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15.269 Spring 2003 |
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15.269 Spring 2003 |
Literature and film recommended by participants of the Spring 2000 seminar
| Jump to: <Books><Film><Links | Revisit Spring 2000 syllabus | Submit / update recommendation to sabina.mcmahon@sloan.mit.edu |
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| BOOK / PRINTED RESOURCE | AUTHOR | RECOMMENDER'S COMMENTS / OTHER REVIEWS |
| All My Sons | Miller, Arthur | Roundabout Theatre. |
| Antigone (full text) | Sophocles | Antigone, obeying all her instincts of love, loyalty, and humanity, defies Creon and dutifully buries her brother's corpse and prove that conflicting obligations of civic versus personal loyalties and religious mores have an inevitable outcome for thinking persons driven by principles. Charis |
| Acharnians, The (full text) | Aristophanes | Dicaeopolis, farmer-hero, is tired of the Peloponnesian War and therefore secures a private peace treaty with the Spartans for himself in spite of the violent opposition of a chorus of embittered and bellicose old charcoal burners of Acharnae. Dicaeopolis takes advantage of his private treaty to trade with the allies of the Spartans. The Athenian commander Lamachus tries to stop him, but by the end of the play Lamachus slumps wounded and dejected while Dicaeopolis enjoys a peacetime life of food, wine and sex. Charis |
| Beach, The | Garland, Alex (slow link) | Isolated community - Good Will. |
| Bean Trees, The | Kingsolver, Barbara | Karin |
| Brave New World (full text) | Huxley, Aldous | |
| Camille Claudel : A Sculpture of Interior Solitude | Caranfa, Angelo | |
| Catch-22 | Heller, Joseph | As film. |
| Captain Corelli's Mandolin | De Bernières, Louis | Reprinted as Corelli's Mandolin. Touching and very readable story about the impact of war on Greek islanders. For a darker story by the same author, see Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord.<Ping Yi |
| Ekklesiazousai (Women at the Ecclesia) (full text) | Aristophanes | The women of Athens dress up as men, take over the Ecclesia (the Athenian democratic assembly), and introduce a communistic system of wealth, sex and property. Similar to Antonia's Line. Charis |
| Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience | Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly | On sequel: Finding Flow - Vacuum; Enlightenment.<Riza |
| Fried Green Tomatoes (excerpt) | Flagg, Fannie | As film.<Ling Lee |
| From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life | Barzun, Jacques | Library Journal. |
| Good Earth, The | Buck, Pearl S | |
| Invitation, The (full text) | Mountain Dreamer, Oriah | Julie |
| Judgment at Nuremburg (out of print) | ||
| Life Stories | Stories inside prison.<Adam | |
| Lord of the Flies, The | Golding, William Gerald | Isolated community - Good
Will.
Group of boys being stranded on an island and trying to get self-organized to survive. Theme fits into how first attempts to create a society can go wrong.<Nicholas |
| Neuromancer (full text) | Gibson, William | Groundbreaking sci-fi novel on a virtual world made possible by technology - the word "cyberspace" is attributed to Gibson. |
| Of Vice and Virtue | Collection of notes.<Adam | |
| Positronic Man, The (out of print) | Asimov, Isaac | As film: Bicentennial Man. Being human.<Toshi |
| Prince, The (full text) | Machiavelli, Niccolo | Kyongsoo |
| Socrates' Apology (full text) | Plato | "The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways - I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows." Relevance with St. Thomas More. Charis |
| Sophie's Choice (excerpt) | Styron, William | |
| Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values | Pirsig, Robert M | Lachlan |
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| FILM / MUSIC / DRAMA | DIRECTOR / WRITER | RECOMMENDER'S COMMENTS / OTHER REVIEWS |
| 12 Angry Men | Rose, Reginald | Analyzes controversial ethical issues from the different players' perspectives and backgrounds (both professional and social). Good application of a leadership role improvised by the main character. Used in 15.311 during Fall 1999.<Isidro |
| 2001: A Space Odyssey | Kubrick, Stanley | (i) What does it mean to
be human? Or even deeper: what is consciousness? And how is
it achieved?
(ii) A higher being aka God behind our moral acts?<Isidro |
| American History X | Kaye, Tony | |
| Bicentennial Man | Columbus, Chris | As book: Positronic Man, The. Being human.<Toshi |
| Boyz N the Hood | Singleton, John | Adam |
| Children of Heaven | Majidi, Majid | Nazgol |
| Children of the Revolution | Duncan, Peter | |
| Cinema Paradiso | Tornatore, Giuseppe | Kyongsoo |
| Color of Paradise, The | Majidi, Majid | Relates to the balance of
your own (selfish) interests and those of your family - the more you want
to gain, the more you will lose. An extremely touching film.<Nicholas
Boston Globe. |
| Comrades, Almost a Love Story | Chan, Peter | Ling Lee |
| Devils on the Doorstep | Jiang, Wen | Book by Yu Fengwei.
POWs - The Enemy,
The Assault.
Brutal film on Japan's WW2 occupation of China. |
| Eat Drink Man Woman | Lee, Ang | Ling Lee |
| Ghost Dog | Jarmusch, Jim | Karin |
| Muriel's Wedding | Hogan, P J | Lachlan |
| My Fair Lady | Lerner, Alan Jay | Mentor-mentee - Diva.<Liz |
| Once Were Warriors | Tamahori, Lee | |
| Pinocchio | Collodi, C | Being human. |
| Platoon | Stone, Oliver | Within a group of soldiers, different characters assume varying leadership roles regardless of differences in military rank, and respond in very different fashions to ethical problems.<Isidro |
| Postino, Il (Postman, The) | Radford, Michael | Relates to mentor-mentee relationship and social responsibility.<Nicholas |
| Pygmalion | Shaw, George Bernard | Mentor-mentee - Diva. |
| Rogue Trader | Dearden, James | See Wall Street.<Lachlan |
| Saving Private Ryan | Spielberg, Steven | POWs - The Enemy.<Kris |
| Shawshank Redemption, The | Darabont, Frank | Adam |
| Sumo Do, Sumo Don't | Suo, Masayuki | Diversity in Japanese society - same director and cast of Shall We Dance?<Ling Lee |
| Wall Street | Stone, Oliver | See Rogue Trader. |
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| LINK | SOURCE | RECOMMENDER'S COMMENTS / OTHER REVIEWS |
| Ethics | Encyclopedia Britannica | Treatment of ethics across the history of humanity.<Ping Yi |
| Human Rights | Encyclopedia Britannica | Discussion of human rights. See UN Declaration (Yale Avalon Project). |
| NYT Magazine Poll | New York Times Magazine | National opinion poll on
American culture, identity, mores and ethics.<Liz
Tip: How to access NYT without registering. |
| Do MBAs Lie? | MBA Bullet Point | Results from research on honesty. |
| Chapter One (excerpts) | Washington Post | 1st chapters of selected books reviewed by Washington Post. |
| Free Chapters (excerpts) | Time Warner Bookmark | Excerpts of books featured by Little, Brown & Co and Warner Books. |
| Folklore, Fairy Tales, Germanic Mythology (full text) | Ashliman, D L | Tales, myths, legends and sagas. |
| Russian Stories (full text) | Works by Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol, Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov. | |
| Online Justice Systems | Gamasutra | How to build a sense of community among online gamers. |
| Salem, Oregon | City of Salem | Pg 347. |
| Blade Runner FAQ | Chapman, Murray | Movie trivia. |
| Buchenwald Concentration Camp | About.com | Camp where Raizel Kaidish died. |
| Cybrary of the Holocaust | Dunn, Mike | |
| Arthur Schopenhauer | Ross, Kelley L | Cited by Crooked Finger. |
| St. Thomas More | Catholic Encyclopedia | Biography. |
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