"Foundations of World Culture I: World Civilizations and Texts" is a Course materials drawn from MIT Open Learning and catalogued under History for Undergraduate / College. From the source: This course aims to introduce students to the rich diversity of human culture from antiquity to the early 17th century. In this course, we will explore human culture in its myriad expressions, focusing on the… Slide Collection preserves the upstream link, the original creator credit and the licensing terms; download the file to use it in a classroom, study group or revision plan.
About this presentation
This course aims to introduce students to the rich diversity of human culture from antiquity to the early 17th century. In this course, we will explore human culture in its myriad expressions, focusing on the study of literary, religious and philosophical texts as ways of narrating, symbolizing, and commenting on all aspects of human social and material life. We will work comparatively, reading texts from various cultures: Mesopotamian, Greek, Judeo-Christian, Chinese, Indian, and Muslim. Throughout the semester, we will be asking questions like: How have different cultures imagined themselves? What are the rules that they draw up for human behavior? How do they represent the role of the individual in society? How do they imagine ‘universal’ concepts like love, family, duty? How have their writers and artists dealt with encounters with other cultures and other civilizations?
How to study this deck
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Five questions to test your understanding
- What is the single most important claim on the first three slides, and what evidence is offered for it?
- Which slide could you remove without losing the argument? Which slide is load-bearing?
- Where does the deck switch from definitions to applications? Mark that transition.
- What would a student who already disagreed with the conclusion need to see to be convinced?
- Which two slides, if combined, would give the clearest one-slide summary of the whole deck?
Where this deck fits in the wider catalogue
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