Crash Course
Slavery, Ghosts, and Beloved: Crash Course Literature 214
In which John Green teaches you about Beloved by Toni Morrison. I'll warn you up front, this book is something of a downer. That's because it deals with subjects like slavery, the death of a child, a potential haunting, and a bunch of...
TED Talks
Karissa Sanbonmatsu: The biology of gender, from DNA to the brain
How exactly does gender work? It's not just about our chromosomes, says biologist Karissa Sanbonmatsu. In a visionary talk, she shares new discoveries from epigenetics, the emerging study of how DNA activity can permanently change based...
SciShow
Tapputi-Belatekallim: The First Chemical Engineer | Great Minds
A perfumer from Ancient Babylon named Tapputi-Belatekallim is possibly history's first recorded chemist, and some of the techniques she used are still in practice today.
Crash Course
Ophelia, Gertrude, and Regicide - Hamlet II: Crash Course Literature 204
In which John Green teaches you MORE about Bill Shakespeare's Hamlet. John talks about gender roles in Hamlet, and what kind of power and agency Ophelia and Gertrude had, if they had any at all (spoiler alert: we think they did). You'll...
Crash Course
Pre-Columbian Theater, Spanish Empire, and Sor Juana: Crash Course Theater #22
This week, we're headed to the Americas to learn about the theater that existed there prior to the arrival of Europeans, how the theater of the Spanish influenced it, and the impact of Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz, playwrighting Spanish nun...
SciShow
How Psychology Can Explain the Deadly Medieval Dancing Plagues
From the 1200s through the 1600s, parts of Europe were afflicted with deadly, mysterious outbreaks of seemingly contagious, unstoppable dancing. While it's still unclear exactly why these "dancing plagues" happened, modern psychology may...
TED Talks
Deepa Narayan: 7 beliefs that can silence women -- and how to unlearn them
In India (and many other countries), girls and women still find themselves silenced by traditional rules of politeness and restraint, says social scientist Deepa Narayan. In this frank talk, she identifies seven deeply entrenched norms...
TED Talks
TED: How we can build AI to help humans, not hurt us | Margaret Mitchell
As a research scientist at Google, Margaret Mitchell helps develop computers that can communicate about what they see and understand. She tells a cautionary tale about the gaps, blind spots and biases we subconsciously encode into AI --...
TED Talks
Elizabeth Howell: How we can improve maternal healthcare -- before, during and after pregnancy
Shocking, but true: the United States has the highest rate of deaths for new mothers of any developed country -- and 60 percent of them are preventable. With clarity and urgency, physician Elizabeth Howell explains the causes of maternal...
TED Talks
T. Morgan Dixon and Vanessa Garrison: The trauma of systematic racism is killing Black women. A first step toward change...
T. Morgan Dixon and Vanessa Garrison, founders of the health nonprofit GirlTrek, are on a mission to reduce the leading causes of preventable death among Black women -- and build communities in the process. How? By getting one million...
TED Talks
6 essential lessons for women leaders | Julia Gillard and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
In a rich conversation full of practical insights, former Prime Minister of Australia Julia Gillard and former Finance Minister of Nigeria Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala reflect on their experiences as women leaders in positions of global power --...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: The myth of Arachne and Athena - Iseult Gillespie
From sailors who were turned into pigs, nymphs that sprouted into trees, and a gaze that converted the beholder to stone, Greek mythology brims with shape-shifters. The powerful Gods usually changed their own forms at will - but for...
TED Talks
Ariana Curtis: Museums should honor the everyday, not just the extraordinary
Who deserves to be in a museum? For too long, the answer has been "the extraordinary" -- those aspirational historymakers who inspire us with their successes. But those stories are limiting, says museum curator Ariana Curtis. In a...
TED Talks
TED: The powerful women on the front lines of climate action | Farwiza Farhan
When it comes to big problems like climate change, we tend to focus on big solutions -- but many of the best ideas come from people on the ground, facing day-to-day conservation battles. Sharing her effort to protect the Leseur ecosystem...
Crash Course
Assisted Death & the Value of Life: Crash Course Philosophy
As we wrap up Crash Course Philosophy, we’re using the things we’ve learned to explore big issues like the value of life. Today, we’re discussing abortions in cases of fetal abnormality, assisted suicide, and euthanasia. We will consider...
TED Talks
TED: How racism harms pregnant women -- and what can help | Miriam Zoila Perez
Racism is making people sick -- especially black women and babies, says Miriam Zoila Perez. The doula turned journalist explores the relationship between race, class and illness and tells us about a radically compassionate prenatal care...
TED Talks
TED: The politics of fiction | Elif Shafak
Listening to stories widens the imagination; telling them lets us leap over cultural walls, embrace different experiences, feel what others feel. Elif Shafak builds on this simple idea to argue that fiction can overcome identity politics.
TED Talks
TED: Compassion and the true meaning of empathy | Joan Halifax
Buddhist roshi Joan Halifax works with people at the last stage of life (in hospice and on death row). She shares what she's learned about compassion in the face of death and dying, and a deep insight into the nature of empathy.
Crash Course
Mythical Trees: Crash Course World Mythology
This week on CC Myth, Mike Rugnetta is teaching you about mythical trees. There are lots of trees in myth, and we've touched on some of them before, but today we're going to focus on three trees from three different traditions. We'll...
Crash Course
Slave Codes Crash Course Black American History
Slave codes were a method of protecting the investment of white enslavers in the Colonies by restricting the lives of enslaved people in almost every imaginable way. The codes restricted enslaved people’s ability to move around, or...
TED Talks
TED: 4 ways to redefine power at work to include women of color | Rha Goddess and Deepa Purushothaman
With many women of color considering exiting the workforce due to unfair conditions, it's time to reshape systems in order to put an end to this massive loss of talent. Exposing the harmful repercussions of racist, toxic organizational...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The forgotten queen of Egypt | Abdallah Ewis
The year is 1249 CE. King Louis IX is sailing the Nile, threatening to overthrow the sultan and capture Egypt. Egypt's commanders ask the sultan's wife, Shajar Al-Durr, to report this news to the injured sultan. But they don't know the...
TED Talks
Rana Abdelhamid: 3 lessons on starting a movement from a self-defense trailblazer
At 16, Rana Abdelhamid started teaching self-defense to women and girls in her neighborhood. Almost 10 years later, these community classes have grown into Malikah: a global grassroots network creating safety, power and solidarity for...
PBS
The Two People We're All Related To
Due to an odd quirk of genetics and some unique evolutionary circumstances, two humans who lived at different times in the distant past managed to pass on a very small fraction of their genomes to you. And to me. To all of us.