Category: Core Journal

Editor’s Introduction to The Journal, Issue 31

Issue Theme: “Age of Anxiety” It has been a liminal year. Covid, war in Ukraine, and political upheaval have shaken and will continue to shake preconceived notions about the world as we know it, from the viability of liberalism to the merits of state power in protecting public health. All these sources of apparent division […]

Editor’s Introduction to The Journal, Issue 30

The online edition of the thirtieth issue of The Journal of the Core Curriculum has just been published. To help place the issue in a context of editorial goals and of the community involvement that went into its production, we hereby present the Editor’s Note from the front matter, written by the editor-in-chief: I am […]

Reading the Romantics

Here follows the set-list of texts read at the Annual Core Poetry Reading, held this year on April 11, 2017 (this information is listed in the 2017 Core Almanac, part of the Core Journal published this year, Issue 26: http://bu.edu/core/journal/xxvi): Zachary Bos read After Reading Keats’ Ode by W. H. Auden Extracts from a letter […]

Recommended reading: “How to Build a Universe”

If you’ve been driving yourself batty, scouring Amazon and the shelves of your local bookstores in search of a copy of Building Universes…for Dummies, we know why you’ve been unsuccessful: that particular book does not exist. However, if you’re dead-set on building your own universe, look no further than Daniel Hudon’s “How to Build a […]

From the Core Journal: “The Analects of Prof. Nelson”

These “Analects of Professor Nelson” were recorded during class discussion by Core student Matthew Spencer, and published in The Journal of the Core Curriculum, Vol. IX, Spring 2000: The Professor said of Rousseau’s Confessions, “Boy, it’s so nitty, and it’s so gritty!” Only then did Matthew understand. When Matthew thought he really understood Rousseau, the Professor said, […]

Core Journal Now Available!

The Spring 2013 Edition of the Core Curriculum Jounal is now available online, at bit.ly/1255au1 (click on Vol. XXII). Congratulations to the staff – you have done a fantastic job! If anyone would like a hard copy, feel free to send us your address at core@bu.edu and we will get to it!

The Core Journal Staff: Crunching Time

In the final days before the Core Journal’s release, organized chaos took over the Core Curriculum’s office. Here are photos capturing our intellectual panic:                      

“Penelope Waiting” by Sassan Tabatabai

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 […]

“The Sun and the Moon have no choice in their existence”

In her essay for the Spring 2010 issue of the Core Journal, Fabiana Cabral explicates Emily Dickinson’s poem, “It Sifts from Leaden Sieves,” in which–Cabral argues–Dickinson is declaring man’s mortality as a kind of freedom: The Sun and the Moon have no choice in their existence. As eternal figures, they must remain in the sky […]