James Joyce is perhaps the towering figure of both Modernism and 20th-century Irish literature. This first lecture on Joyce places him in the context of turn-of-the-century Dublin and his role as an artist in exile. Learn about the city as you examine his short story technique in Dubliners.

Eastern Europe has long been thought of as the "Other Europe", a region rife with political upheaval, shifting national borders, an astonishing variety of ethnic diversity, and relative isolation from the centers of power in the West. It has also been, and continues to be, pivotal in the course of world events. A History of Eastern Europe offers a sweeping 1,000-year tour with a particular focus on the region's modern history. In 24 insightful lectures,...

In his later years, Yeats created an enigmatic spiritual system, and his poetry continued to evolve. Take a tour of his later writing, including two books that became some of the most significant works of poetry in the 20th century—both for their artistic power and their lens on Irish history.

Round out your study of Ulysses with a look at Molly Bloom, who gets the last word in the novel and recasts the day presented in the preceding 17 chapters. Her perspective tells us much about how Joyce viewed character and our relationship to the world—and ends with his great theme of regeneration.

In the 1960s, Americans embraced the liberal promises and programs of two presidents: John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson. Kennedy, the East Coast blue blood, and Johnson, the rough-and-tumble Texan, could not have been more different. Yet each claimed the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt and sought to reshape the New Deal into their own world vision. JFK’s New Frontier and LBJ’s Great Society each had its triumphs and failures, but together...

From 1914 to 1921, while Ireland faced revolution at home, James Joyce was abroad, slowly laboring on his great masterpiece, Ulysses. In this first of three lectures about this famous epic and its relation to Irish history, Professor Conner provides a lucid overview of the story, its characters, its style, and its structure.

Through regulation and investigation, the Mob was forced out of Vegas to keep the city "clean".

The combined nation of Poland and Lithuania was a powerful force in the 18th century—and its dissolution is one of the great crimes of the modern era. Civil strife provided the pretext for neighboring empires to swoop in and annex the nation. Consider the results of this partition and the political problem that would plague the region for the next century..

Step back in time with America in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Over six innovative decades marked by economic, political, social, and technological upheavals, the U.S. went from an agrarian, isolationist country to the greatest industrial power and a nascent geopolitical superpower. Meet inventors, conservationists, robber barons, civil rights activists, and industrialists, who together forged a new nation..

Trace the origins of the conservation movement in the 19th century, and its early initiatives to establish federal protection of wilderness in the face of staunch opposition from commercial interests. Grasp the astonishing conservation record of President Theodore Roosevelt, whose efforts created a wide spectrum of national parks, wildlife preserves, and national forests..