Category: Great Ideas

Paintings come alive in Tagliafierro’s ‘Beauty’

Italian animator Rino Stefano Tagliafierro breathes life into dozens of classical paintings in his captivating short, Beauty: The film, Tagliafierro writes, is “a path of sighs through the emotions of life. A tribute to the art and her disarming beauty.” Among the numerous paintings are works of Rubens and Rembrandt, whom we study in CC202, and Vermeer, who […]

Odysseus to Telemachus

Welcome back after the break! In relation to CC101’s study of The Odyssey is a poem by celebrated Russian poet laureate Joseph Brodsky, titled Odysseus to Telemachus: My dear Telemachus, The Trojan War is over now; I don’t recall who won it. The Greeks, no doubt, for only they would leave so many dead so far […]

Quantum Computers – Animated!

Fair enough, the next big thing is the quantum computer… but what is it exactly? The exciting scientific details have descended into hearsay. Watch PHD Comics’ animated video below as clarification. Wikipedia tells us that: Practical and theoretical research continues, and many national governments and military funding agencies support quantum computing research to develop quantumcomputers […]

Montaigne on Film

A Youtube channel named Montaigne On Film has caught our attention! Their videos take an abstract approach to Montaigne’s ideas, which are studied in CC201 this semester. Check them out below: How our emotions discharge against false objects when lacking real ones Our emotions get carried away beyond us On sadness

Check out Chekhov: He will give you social skills

In a post for the NY Times, Pam Belluck describes a recent study on the effects of literature on social interaction: After reading literary fiction, as opposed to popular fiction or serious nonfiction, people performed better on tests measuring empathy, social perception and emotional intelligence — skills that come in especially handy when you are trying to […]

Rembrandt’s Lesser-Known Genius

We all know of Rembrandt’s great paintings, from Night Watch to The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp, but the genius of this great Dutch artist did not stop when the paint brush did. Rembrandt also had a skill for print making and etching, a skill currently on display at the Museum of Fine Arts. […]

The Major #1: English?

Looming above many college students is the uncertainty of choosing a major. The Core does not have specific instructions on how to make this important decision… However, here we highlight some of the common opinions on the matter. Today’s topic is the English Major: In a thoughtful though rather biased article from The Chronicle Review we […]

Exciting new game ‘Walden’

The Core is delighted to share that game designer Tracy Fullerton is developing a new game, Walden. Thoreau’s Walden is one of the key texts in CC202’s study of Enlightenment and Modernity, and the game simulates the experiment in living made by Henry David Thoreau at Walden Pond in 1845-47. Ms. Fullerton was kind enough to […]

Book the Size of a Ladybug Contains Genesis I

The University of Iowa library contains over 4,000 books that can fit into one’s palm. One book, however, has come to the attention of The Atlantic. This pea-sized volume measures a mere 0.138 inches square and 0.04 inches thick, so tiny it cannot be read with the naked eye. Recently library staff put the miniature […]

How to think of the Web

From Prof. Jon Westling’s syllabus for his discussion section of CC 202 in Spring 2004 The Internet [like fire, money, science, water, and other elemental entities] can be a helpful servant, but it is a bad master. In the disciplines of the humanities and the social sciences, unlike in some scientific disciplines, it is not customary […]