Tagged: life

Creativity: John Cleese & Scientific American

While “creativity” is difficult to define, it seems fairly certain that something of the sort exists. We know little of its origins, but can observe the environments in which it thrives. Here is John Cleese’s take on it: Cleese successfully outlines “the 5 factors that you can arrange to make your lives more creative”. Here […]

Montaigne: What do I know?

Relating to CC201’s study of Montaigne is an article by Liam Julian of The Weekly Standard, discussing the Essays. Here is an extract: Begun in 1572, the Essays is Montaigne’s 20-year examination of his own life, and not the product of that examination, either, but the examination itself. It contains more than a hundred essays and some […]

CC204: Living Wage Calculator

This spring, the class of CC204 has been looking at inequality in terms of race, gender, social class and financial standing. “Poverty in America” has provided a very useful tool to investigate inequality in terms wages across the United States, the Living Wage Calculator: http://bit.ly/Ykr2NZ Simply enter your home town and find out how much money […]

CC106: The Sound of Music

Today, February 5th, Biology Professor Jelle Atema (Doctorandus, University of Utrecht (Netherlands); PhD, University of Michigan), held a lecture titled “The sound of music: frog calls and the design of music halls”, for the Core class CC106. CC106 is designed to round out students’ exploration of the natural sciences by focusing on the science of life. The professors […]

André Alexis: Why Read?

The essay discusses David Shields’ novel How Literature Saved My Life, and how its ideas truly relate to many aspects of existence. Here is an extract: One of the other things literature does is that it keeps the plates in the air, so to speak. Much thinking, in the humanities, has shifted from the answer-oriented […]

‘Who Are You and What Are You Doing Here?’ by Mark Edmundson

In this essay, an important question is asked. Edmundson discusses what real education is, and how one must fight to obtain it and retain it. Here is an excerpt: Your professors will give you some fine books to read, and they’ll probably help you understand them. What they won’t do, for reasons that perplex me, […]

Analects of the Core: Lane on hunger prolonging life

Expanding further on the works studied in CC106, here is the next analect from Nick Lane’s Life Ascending: The Great Inventions of Evolution: We may not enjoy the fact much, but we’ve recognized since the early 1920’s that going moderately hungry prolongs life. It’s called calorie restriction. Rats fed a balanced diet, but with about […]