Category: Art

Igor Stravinsky’s ‘The Rite of Spring’

March 1, 2013 at 10:00 am

Relating to CC202′s current study of Modernism, the Core presents Igor Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring”. Upon its release, it was controversial and supposedly caused a ‘riot’ in the Parisian premiere audience… This debated topic is discussed in an article by Tom Service of The Guardian titled The Rite of Spring- the Work of a Madman.Here [...]

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“Penelope Waiting” by Sassan Tabatabai

February 28, 2013 at 1:20 pm

Core Professor Tabatabai, in his poem Penelope Waiting, writes: They say: ‘After twenty years, why does she still wait for him? He must have succumbed to Poseidon’s wrath. his bleached bones, on an unknown beach, have become the pelican’s fare.’ To read this poem in its entirety, please visit the Core Office in search of [...]

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The Penelopiad: A Great Experience

February 26, 2013 at 12:49 pm

The Penelopiad turned out to be as interesting and multi-layered as we had expected, attracting about 35 Core students and many more theater fans! Following the events of the Odyssey from the female perspective, the play interwove the voice of Penelope and the voices of her twelve maids who are killed in the end at [...]

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Don’t Just Do Something, Sit There!

February 26, 2013 at 12:14 pm

The Core Curriculum offers CC102-related intellectual stickers advocating what Buddha would say to Arjuna: Everyone interested can email core@bu.edu or Tweet to Prof. Eckel @taoofcore, to request their own sticker and the Core will mail it to them!

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Zachary Bos on Robert Bringhurst

February 25, 2013 at 2:31 pm

The Administrative Coordinator of the Core, Zachary Bos, recently wrote a letter to the Boston Finneganers regarding Robert Bringhurst’s books: Dear Friends, and members of the Boston Finneganers: I have a great deal of appreciation for Robert Bringhurst’s books – his interest and valuation of languages, literatures, and the technical means these comes to us; his sense of [...]

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Giacinto Scelsi

February 22, 2013 at 11:00 am

From the Shutter Island Soundtrack: The Core presents Giacinto Scelsi, an Italian composer from the 20th century that remained largely unknown for most of his career. The impact caused by the late discovery of Scelsi’s works was described by Belgian musicologist Harry Halbreich: A whole chapter of recent musical history must be rewritten: the second half of [...]

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BU Today: The Penelopiad

February 22, 2013 at 10:26 am

This article by Susan Seligson of BU Today provides the first reactions to CFA’s rendi tion of Margaret Atwood’s Penelopiad. Here is a sample of description: In this contemporary reimagining of The Odyssey, which the author adapted from her 2005 novella, the dead Penelope narrates her tale from a 21st-century Hades, in a state she describes as [...]

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Sting & Confucius

February 21, 2013 at 12:46 pm

The Core presents a song by Sting titled Englishman in New York. It’s message relates to CC102′s study of the Analects of Confucius. The Confucian idea of the ethics of a “gentleman”, to some extent, provides directions on how to behave in the “gentlemanly” way when in a foreign land. Sting addresses this idea of [...]

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Kurt Cobain: Letters & Journals

February 20, 2013 at 4:05 pm

Kurt Cobain’s music and ideas have had a large impact on several generations, and the Core finds it worth acknowledging. In this article, Maria Popova explores and provides pages from the letters and journals of grunge legend. She describes the collection: The posthumously released Kurt Cobain: Journals (public library) offers an unprecedented glimpse of the modern icon’s [...]

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Charles McNulty on Depictions of Violence in Theater

February 19, 2013 at 12:49 pm

In this compelling article, Los Angeles Times Theater Critic McNulty discusses the controversial topic of violence in theater. Here is a sample: What is the line between acceptable and unacceptable violence in art? If gruesomeness is the criterion, much of Jacobean drama would have to be banned, including Shakespeare’s “King Lear,” with its graphic scene [...]

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