Posts by: CAS Core Curriculum

Postcards to the Core: from Paris, March 2019

Our Core alumna sent us a digital postcard all the way from Paris! Thank you to Hannah Jew for her note. As a conversation with a certain little Cat revealed that my real postcard got lost dans la poste, a digital postcard: Dear Core, I hope the semester back home is moving along swimmingly. Here […]

“Donald in Mathmagic Land:” Ancient Math in Animation

Back in the heyday of Disney’s educational production, the company produced a 27 minute featurette which was wildly popular, having been used in American schools throughout the 60s and nominated for an Academy Award. Donald Duck enters a word where tress have square roots, birds recite pi, and the voice of adventure guides him through […]

Understanding Dante’s Inferno

At the end of our journey in CC 102, all first year Core students walk with Dante down through the inferno, up to purgatorio, and finally end in paradiso. The Divine Comedy, written in the early 1300s, is master piece full of things too awful and too beautiful for the author to describe. Though many […]

10 Recommended Reads on Anthropogenic Climate Change

1. How to Change Minds About Our Changing Climate by Seth B. Darling and Douglas L. Sisterson This book addresses 15 common arguments against climate change and backs it up with some science, using illustrations and humor to bring a comprehensible case to supporting reform. 2. The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert […]

Festivities at the Core!

Decompress at this end-of-the-semester reception with cookie-decorating, card-making, arts-and-crafts and refreshments in abundance. Friday 12/14, 3-5 PM at 141 Carlton Street. Hosted by Word & Way; open to all Core students and alumni and their guests.

Don Quixote is the only book you have to read.

No seriously, the book has been around for hundreds of years and is still relevant today. A large chunk of our Western entertainment is based off of Don Quixote, especially its humor. Obsessed with chivalrous ideals, Don Quixote wrestles with the idea of chivalry, nobility, and happiness. Don Quixote also pokes fun at the romance […]

Say Goodbye to the Big K

Or Le Grande K, if you will. For years the kilogram was defined by the weight of a metal cylinder kept under the strictest lock and key in Versailles, France. That little cylinder is affectionately called ‘Le Grande K’. However, despite the cylinder’s vacuum sealed climate control storage and the six clones kept in other […]

Color in Ancient Sculpture

To complement our current study of the Parthenon and trips to the MFA, here are a few videos on the coloring of ancient sculptures. For more information on this topic, visit the Tracking Color: Ploychromy of the ancient world website here.

Ancient Greek Music

Since we’ll be looking at the Ancient Greek Acropolis in our next CC101 lecture, we thought you might be interested inlearning more about music from the time.    

Postcards to the Core: from Rethymno, September 2018

Our Core alumna, Kat Monahan, sent us a postcard all the way from Greece! Here’s what she reflects on during her time in Rethymno: Sept. 12, 2018 Γεία σου, Κωρ! Hi Core! Wishing everyone an auspicious start to the 2018-2019 school year. I’d like to propose a Classics alumni trip to Crete so I can […]