Saeed Ahmed's Blog (7)

Courses on US history are quite common among academic podcasts, however basic survey courses on early American history are surprisingly rare. Gretchen Reilly's course is available for time to time, David Hoogland Noon has a course that may still be accessible, their is an offering from the university of Warwick (by the way, that particular course is particularly good for the British background to American colonialism and revolution) and perhaps one or two others. I would like to put in a plug f… Continue

Recently, on the facebook parlor, I commented that three courses that are currently going on that go really well together are UCSD's "minds and brains" and "distributed cognition", and UC-Berkeley's "Psychology of dreaming. Based on some exchanges with Baxter, I would like to add "scientific approaches to consciousness" (spring 2009 from UC Berkeley). If time is limited, then substitute this one for Mind and Brains. Why should you care about these courses? Well, after only a few lectures, you… Continue

Professor Keith Poole is not a fan of gun control, health care reform, labor theory of value, net-neutrality, or environmentalists. He is equally disillusioned by Democrats and Republicans. He also doesn't like to use technological tools; on several occasions he has complained about how complicated phones are becoming. During one lecture he said wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt was like wearing a Hitler shirt. He is a fan of the market, innovation, patents, and invention. He believes that two, rel… Continue

Baxter pointed this one out to me, and I have just started listening to it, and so far, I find it insightful and engaging. The course (history 175A, available at the Bruincast website) is about recent South Asian history and politics. South Asia comprises India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bhutan (some include the Maldives). Vinay Lal makes clear right in the beginning that there will be a large emphasis on India, because it is the largest country in South Asia, and before 1947,… Continue

I wanted to do a quick review and recommendation of the two course series by David Hoogland Noon's US history (University of Alaska Fairbanks, history 131 and 132), available on Itunes/Podcasts/audio podcasts/higher education/) 131 covers "New Spain" to the Civil War period, and 132 covers the period after the Civil War (close) to the present. Dr. Noon found his style very engaging. He seems to be lecturing to a small group of students. He brings in lots of interesting period trivia into his t… Continue

Dara and I had a brief discussion in the parlor's "forum" on gaps in podcasts covering areas outside Europe and America. After that I compiled a list of world survey courses, which are currently available (this list may not be complete, of course) USCD (http://podcast.ucsd.edu/) MMW (Making of the Modern World) 3 and 6, covering medieval era and 20th century. There are two offerings currently to MMW 3. Note that UCSD removes podcasts quickly at the end of each academic terms, so download these… Continue

I have recently started to sample Martin Lewis's "Geography of World Cultures" podcast. This is enhanced by embedded pictures and maps, which make this a superior experience. On video ipods, the screens are too small to really take advantage of this, but on PC's, this works very well. I tried it both ways, and Lewis's engaging style works fine in audio, but with the help of the visuals, on the PC, the learning experience is much better. Here is one of the maps. (if you open it, try enlarging in… Continue