Category: | Our Mythical Childhood Survey

Orson Scott Card

Six-year old boy genius Ender (Andrew) Wiggin is selected for training at the Battle School. An elite force of soldiers is needed to protect humanity from invasion by an alien force, named the ‘Buggers,’ for their resemblance to insects. Ender’s intelligence includes an awareness of his light and dark sides, symbolised externally by his empathic sister, Valentine, and his sociopathic brother, Peter (both of whom have been rejected by the School). As he undergoes his training, E(...)

literary

YEAR: 1985

COUNTRY: United States of America

TAGS: Alexander the Great Ancient Warfare Caesar Cicero Demosthenes Hero(es) Patriotism Rhetoric / Oratory Roman Empire

Yann Le Bras, Yan Marchand

Socrates for President! [Socrate Président !]

Long ago, in this story, people were aware of the day of their death and appeared before the judgment of the gods in their best form and brought generous gifts. Even the immortals found it difficult to resist accepting such bounty, so more and more often, the rich were sent to the Isles of the Blessed, while the poor, even if they lived justly, could not lavish gifts on the gods and, so, made their way to Tartarus. When the gods realised that humans could hide an evil soul under a pleasant shell(...)

literary

YEAR: 2017

COUNTRY: France

TAGS: Democracy Minos Philosophy Plato Political Thought Rhetoric / Oratory Socrates Tartarus

TED , David T. Freeman, Alex Gendler, Richard Hamblyn, Camille A. Langston, Gregory Taylor

TED-Ed Lessons Worth Sharing, Series Playing with Language: Why Shakespeare Loved Iambic Pentameter / How Did Clouds Get Their Names? / How to Use Rhetoric to Get What You Want

Why Shakespeare Loved Iambic PentameterThe narrator points out that Shakespeare was a playwright, but “first, and foremost – a poet”, and that it is worth paying attention to how stress is used in Shakespeare's poems. Then he defines what exactly stress is, gives examples of using it in modern English, and explains that poets experiment all the time with number and order of accents in their verses (however, it has to be mentioned here, the video does not provide directly th(...)

ephemeral

YEAR: 2015

COUNTRY: Online

TAGS: Aristotle Cicero Ethos Latin (Language) Liberal Arts Logos Pathos Philosophy Political Thought Rhetoric / Oratory

TED , Wisecrack , Addison Anderson, John R. Dilworth, Alex Gendler, Mathias Richard Horhager, Conor Neill , Pilar Newton , Alec Opperman, Jason Permenter, Asparuh Petrov , Massimo Pigliucci , Saschka Unseld, Rebecca Whipple Silverstein, Mia Wood

TED-Ed Lessons Worth Sharing, Series The Big Questions: What Aristotle and Joshua Bell Can Teach Us about Persuasion / Plato's Allegory of the Cave / Plato's Best (and Worst) Ideas /The Philosophy of Stoicism /

What Aristotle and Joshua Bell Can Teach Us about Persuasion?The video's first scene presents a concert of a world famous violinist Joshua Bell at Boston Symphony Hall on January 9, 2007. We are told that Bell at this time was “at peak of his abilities”; then he is shown standing and playing at the top of a sky-reaching mountain among clouds, which can bring to mind Parnassus. But soon the mountain disappears, Bell falls down and suddenly we see him performing on a subway platfor(...)

ephemeral

YEAR: 2013

COUNTRY: Online

TAGS: Aristotle Athens Marcus Aurelius Philosophy Plato Political Thought Rhetoric / Oratory Seneca Zeno of Cyprus (Zeno of Citium)