September 19, 2014 at 11:03 am
Above, a snippet from Prof. Thomas Barfield’s very animated lecture (babba-bing!) on Thomas Hobbes, in September 2014 for the students of CC 203: Foundations of the Social Sciences.
September 8, 2014 at 10:54 am
{ A guest post from Prof. James Uden of the Department of Classics; cross-posted from the Classics departmental homepage. } Do Athenians ever sleep? No doubt many of the BU students who spent a month in Athens this summer were already accustomed to staying up late, but the Greeks really showed them how to make […]
August 5, 2014 at 5:20 pm
These “Analects of Professor Nelson” were recorded during class discussion by Core student Matthew Spencer, and published in The Journal of the Core Curriculum, Vol. IX, Spring 2000: The Professor said of Rousseau’s Confessions, “Boy, it’s so nitty, and it’s so gritty!” Only then did Matthew understand. When Matthew thought he really understood Rousseau, the Professor said, […]
Summer’s in full swing, and we’ve all settled into our lazy summer habits, which include the constant struggle trying to keep warm for those of us staying in Boston. For those of you missing the Core office, don’t worry, we miss all of you too. To keep your spirits up, we found this wonderful comedic […]
April 18, 2014 at 11:14 am
Egyptian scientist, Ibn al-Haytham (AD 950-1040), is hailed as the father of modern optics and experimental physics. Also, he’s apparently one of the first to make a statement on scientific methodology: The seeker after truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them, […]
March 27, 2014 at 10:06 pm
Who was William Blake? Ask a CC202 student and they’ll tell you he was an English Romantic poet. They’re right but that’s not all. Blake was also a talented artist and many of his subjects will appear familiar to keen-eyed core students. We thought we’d take a moment to share a bit of this lesser […]
March 10, 2014 at 12:13 pm
It seems impossible, sometimes, to delight in the new and exciting. Look at early critics’ and the general public’s reaction to most of modernism for instance. Scorned, scandalized, generally rejected (thank god enough liked it to keep it preserved). And the new can be exhausting in whole other ways. Most of us moved towns even […]
The late 19th and early 20th century gave birth to some of our world’s favorite poets and poetry, something that could be written off as simple proximity, but we at Core believe what makes these writers so important was not only the still resonating effects of political and societal changes they commented on but also […]
February 18, 2014 at 4:04 pm
CC202 has just moved on from Candide. Voltaire strikes even the casual reader as a captivating persona, with wit and intelligence. However, Voltaire’s role in the “Republic of Letters” is certainly worth a mention. To escape arrest, Voltaire lived at Cirey for fifteen years. He wrote a steady stream of letters to stay connected with his friends in […]
January 31, 2014 at 3:20 pm
In the 1930’s, William S. Burroughs spent a good four years in our beautiful city of Boston. Bookforum recently reviewed Barry Miles’ biography of the author, titled Call Me Burroughs: A Life. Here is an extract: William S. Burroughs lived the kind of life few contemporary American novelists seek to emulate. A roll call of his sins: He […]
