October 16, 2016 at 12:49 am
That “Canterbury” contains “Cant-“, and that “cant” shares a precarious assonance with another word, suggests that one of our most literate bards and bawds, Chaucer, might have anticipated Trump’s latest perversion. This possibility was recently illuminated by Constance Grady at Vox. Or, less likely, Trump might have been paying tribute in his comment to some […]
October 14, 2016 at 2:40 am
If anyone has a story that can justly be called BUnique and BUtiful, then one of our Core first-year students, Abbey Janeira, has certainly made her own a strong candidate. She was profiled in a recent article at BU Today: Abbey Janeira (CAS ’20) is used to facing challenges. As an eighth grader, she was […]
October 8, 2016 at 1:09 pm
One reason why it is necessary to keep “pushing” the “classic books” is that they strengthen the things that remain. For one of our present monomanias is for “innovation,” against which the classical works provide much needed traction.Without it, it is easy to feel one is living a chopping-block mode of existence, bound to cut […]
October 4, 2016 at 3:05 pm
In this corner, the cries for diversity are heard so regularly, that one can’t help but to feel they are unified into some kind of chant. Meanwhile, the coroner is busy trying to figure out why a tiny but vicious minority of those marching is taking aim at the canonical paladins, otherwise called Dead White […]
October 2, 2016 at 2:05 pm
Some people are so religiously devoted to a method of reading that we may properly call them Methodists. Others feel the text should be all things to all men, which is good politics but bad for criticism. For if every interpretation is welcomed open-armed, then little room is left for pressing one reading against any […]
September 28, 2016 at 12:57 am
Finnegans Wake and Fifty Shades of Grey are at two extremes of the incomprehensible: one is a classic that befuddles; the other a plastic that bewilders. Many feel guilty about not having read the books of the first kind. And most of these would be unwilling to expiate themselves in any shade or variation recommended […]
September 25, 2016 at 1:18 pm
Tidings do I bring and lucky joys and golden times and happy news of price. Benvolio, Malvolio, and many between have averted a second tragedy with the discovery of another First Folio, in time for the bards 400th year anniversary. It was found on the Island of Bute, and authenticated by Shakespeare expert and enthusiast […]
September 22, 2016 at 4:53 pm
For several reasons, Philosophy departments in the United States have traditionally recommended a safe distance from Nietzsche. One is the prose style, which shows a penchant less for analysis and more for Dionysus. Another is hygiene: the charge of anti-Semitism has stuck to him like a bad scent, despite the attempts by expositors, most notably […]
September 17, 2016 at 2:30 pm
“No, the Internet Has Not Killed the Printed Book. Most People Still Prefer Them,” Daniel Victor of the New York Times assures us in the title of his latest. And also invites us to ponder whether the slip in grammar might not indicate that the Internet has killed or made moribund something else: literacy. Citing […]
