Category: Great Ideas

Core Texts on Leadership

February 28, 2013 at 1:37 pm

Here are samples from the Odyssey, the Aeneid, and Don Quixote on the topic of leadership: My child, what strange remarks you let escape you. Could I forget that kingly man, Odysseus? There is no mortal half so wise; no mortal gave so much to the lords of open sky. ~ The Odyssey, Book I, […]

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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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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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Justifying Coercive Paternalism

February 26, 2013 at 11:58 am

In his compelling article, Cass Sunstein explores the validity of Mill’s ideas on government and the individual. Here is a sample: In his great essay, Mill insisted that as a general rule, government cannot legitimately coerce people if its only goal is to protect people from themselves. Mill contended that: The only purpose for which […]

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Publication Opportunities for Students

February 25, 2013 at 2:51 pm

The Core is pleased to present students with a fantastic opportunity to publish their work: The Agora, an on-line publication of Lynchburg College, specializing in responses to the great books of the world, has become a national journal of undergraduate academic writing. The journal, like the ancient Athenian Agora, seeks to be a marketplace for important […]

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W. H. Auden’s Syllabus

February 25, 2013 at 2:20 pm

In this article, Jeva Lange lets us peek into the extremely heavy reading list college students would receive from W.H. Auden for his class, Fate and the Individual in European Literature, as seen above. Compare this to all the Core reading lists combined! http://bit.ly/W8oTLj For the full article, visit http://nydn.us/13aM8q4

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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 […]

By mdimov | Also posted in Art, Community, Curriculum, Great Personalities | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

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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Applying Confucian Ethics to International Relations

February 21, 2013 at 11:00 am

In view of CC102’s study of the Analects of Confucius, the Core presents an interesting discussion of Confucian ethics when applied to international relations. Here is a sample: Chinese ethics is a deontological system that has a continuity spanning a range from personal to public concerns, without differentiation. A good society, a good state, and […]

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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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