Existence of God
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein: 36 Arguments for the Existence of God
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein
February 2, 2010
00:49:06
Award-winning novelist and MacArthur Fellow Rebecca Newberger Goldstein reads from her new novel 36 Arguments for the Existence of God. After Cass Seltzer's book becomes a surprise best seller, he's dubbed "the atheist with a soul" and becomes a celebrity.
Debating Same-Sex Marriage / The Good Life
Michael Sandel
November 29, 2009
00:55:10
Lecture Twenty-Two: "Debating Same-Sex Marriage" If principles of justice depend on the moral or intrinsic worth of the ends that rights serve, how does society deal with the fact that people hold different ideas and conceptions of what is good?
Sarah Hrdy: Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding
Sarah Hrdy: Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding
Sarah Blaffer Hrdy
November 18, 2009
01:15:14
Anthropologist and primate sociobiologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy discusses her newest book, Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding, in which she emphasizes the need to consider our Pleistocene ancestors' peculiar mode of child-rearing.
The Good Citizen / Freedom vs. Fit
The Good Citizen / Freedom vs. Fit
Michael Sandel
November 15, 2009
Lecture Nineteen: "The Good Citizen" Aristotle's theory of justice leads to a contemporary debate about golf, specifically "the purpose" of golf. Students debate whether the PGA was wrong in not allowing a disabled golfer, Casey Martin, to use a golf cart during professional tournaments.
Arguing Affirmative Action / What’s the Purpose?
Arguing Affirmative Action / What’s the Purpose?
Michael Sandel
November 8, 2009
00:55:00
Lecture Seventeen: "Arguing Affirmative Action" Students discuss the issue of affirmative action and college admissions. Is it "just" for schools to consider race and ethnicity as a factor in admissions? Does it violate individual rights?
Rainsford Island: Mercy's Dwelling Place
Elizabeth Carella
November 5, 2009
00:45:39
Curator and photographer Elizabeth Carella shares the colorful history of epidemics, shipwrecks, and daring escapes on Rainsford Island.
Boston's Spectacle Island and its Native American Past
Ellen Berkland
November 5, 2009
00:37:40
Boston City archeologist Ellen Berkland shows how archeologists have pieced together a rich story of the daily lives of some of the first communities in Boston, on Spectacle Island. The Boston Harbor Islands have been inhabited for thousands of years. From A.D.