In any case, below are the videos, all now also available on YouTube:
And here is Study_Guide with some aids and suggestions.
The Geonim: An Introduction
I have been teaching for many years in the Me’ah adult learning program run by Hebrew College in Newton, Massachusetts. I’ve always enjoyed teaching in this program and having the opportunity to interact with the wider Jewish community. Such teaching continually reminds me of the value in making what I, and other scholars, do accessible to a broader audience. Toward that end, when Me’ah asked if I would be interested in developing some videos and other resources for them for a module on the Geonim (the rabbis who lived at the very end of the Talmudic period and the shift to the Middle Ages) for one of their online courses, I jumped at the opportunity. I do not believe that online education (even when done well) will, or should, ever replace the live experience of learning, but at the same time I think that we have just barely begun to tap its potential and it is an area in which I would like to work more.