“We think of Dante as a poet who concentrated and defended the medieval order. The medieval order evidently did not want to be concentrated and defended by a poet, for the works of Dante were publicly burnt by Pope John XXII.” Source: “The Translation of Poetry”, a lecture delivered by Allen Tate in 1970 at […]
April 14, 2016 at 9:00 am
Dante’sDivine Comedy is one of CC 102’s most memorable reads towards the end of the semester. It follows a similar epic poetry format seen inThe OdysseyorThe Aeneid, but with a twist. The famous Italian poet creates his own world through his 14,000 line epic separated into three books. He brings in characters we might recognize […]
March 14, 2016 at 2:42 pm
Imagine Julius Caesar running a modern day business class. Despite the ridiculous punishments imposed on students who might not have used the right font on their essays, we have to believe: he would probably come up with some GREAT leadership initiatives. He ruled a mighty state! So it’s not crazy to think that students nowadays […]
February 2, 2016 at 8:59 am
That Goethe is being read as part of CC202 speaks to his profound impact on literature. A writer whose works mimicked his life (or perhaps the opposite), Goethe felt a longing, a hiraeth perhaps, for something truehe wanted experience for experiences sake. Yet, can it be recounted when Goethe was last mentioned outside of the […]
December 15, 2015 at 7:57 am
The following post was originally published on the BU Culture Shock blog. Read Emmy Parks post, God is a Canine. Emmy lands on a conclusion that Id like to start with: What is God spelled backwards? Dog. God is with us, anyways. God is a dog. God is a dog. Or, ratherand here Id like […]
November 10, 2015 at 8:59 am
Snug within the book-bricked walls of a University, it may not seem that literacy is under threat. However, there is a great tradition of humanisticcommentators taking on the role of reminder to bid us keep in mind that literacy in its broadest conception is not just about the ability to decipher meaning out of written […]
August 5, 2015 at 5:13 pm
“Justice” is something of a buzz word in the Core: what it means, how it should be administered, and what constitutes a crime are just a few of the topics that are addressed by writers like Plato, Aristotle, Confucius, and Dante. For the most part, these great thinkers propose systems wherein criminals are punished retroactively […]
Here at the Core, we spend a great deal of time examining a wide range of perspectives on morality, returning semester after semester to examine questions such as “how do we define right and wrong?” and even “do right and wrong really exist?” As we explore these ethical questions through the lenses of science, literature, […]
