Lecture series looking at key concepts in studying Literature; including lectures on the concept of unreliable narrators to theory of comparative literature. This series was filmed in the English Faculty in Trinity Term 2012

Podcasts of Medieval English lectures, and supporting material, presented at the English Faculty, University of Oxford.

ePub version of text The Merry Wiues of Windsor by William Shakepeare, 1564-1616.

We live in a world filled with material wealth, live longer and healthier lives, and yet anxiety, stress, unhappiness, and depression have never been more common. What are the driving forces behind these interlinked global epidemics? In this series, Professor Mark Williams (Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow at Oxford University) and Dr Danny Penman discuss the recent scientific advances that have radically altered our understanding of depression and related disorders. Also discussed is the latest treatments and therapies that are offering hope to those suffering from depression. Professor Williams co-developed Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), a treatment for anxiety, stress and depression that is at least as effective as drugs at preventing new episodes of depression. It's now one of the preferred treatments for depression recommended by the UK's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. The same technique, based upon an ancient form of meditation, can also help us cope more effectively with the relentless demands of our increasingly frantic world.

This series of six lectures introduces six plays from the Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre. Once popular and now little-known, they can tell us a lot about what their first audiences enjoyed, aspired to and worried about - from immigrants in early modern London to the role of women in the household, from what religious changes might mean for attitudes to the dead to fantasies of easy money and social elevation. Each lecture outlines the play so there is no assumption you have already read it, then goes on to try to understand its historical context and its dramatic legacy, drawing parallels with modern film and contemporary culture as well as with Elizabethan material. The lecturer's aim with students in the room and with interested listeners on iTunes U is to broaden our understanding of the theatre Shakespeare wrote for by thinking about some non-Shakespearean drama, and to recreate some of the excitement and dramatic possibilities of the new, popular technology of Renaissance theatre.

Prof. Warner and Prof. Ballaster begin their conversation with Antoine Galland's translation into French from Arabic of the 'Alf Layla wa-Layla' as the first two volumes of 'Les Mille et Une Nuit' in the first decade of eighteenth century. The twelve-volume text that became known in the English-speaking world as 'The Arabian Nights Entertainments' was woven together from manuscript and verbal sources as well as added to with apparently invented tales by Antoine Galland himself. Warner and Ballaster open their discussion by considering whether Galland's tales provide a better window on the French salon culture of the early eighteenth century than Islamic empire medieval or modern. This audio recording is part the Interviews on Great Writers series presented by Oxford University Podcasts.

ePub version of text The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice by William Shakepeare, 1564-1616.

Acclaimed author of His Dark Materials Philip Pullman is interviewed by Margaret Kean on his new book, his influences and his method for writing stories. This podcast is part of the Literature, Art and Oxford series from Oxford University.

This series of eight audio lectures delivered by Dr T. J. Mawson at the University of Oxford in Hilary Term 2011, introduces the main philosophical arguments pertaining to the Western monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Each lecture has an associated hand-out (two for the first lecture).

The Politics of Security tells the story of how people experienced the cold war as a war. It is about the impact of the cold war on political cultures. This crucial issue is often forgotten in historical memory. In particular, the book follows British and West German anti-nuclear-weapons activists in their attempts to campaign for and create security after the destruction of the Second World War, and how their own version of security clashed with concepts advanced by their own governments. But the book also demonstrates how, as part of the protests against nuclear weapons, activists and their societies learned to live with the Bomb: it recounts how activists first discovered the dangers of nuclear weapons, but how a different generation of activists came to focus on other issues as the Vietnam War became their primary concern. And it makes comprehensible how activists in two societies who had fought each other fiercely in the battle of dictatorships and democracies of the Second World War could now come to see each other as part of a common campaign. Fundamentally, with its transnational approach, the book highlights how these two societies drew on very similar arguments when they came to understand the cold war through the prism of the previous world war. The book is the first to capture in a transnational fashion what activists did on the marches and what it meant to them and to others. The book thus reminds us that threats are not merely out there, but that they need to be created in a political process that involves struggles for power and contestation.

Professor Elleke Boehmer notes the distinct lack of women writers on the Post/Colonial Writing page of the Great Writers website, and explores why this is the case. She draws attention to the phenomenon of double colonization and, taking Scottish/South African author Zoe Wicomb as an example, looks at the marketing and publishing industries to discuss why postcolonial women writers are less well-known than their male counterparts. This audio recording is part the Interviews on Great Writers series presented by Oxford University Podcasts.

Dr Catherine Brown, English Faculty, Oxford, gives a lecture exploring the nature of realism in verbal and visual art. This podcast is part of the Literature, Art and Oxford series from Oxford University.

ePub version of text The life and death of King Richard the Second by William Shakepeare, 1564-1616.

ePub version of text The Tragedy of Richard the Third: with the Landing of Earle Richmond, and the Battell at Bosworth Field by William Shakepeare, 1564-1616.

ePub version of text The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet by William Shakepeare, 1564-1616.