Well, frumps, if you’re anything like me you are probably overdue for a brief respite from the insane political circus that has marked President Obama’s first year in office. I have recently discovered a marvelous little lagoon of sanity and clear-thinking that is the perfect antidote to today’s political environment that is bound to set you back on your feet renewed and restored, no matter where you fall on the political spectrum.
Harvard University has taken a bold step into cyberspace and is offering on of its most – if not the most – popular undergraduate courses on public television and the internet. That course happens to be Dr. Michael Sandel’s course, Justice, which is the most popular course in Harvard’s history. Justice has drawn over 14,000 Harvard undergrads from diverse disciplines; the course is so popular that it attracts 1,200 enrollees per term, had to be moved to a theater cum lecture hall and an overflow audience is routinely turned away at the “gate.”
Harvard is not the first university to launch lecture offerings into cyberspace; Duke and Stanford, offer lectures on iTunes U, and M.I.T. developed its own software years ago to make classes available online. And “celebrity” academics, like Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking have long been a staple and popular subject of public television. What is “breakthrough” about the Harvard venture is that it is so much more than simply televised lectures; this is a full-blown multi-media college course that allows viewers to have a much more comprehensive and interactive experience if they so desire. Justice is a polished multimedia event, with high-definition video, interactive Webcasts, podcasts, a new book and a speaking tour that was five years in the making.
Who Is this Guy, Sandel, Anyway?
From Dr. Sandel’s Harvard bio: http://justiceharvard.org
Michael Sandel is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at Harvard, where he has taught political philosophy since 1980. His books include Democracy’s Discontent, Public Philosophy: Essays on Morality in Politics, The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering, and, most recently, Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? His writings have been translated into eleven foreign languages and have appeared in The Atlantic, The New Republic, and the New York Times.
Sandel has lectured widely in North America, Europe, China, Japan, Korea, India, Australia, and New Zealand, on topics including democracy, liberalism, bioethics, globalization, and justice. He delivered the Tanner Lectures on Human Values at Oxford University, was a visiting professor at the Sorbonne, and in 2009 delivered the BBC’s Reith Lectures. From 2002-2005, Sandel served on the President’s Council on Bioethics. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Sandel received his doctorate from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.
Now Mr. Sandel gets to play himself on television, not to mention online, as Harvard and public television stations across the country allow viewers to sit in on his classroom discussions about Wall Street bonuses and Aristotle, same-sex marriage and Kant, for the next 12 weeks.
Here’s how Dr. Sandel describes the course:
“We looked at what other universities had done and realized that they didn’t have the full classroom experience. Watching a video that looks as if it were made with a convenience store security camera, as most Internet courses do, without the slides, syllabus and other materials available to actual students, dilutes the experience.
So, for “Justice,” Harvard set up extra lights and microphones in Sanders Theater and the classes were recorded in high-definition with three cameras to catch the student exchanges that are an essential part of the classroom experience.
“In a way, the book and the course try to model what public discourse would be like if it were more morally ambitious than it is,” Mr. Sandel said. “The title is ‘Justice,’ but in a way its subject is citizenship. The aim is not to try to persuade students, but to equip them to become politically minded citizens. Discussion is an essential part of the course, which is why the Web site, justiceharvard.org, http://justiceharvard.org
offers beginner and advanced discussion guides.”
Online forums have sprung up on the Justice website and anyone is welcome to set up their own discussion group. Basically, anyone with a computer can tap into Justice and tailor the experience to include as much or as little of the course materials as the viewer likes.
Just Connect . . .
http://justiceharvard.org/
Do yourselves a big favor, frumps – if 2009 politics and government have left you feeling beaten up and demoralized, you owe it to yourself to get on over to justiceharvard.org and get a dose of reality.
Justice is a twelve part series that challenges us with difficult moral dilemmas and asks our opinion about the right thing to do. Sandel then asks us to examine our answers in the light of new scenarios. The results are often surprising, revealing that important moral questions are never black and white.
The course also addresses the hot topics of our day—affirmative action, same-sex marriage, patriotism and rights—and Sandel shows us that we can revisit familiar controversies with a fresh perspective.
Try it, you’ll like it!
Well, frumps, if you’re anything like me you are probably overdue for a brief respite from the insane political circus that has marked President Obama’s first year in office. I have recently discovered a marvelous little lagoon of sanity and clear-thinking; it is the perfect antidote to today’s political environment and is bound to set you back on your feet renewed and restored, no matter where you fall on the political spectrum.
Harvard University has taken a bold step into cyberspace and is offering a complete twelve installment undergraduate course on public television and the internet. That course happens to be Dr. Michael Sandel’s course, Justice, the most popular course in Harvard’s history. Justice has drawn over 14,000 Harvard undergrads from diverse disciplines; the course is so popular that it attracts 1,200 enrollees per term, had to be moved to a theater cum lecture hall and an overflow audience is routinely turned away at the “gate.”
Harvard is not the first university to launch lecture offerings into cyberspace; Duke and Stanford, offer lectures on iTunes U, and M.I.T. developed its own software years ago to make classes available online. And “celebrity” academics, like Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking have long been a staple of public television.
What is “breakthrough” about the Harvard venture is that it is so much more than simply televised lectures; this is a full-blown multi-media college course that allows viewers to have a much more comprehensive and interactive experience, if they so desire. Justice is a polished multimedia event, with high-definition video, interactive Webcasts, podcasts, a new book and a speaking tour that was five years in the making.
“Michael Sandel is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at Harvard, where he has taught political philosophy since 1980. His books include Democracy’s Discontent, Public Philosophy: Essays on Morality in Politics, The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering, and, most recently, Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? His writings have been translated into eleven foreign languages and have appeared in The Atlantic, The New Republic, and the New York Times.”
“Sandel has lectured widely in North America, Europe, China, Japan, Korea, India, Australia, and New Zealand, on topics including democracy, liberalism, bioethics, globalization, and justice. He delivered the Tanner Lectures on Human Values at Oxford University, was a visiting professor at the Sorbonne, and in 2009 delivered the BBC’s Reith Lectures. From 2002-2005, Sandel served on the President’s Council on Bioethics. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Sandel received his doctorate from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.”
“Now Mr. Sandel gets to play himself on television, not to mention online, as Harvard and public television stations across the country allow viewers to sit in on his classroom discussions about Wall Street bonuses and Aristotle, same-sex marriage and Kant, for the next 12 weeks.”
Here’s how Dr. Sandel describes the course:
“We looked at what other universities had done and realized that they didn’t have the full classroom experience. Watching a video that looks as if it were made with a convenience store security camera, as most Internet courses do, without the slides, syllabus and other materials available to actual students, dilutes the experience.”
So, for Justice, Harvard set up extra lights and microphones in Sanders Theater and the classes were recorded in high-definition with three cameras to catch the student exchanges that are an essential part of the classroom experience.
“In a way, the book and the course try to model what public discourse would be like if it were more morally ambitious than it is,” Mr. Sandel said. “The title is ‘Justice,’ but in a way its subject is citizenship. The aim is not to try to persuade students, but to equip them to become politically minded citizens. Discussion is an essential part of the course, which is why the Web site, justiceharvard.org, offers beginner and advanced discussion guides.”
Online forums have sprung up on the Justice website and anyone is welcome to set up their own discussion group. Basically, anyone with a computer can tap into Justice and tailor the experience to include as much or as little of the course materials as the viewer likes.
Just Connect . . .
Do yourselves a big favor, frumps – if 2009 politics and government have left you feeling beaten up and demoralized, you owe it to yourself to get on over to justiceharvard.org and get a dose of reality.
Justice is a twelve part series that challenges us with difficult moral dilemmas and asks our opinion about the right thing to do. Sandel then asks us to examine our answers in the light of new scenarios. The results are often surprising, revealing that important moral questions are never black and white.
The course also addresses the hot topics of our day—affirmative action, same-sex marriage, patriotism and rights—and Sandel shows us that we can revisit familiar controversies with a fresh perspective.
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It was very refreshing to listen to the debate on the value of life concerning the shipmate who was consume by his mates. I believe the question was whether or not the consumed mate had the right to consent to sacrifice his life for the survival of others. My answer is that no one has the right, the moral right, to give up their life; it is not our's to relinquish…we are not the originator. In essence, we cannot replace the life which has been surrendered therefore one cannot consent to the sacrifice of his/her life.
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It was very refreshing to listen to the debate on the value of life concerning the shipmate who was consume by his mates. I believe the question was whether or not the consumed mate had the right to consent to sacrifice his life for the survival of others. My answer is that no one has the right, the moral right, to give up their life; it is not our's to relinquish…we are not the originator. In essence, we cannot replace the life which has been surrendered therefore one cannot consent to the sacrifice of his/her life.