Timothy B. Shutt

This course is an interdisciplinary series of connected lectures delivered by eminent scholars from several colleges and universities. Each professor addresses an area of personal expertise and focuses not only on the matter at hand, but on the larger story-on the links between the works and the figures discussed. The lectures address-in chronological sequence-a series of major works that have shaped the ongoing development of Western thought both...

Naval battles have long captured the popular imagination, from confrontations between Greece and Sparta in the ancient world to epic conflicts during the World Wars and beyond. In this riveting series of lectures, Professor Timothy B. Shutt explores the naval battles that have helped to establish empires and have changed history. Professor Shutt imparts an under- standing of the importance of naval warfare and of the grandeur and daring of these awe-inspiring...

The Odyssey of the West series addresses in chronological sequence the works that have shaped the ongoing development of Western thought both in its own right and in cultural dialogue with other traditions. Part four provides a close look at the period from the Renaissance to the Scientific Revolution and into the early Enlightenment. These lectures take in the immense variety and singular achievements that have helped mold our present societies.

Dante's Divine Comedy stands very high among the greatest literary works ever written. The Commedia is about the afterlife, not just Hell, but Purgatory and Heaven, too. Dante's genius is the genius of the allegorical method. The Commedia is, in the first instance, an account of Dante's own salvation. In chronicling his own recovery, indeed his salvation, Dante not only provides us with an autobiography, he also suggests that not only the problems...

Baseball has been celebrated as "America's National Pastime" for more than one hundred and fifty years, and recalls what, at least in retrospect, seems to be an earlier, more innocent age- long summer afternoons and sandlot ball, fresh rural air or brownstone stoops. In part, this is because most of those who love the game played as children and followed their favorite bigleague teams as children. It is not a game one grows out of, and once smitten,...

The Odyssey of the West series, a grand exploration of art, literature, revolutionary theories, and intellectual progress through the ages, concludes with a fascinating look at the twentieth century. Series editor and esteemed university professor Timothy B. Shutt is joined by contributing lecturers for a lively discussion of the major works and strains of thought that ushered in the modern age. A fitting capstone for this comprehensive series, this...

From the very outset in the West-from the time of Homer himself in about 750 BCE-the epic has been the most highly regarded of literary genres. It is rivaled only by tragedy, which arose a bit more than two centuries later, as the most respected, the most influential, and, from a slightly different vantage point, the most prestigious mode of addressing the human condition in literary terms. The major epics are the works that, from the very outset,...