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, “What’s the point of Rousseau’s life?” and Matthew could not speak for the rest of the day.
- The Professor said to a student in the class, “You remind me of Satan, but not in a bad way.”
- When the class thought that they had discussed everything, the Professor surprised them, saying “All we have to do now is figure out, who is Don Giovanni and why, and then we go home!”
- For a confounded class, the best medicine is more and more confusion. Thus, the Professor said, after a dizzying discussion of Faust, “And otherwise, we only have to figure out the meaning of the universe, and then we’re done, okay?”
