Teaching Company Course Inventory

All of these are available for loan to local friends; write to Justin to arrange it. Roughly speaking, each cassette consists of 2 45-minute lectures; each CD consists of 2 30-minute lectures.  To borrow CDs, you will need to bring a CD case to keep them in; I'm keeping them all in a mega-CD case.  Cassettes have their own carrying cases.

• The High Middle Ages -- 12 cassettes: a reasonably good overview of the core of SCA period, a bit more from a cultural point of view than a historical one.
• Medieval Europe: Crisis and Renewal -- 4 cassettes: discusses the late-medieval period of crisis.  Good course, although the professor has a fairly thick accent.
• History of the English Language -- 18 CDs: generally fun, although less interesting to me once it gets past SCA period.  (Loaned to Anna, 6/05)
  
• Augustine: Philosopher and Saint -- 6 cassettes: fairly detailed examination of his life and works.
• Ancient Greek Civilization -- 12 CDs: very good course, which left me very much wanting more.  Excellent professor.
  
• The History of Ancient Rome -- 24 CDs: more or less in chronological order.  I found it fascinating, but I love politics, and Roman history is all politics.
  
• Great Ancient Civilizations of Asia Minor -- 12 CDs: again, in chronological order.  Mostly period and pre-period, talking about the ancient history of roughly Turkey.
• The History of Ancient Egypt -- 24 CDs: utterly cool, starting at the dawn of human civilization and running through Cleopatra.  Lots of talk about embalming. (Loaned to outlander, 10/10/05)
  
• Buddhism -- 12 cassettes: a nice exploration of the subject, although I would have liked more depth.
• God and Mankind: Comparative Religion -- 4 cassettes: overview of the topic, presenting the main issues for comparison more than specific religions.
• Great World Religions II: Islam -- 5 cassettes: good discussion, wanted more depth.
• Great World Religions IV: Religions of China -- 5 cassettes: interesting topic, although a little too quick for the number of religions.
• Great World Religions V: Religions of India -- 5 cassettes: fun, but the professor is a tad etheral, and it covers a lot of ground briefly.  I really want a course on just Hinduism.
• Great Minds of the Western Intellectual Tradition -- 42 CDs: yes really, taught by about a dozen professors, from Ancient Greece to the modern day.  Topics mainly center on important thinkers in philosophy, economics and politics.  Rather disjointed.  I found the earlier parts very interesting, but the later ones much drier, particularly because much of the later course was taught by a philosophy professor who was prone to heavy jargon.
• The Foundations of Western Civilization -- 24 CDs: really excellent survey course.  This covers history from the very beginning, to about the end of the Renaissance, focusing on what was particularly important and influential about each culture.  The result isn't exactly balanced, but it's unusually interesting, hitting everything from politics to architecture to literature to religion.
• Thomas Aquinas: The Saintly Doctor -- 6 cassettes: a fine in-depth examination of one of the principal Christian philosophers.  The first third or so of the course focuses on his life and impact, then the rest is about his teachings.  Fascinating to contrast with the Augustine course: one of the main points here is that the two men were about as different as one could imagine.  Very straightforward course, that tries to pick out the historical man from the hagiography.
• From Yao to Mao: 5000 Years of Chinese Civilization -- 18 CDs: a reasonably good, if necessarily pretty rapid survey of Chinese history.  The teacher is decent, but not one of the best lecturers here.  The course tends to be a shade dry, perhaps due to the breadth, focusing more on historical trends and less on the stories of the people.  Useful background, but mostly whets my appetite for some more in-depth courses describing, eg, the Han dynasty in more detail.  (What stories are told are quite interesting, especially from the Han period and thereabouts.)
  

Not Yet Finished

• The Age of Henry VIII -- 12 CDs
• A History of England from the Tudors to the Stuarts -- 24 CDs
• The Story of Human Language -- 18 CDs