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1.
000139
文科段子：艺术类音乐
It may seem strange that we're
discussing music from a Broadway production in
this
class,
Lion
King
especially,
since
it's
based
on
a
popular
Hollywood
movie.
I
mean music preformed for
Broadway theater in the heart of New York city
surely would
seem to be in the western
tradition of popular music and not have much in
common
with
the
music
we
have
been
studying
in
this
course,
such
as
gamelan
music
of
Indonesia, or Zulu chants
of South Africa, music that developed outside the
western
tradition of Europe and
America. But in fact, musicians have a long-
standing tradition
of borrowing front
one another's cultures. And this production's
director intentionally
included
both
western
and
non-western
music.
That
way,
some
of
the
rhythms,
instrument,
and
harmonies
typical
of
non-western
music
contrast
with
and
complement popular music more familiar
to audiences in North America and Europe,
music like rock, jazz or Broadway style
show tunes. So I want to spend the rest of this
class and most of the next one on the
music from the show
summarizing some of
the technical distinctions between typical western
music and the
non-western music that
we've been studying. Now the African influence on
the music
is clear
. The
story takes place in Africa. So the director got a
South African composer to
write songs
with a distinctly African sound. And the songs
even include words from
African
languages. But we'll get back to the African
influence later
. First let's turn to
the
music that was written for the
shadow puppet scenes in
on the
Indonesian music used in the shadow puppet theater
of that region.
2.
2. 000143
理科段子：天文学
In ancient times, many people believed
the earth was a flat disc. Well over 2,000 years
ago; the ancient Greek philosophers
were able to put forward two good arguments
proving that it was not. Direct
observations of heavenly bodies were the basis of
both
these arguments. First, the Greeks
knew that during eclipses of the moon the earth
was
between
the
sun
and
the moon,
and
they
saw
that
during
these
eclipses,
the
earth's shadow on the moon was always
round, they realized that this could be true
only if the earth was spherical, It the
earth was a flat disc, then its shadow during
eclipses would not be a prefect circle;
it would be stretched out into a long ellipse. The
second argument was based on what the
Greeks saw during their travels. They noticed
that the North Star
, or
Polaris, appeared lower in the sky when they
traveled south, in
the more northerly
regions, the North Star appeared to them to be
much higher in the
sky. By the way, it
was also from this difference in the apparent
position of the North
Star
that
the
Greeks
first
calculated
the
approximate
distance
around
the
circumference
of
the
earth,
a
figure
recorded
in
ancient
documents
says
400.000
stadium,
that's
the
plural
of
the
world
stadium.
Today,
it's
not
known
exactly
what
length one stadium represents, but
let's say it was about 200 meters, the length of
many athletic stadiums. This would make
the Greek's estimate about twice the figure
accepted today, a very good estimate
for those writing so long before even the first
telescope was invented
3.
991040
生活段子：噪音影响
I'm grad to see so many of you here.
We've become really alarmed over the health
center by the number of students we are
seeing, who are experiencing hearing loss.
First, I want to go over some basic
about hearing. Then we can take a look at our
school environment and see if we can
figure out some ways to protect hearing. The
leading cause of preventable hearing
loss is excessive noise. Too much moderate noise
for
a
long
time
or
some
types
of
intense
noise
for
even
a
short
time
can
damage
hearing. Loudness is measured in units
called decibels. One decibel is the lowest sound
that the average person can here.
Sounds up to 80 decibels generally aren't harmful.
That's
noise
like
traffic
on
a
busy
street.
But
anything
louder
than
80
decibels,
especially with continuous exposure,
may eventually hurt your hearing. Once you are
up to around 140 decibels, that's like
a jet plane taking off, then you might even feel
pain
in
your
ears.
And
pains
are
sure
sign
that
your
hearing's
at
risk.
Even
one
exposure to a really loud noise at
close range can cause hearing loss. So what you
need to do is limit your exposure to
harmful levels. If you pass along this handout, we
can take a look at the decibel level of
some common campus sounds. Notice how loud
those horns are that people take to
football games. They are really dangerous if blown
right behind you. Now, let's try to
generate a list of damaging noises.
4.
. 990839
文科段子：电影艺术
To
get
us
started
this
semester
I
am
going
to
spend
the
first
two
classes
giving
you
background
lectures
about
some
basic
cinematic
concepts.
Once
you
are
a
little
more
familiar with basic film terminology,
we will be ready to look at the history of movies
in the
United States. You'll be
expected to attend showing of films on Tuesday
evenings at 7
o'clock in Jennings
Auditorium. That's our lab. Then during our
Wednesday seminar
, we'll
discuss in depth the movie we saw the
night before. We are not covering silent films in
this
course. We will begin with the
first talking motion picture, The Jazz
Singer
, released in 1927.
The
next
week,
we'll
be
looking
at
The
Gold
Diggers
of
1933,
a
piece
that
is
very
representative of the escapist trend in
films released during the depression. Some of the
films we will be watching will probably
be new to you, like Frank Capra's Why We Fight.
Others
you
might
have
already
seen
on
TV
like
Rebel
without
A
Cause
starring
James
Deane, or Stanley
Cooper's Doctor's Strange Love.
However
, I hope you see even familiar
film with new eye. In the last three
weeks of the course, we will be watching films
from the
1980s and you'll choose one of
them as a subject for an extensive written
critique. We'll
talk more about the
requirements of the critique later in this
semester
.