Mary Wollstonecraft was an English writer and philosopher. In 1792, she wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects. In this essay, Wollstonecraft argues that women are neither mere ornaments nor property to be traded in marriage. Rather, women are human beings deserving of the same fundamental rights … Continue reading Mary Wollstonecraft: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Agatha Christie is one of the best-selling authors of all time. Her And Then There Were None is the seventh best-selling book (100 million copies) of all time. Christie is famous for her 66 detective novels, some of which featured the fictional Belgian detective Hercule Poirot or an elderly English spinster named Miss Marple. Christie … Continue reading Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None
Back in Elizabethan times, it was considered funny to tell stories about how badly a man beat his disagreeable wife. However, Shakespeare turned this trope on its head. For years, people have been arguing about whether the play is feminist or antifeminist. (Kate is eventually "tamed.") However, the moral of the story is clear: the … Continue reading Shakespeare: The Taming of the Shrew
Middlemarch is a novel that is set in a provincial town in England in the years leading up to the Reform Act of 1832, which broadly increased voting rights in Britain (but women still could not vote). Middlemarch deals with many themes, including "the woman question" and the nature of marriage, as well as religion … Continue reading George Eliot: Middlemarch
George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Blair. He was a novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic. His memoir Homage to Catalonia recounts his participation in the forces of the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) during th Spanish Civil War and his consequent disillusionment with Marxist politics. In 1945, Orwell wrote Animal Farm: … Continue reading George Orwell: Nineteen Eighty-Four
Geoffrey Chaucer was the author of the Canterbury Tales, which is an anthology of 24 short stories that are supposedly being told by people who are traveling from London to … Continue reading Geoffrey Chaucer: The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales (April Showers)
The Metamorphoses was the most famous work of the Roman poet Ovid. The Metamorphoses is Ovid's attempt to tell the history of the world, from Creation to the deification of … Continue reading Ovid’s Metamorphoses: the Tale of Narcissus and Echo
The discipline of psychology emerged from the discipline of philosophy. In the late 19th century, the British philosopher John Stuart Mill argued that the human mind could be studied scientifically. … Continue reading William James: The Varieties of Religious Experience
The Miller's Tale is one of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. These tales were supposedly stories that a group of pilgrims told each other as they were on their way from … Continue reading Geoffrey Chaucer: The Knight’s Tale and the Miller’s Tale
Here's an interlinear Greek/English translation: farside.ph.utexas.edu/Books/Euclid/Elements.pdf Here's a series of videos: Euclid's elements: definitions, postulates, and axioms Euclid's Geometry was built on assumptions. But what if you altered one of those … Continue reading Euclid’s Elements
