Great Ideas | The Core Blog

Category: Great Ideas

CC204: Living Wage Calculator

February 19, 2013 at 12:11 pm

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 […]

By mdimov | Also posted in Academics, Curriculum | Tagged CC204, finance, Inequality, life, money, social science, society, stability, wages, well | Comments (0)

Ron Rosenbaum on the Jane Austen ‘hype’

February 14, 2013 at 1:03 pm

Relating to CC202’s study of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, the Core offers an article by Ron Rosenbaum, titled Is Jane Austen Overhyped?- Evaluating her literary merit amid the Anniversary reverence. The subject it deals with is important, and relevant to all classics- how much good does exaggerated celebration their anniversaries really do? Here is a […]

By mdimov | Also posted in Academics, Art, Community, Curriculum, Great Personalities | Tagged celebration, critic, dumb, exaggeration, excess, hype, Jane Austen, pride and prejudice | Comments (0)

Adam and Dog

February 13, 2013 at 3:34 pm

The Core is delighted to share with students this Oscar-nominated short animated film by Minkyu Lee, named Adam and Dog. It is a compelling take on the creation story of The Book of Genesis (studied in CC101) from the point of view of a playful dog, which comes into contact with the first man in […]

By mdimov | Also posted in Academics, Announcements, Art, Community, Curriculum, Friday Fun, Uncategorized, video | Tagged adam, dog, eve, friend, friendship, Genesis, God, sin, videos | Comments (0)

Twists on John Keats

February 7, 2013 at 5:13 pm

The Core presents a poem by Dan Beachy-Quick titled The Cricket and The Grasshopper, named after the poem by Romantic poet John Keats, whose work is studied in the CC202 Core class. Here is the Dan B-Q poem: The senseless leaf in the fevered hand Grows hot, near blood-heat, but never grows Green. Weeks ago the […]

By mdimov | Also posted in Academics, Art, Community, Curriculum, Great Personalities | Tagged build, expand, influence, inspiration, John Keats, new, old, poem, poet, poetry, reference, twist | Comments (0)

The Beat Generation, Allen Ginsberg & ‘Howl’

February 6, 2013 at 2:38 pm

The Core encourages students to explore the arts and dip their intellectual toes in diverse fields – one such extraordinary field is that of Beat writing. A quick look into Wikipedia gives an equally quick description of this movement: The Beat Generation was a group of American post-World War II writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, […]

By mdimov | Also posted in Art, Community, Great Personalities, Great Photograph | Tagged Allen Grinsberg, Beat, Beatnik, change, controversial, film, generation, movement, movie, poetry, writing | Comments (0)

The Saxophone and ‘The Odyssey’

February 5, 2013 at 3:32 pm

Relating to the study of The Odyssey by CC101 every fall, here is an interesting fact: great saxophonist Chris Potter draws inspiration from the Greek epic for his music. In the article discussing the matter, Potter is quoted as saying: I read it [the Odyssey] in high school and thought it was cool but didn’t […]

By mdimov | Also posted in Art, Community, Curriculum | Tagged Art, combination, epic, expression, Greek, inspiration, mix, music, odyssey | Comments (0)

André Alexis: Why Read?

February 4, 2013 at 2:41 pm

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 […]

By mdimov | Also posted in Art, Community | Tagged books, enthusiasm, excitement, life, literature, motivation, novel, save | Comments (0)

Brad Leithauser: Why We Should Memorize

January 28, 2013 at 3:44 pm

Core classes extensively explore poetry. Here is an essay on the topic of memorizing poetry – whether we should do it, and if so, why and how? An excerpt: Anyone equipped with a smartphone—many of my friends would never step outdoors without one—commands a range of poetry that beggars anything the brain can store. Let’s […]

By mdimov | Also posted in Academics, Curriculum, Great Questions | Tagged access, Keats, learn, memorize, poetry, recite, technology, why? | Comments (0)

Faust reference in Radiohead – Videotape

January 28, 2013 at 3:01 pm

In view of CC202’s study of Goethe’s Faust, the Core would like to bring to students’ attention Radiohead’s meaningful mention of Mephistopheles, who is the main “villain” in the tragic play. Radiohead – Videotape (click for song) Lyrics: When I’m at the pearly gates This’ll be on my videotape My videotape My videotape When Mephistopheles […]

By mdimov | Also posted in Art, Community | Tagged CC202, Faust, Goethe, Mephistopheles, music, play, Radiohead, reference | Comments (0)

Paula Byrne: ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and politics

January 25, 2013 at 4:35 pm

The class of CC202 delves into Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Here the Core presents an article looks at that work from another perspective- politics. Here is an excerpt: The Victorians fostered the idea of Austen as the retiring spinster who confined her novels to the small canvas of village life. In more recent times she […]

By mdimov | Also posted in Academics, Curriculum, Great Questions | Tagged article, CC202, context, history, interesting, Jane Austen, militia, novel, politics, poverty, prejudice, pride, romantic | Comments (0)

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The Core Blog is a hub for information and media related to the CAS Core Curriculum at Boston University. It will be updated regularly, with photo galleries, interviews, links to related reading online, news of events or activities, and other kinds of content that help connect our Core people—prospective, current, and former students—with each other. You can stop by here once a week to scroll through the posts, or make this your homepage in order to keep your finger on the pulse of the Core. Either way, we hope you find this to be a pleasant way to strengthen your connection with the great people, the great books, and the great questions we encounter in the Core.
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Category: Great Ideas

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