Critical Thinking

Saturday, November 6, 2010

CL 121 Critical Approaches to Literature I (Third Edition)

Class Code: 14586, Class: CL 121 WFV, Credits: 3.0, Schedule: WF 11:30-1, Room: PH 226

Download Complete Course in MS-Word Format

Download "Welcome to CL 121" Lecture (1st Meeting)

Download Lecture on Course Scope, Objectives, and Requirements (2nd Meeting)

Scuola di Atene by Raphael (1483-1520)
Stanza della Segnatura, Stanze di Raffaello
Vatican Apostolic Palace

Choose the lecture you want to listen to by clicking on the button on top of the audio player.

To download, click on the lecture title below.

1. Introduction: What is Critical Theory?

1.1. Introduction: What is Critical Theory?

2. Plato: Introduction

2.1. Plato: Introduction
3. Plato: Republic (Books II, III, and X)

3.1. Plato: Republic (Books II, III, and X)

4. Aristotle: Introduction

4.1. Aristotle: Introduction
5. Aristotle: Poetics

5.1. Aristotle: Poetics

5.2. Aristotle: Poetics
6. Horace: Ars Poetica
7. Longinus: On the Sublime
8. Plotinus: "On the Intellectual Beauty"

8.1. Plotinus: "On the Intllectual Beauty"
9. St. Augustine: Semiotics

9.1. St. Augustine: Semiotics
10. Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius: Consolation of Philosophy
11. St. Thomas Aquinas: Aesthetics and Hermeneutics
12. Sir Philip Sidney: "An Apology for Poetry"
13. John Dryden: "An Essay of Dramatic Poesy"
14. Alexander Pope: An Essay on Criticism
15. Edmund Burke: A Philosophical Inquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful

16. Immanuel Kant: Introduction
17. Immanuel Kant: Critique of Judgment
18. Friedrich von Schiller: Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man
19. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: Introduction
20. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: The Philosophy of Fine Art

21. The Romantic Imagination
22. William Wordsworth: “Preface to the Second Edition of Lyrical Ballads”

23. Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Biographia Literaria
24. John Keats: On Negative Capability and the Egotistical Sublime
25. Percy Bysshe Shelley: “A Defense of Poetry”

English 12 THV1 World Literatures

Class Code: 14483, Class: Eng 12 THV1, Credits: 3.0, Schedule: TTh 11:30-1, Room: PH 226

Download Complete Course in MS-Word Format

Download "Welcome to English 12" Lecture (1st Meeting)

Download Lecture on Scope, Objectives, and Requirements (2nd Meeting)

Choose the lecture you want to listen to by clicking on the button on top of the audio player.

To download, click on the lecture title below.

1. Preface

2. Introduction: The Epic of Gilgamesh

3. The Bible as Literatur e

4. Jewish Literature

5. The Holy Qur'an as Literature

6. The People of the Book

7. Vedic Literature

7.1. Vedic Literature

7.2. Vedic Literature

8. Bhagavad Gita

9. Confucius: Analects

10. Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching

11. Liao Fan’s Four Lessons

11.1 Liao Fan's Four Lessons

12. Japanese Zen as Literature

13. The Tibetan Book of the Dead

13.1 Tibetan Book of the Dead, Part 2

13.2 Tibetan Book of the Dead, Part 3

14. The Four Noble Truths

15. Karl Marx: Das Kapital as Literature

16. Albert Einstein: Relativity as Literature

English 12 WFY World Literatures

Class Code: 14503, Class: Eng 12 WFY, Credits: 3.0, Schedule: WF 4-5:30, Room: PH 226

Download Complete Course in MS-Word Format

Download "Welcome to English 12" Lecture (1st Meeting)

Download Lecture on Scope, Objectives, and Requirements (2nd Meeting)

Choose the lecture you want to listen to by clicking on the button on top of the audio player.

To download, click on the lecture title below.

2. Introduction: The Epic of Gilgamesh

3. The Bible as Literatur e

4. Jewish Literature

5. The Holy Qur'an as Literature

6. The People of the Book

7. Vedic Literature

7.1. Vedic Literature

7.2. Vedic Literature

8. Bhagavad Gita

9. Confucius: Analects

10. Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching

11. Liao Fan’s Four Lessons

11.1 Liao Fan's Four Lessons

12. Japanese Zen as Literature

13. The Tibetan Book of the Dead

13.1 Tibetan Book of the Dead, Part 2

13.2 Tibetan Book of the Dead, Part 3

14. The Four Noble Truths

15. Karl Marx: Das Kapital as Literature

16. Albert Einstein: Relativity as Literature

Sunday, March 14, 2010

English 12 THY World Literatures

Class Code: 14491, Class: Eng 12 THY, Credits: 3.0, Schedule: TTh 4-5:30, Room: PH 226

Download Complete Course in MS-Word Format

Download "Welcome to English 12" Lecture (1st Meeting)

Download Lecture on Scope, Objectives, and Requirements (2nd Meeting)

Choose the lecture you want to listen to by clicking on the button on top of the audio player.

To download, click on the lecture title below.

1. Preface
2. Introduction: The Epic of Gilgamesh

3. The Bible as Literature

4. Jewish Literature

5. The Holy Qur'an as Literature

6. The People of the Book

7. Vedic Literature

7.1. Vedic Literature

7.2. Vedic Literature

8. Bhagavad Gita

9. Confucius: Analects

10. Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching

11. Liao Fan’s Four Lessons

11.1 Liao Fan's Four Lessons

12. Japanese Zen as Literature

13. The Tibetan Book of the Dead

13.1 Tibetan Book of the Dead, Part 2

13.2 Tibetan Book of the Dead, Part 3

14. The Four Noble Truths

15. Karl Marx: Das Kapital as Literature

16. Albert Einstein: Relativity as Literature

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About This Site

The purpose of this site is to provide my students with an audio download of my classroom lectures as soon as the students have reached home. The students can then listen to them on the same day they were delivered.

These classroom lectures have been recorded live in order to walk the student step-by-step through the course s/he is enrolled in. They are also meant to help supplement, focus, and organize the student’s efforts in reviewing for the final examination. Although these audio lectures are not meant to substitute for the classroom experience itself, which cannot be replaced even in an on-line age like ours, they are made available here to help maximize the student’s learning experience in an efficient, time-saving way.

I have tried my best to record these lectures in such a way that when listening to the audio, the student will feel like I’m right there with him in the study room. I am confident this will help the student concentrate better.

I am also providing an MS-Word file of every course I am teaching this semester, and the student may choose to download it. The MS-Word file buttresses the lessons with extensive added materials like glossaries, biographies, bibliographies, links to related websites, as well as suggestions for further study. The student may find it beneficial if she read the particular lesson while listening to the audio lecture at the same time. In this manner, two senses—sight and hearing—are maximized.

Among the benefits you may find in this strategy are the following:

A better focus.

A more organized and time-saving review.

The freedom to study anywhere and at any time. (You may choose to transfer the audio lectures to your mp3 player and play it while on the jogging lane, while travelling, while waiting your turn at an office, etc.)

A word about Critical Thinking, and why it is the banner of our site:

Critical thinking is not about “criticizing” other people. Nor is it about passing judgment on anybody. My premise is that we all make mistakes and we appreciate it when someone helps us see them. We appreciate it if someone on the highway, for example, points out that our car has a flat tire. In that sense. Likewise, we appreciate it if someone tells us that our theory or claim is unfounded. Your friend will not be doing you a favor if s/he told you your theory is brilliant when in fact s/he thinks it is actually rotten. Critical thinking is about learning and understanding; it is about helping each other, not about winning or putting down somebody else and coming out on top.

Why do we make mistakes? Because we are human, and as humans we are prone to misjudgment, to oversight, to ignorance, and in my case, to stupidity. It’s a safe bet that the majority of other human beings do not have a right view of things as they are. Failing to understand things as they are is no crime. The problem arises when people with un-theorized and mal-informed opinions poorly thought out, people full of dead theory sanctified by time and naturalized by indolence, people who are jaundiced, bigoted, biased and naive, act on those opinions.

College education addresses these problems and hopes to remedy them. College thinking IS critical thinking. In college, learning is reached through right reason and proper investigation, not through authority. We find out for ourselves whether or not a thing is true on the basis of evidence supported by right reason.

Although I have crafted this project to serve my students, first and foremost, I have designed it in such a way that anybody may hop in and join the fun. I believe in education for all. Like Professor Louis Markos of Houston Baptist University, I believe that “knowledge must not be walled up in the academy, but must be freely and enthusiastically disseminated to all those ‘who have ears to hear.’” Learning is fun. We should not say “I am going to study.” Instead, we should say “I am going to have fun!”

So hop right in.

Your friend,

Carlos Aureus
coaureus@yahoo.com