In this episode of Science Matters from The Origins Podcast, the host, theoretical physicist, lecturer, and author, Lawrence M. Krauss, focuses on 5 big misconceptions about climate change, as well as the science behind climate change. In their first episode of 2021, Lawrence addresses misconceptions such as, “human productions of CO2 cannot significantly impact the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere,” as well as, “CO2, at its current PPM level in the atmosphere, cannot not affect the heat balance of the entire earth,” among others:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRDl0ETzjRc
Check out this fascinating article about Dante's descendant taking part in a mockretrialto see if Dante's conviction in 1302 was just! Click this link to read!
On this snowy day, our thoughts turn to this mention of snow in North America, on page 58 of Wooton's translation ofCandide:
'You know England; are they as mad there as in France?' 'It's a different type of madness,' said Martin. 'You know that these two nations are at war over some acres of snow at the Canadian border; and that they are spending much more than the whole of Canada is worth on this fine war. To tell you precisely if there are more people who ought to be locked up in one country or in the other, that's something of which my limited intellect isn't capable. All I know is that the people we are going to see are very splenetic.'
(Emphasis added.) In this translation --the one which we we are reading in CC 202 this spring -- Martin and Candide reach the coast of England and immediately show a peculiar and particular dismissiveness toward the snow-covered land of Canada. What's with all this animosity with Canada?
Here in the Core office we suppose it is worth noting that our director Kyna Hamill is from Canada... What is this "different type of madness" Voltaire mentions? Perhaps our gooddirector will enlighten us on the nature these"splenetic" people...
In this NYT article, Patricia Morrisroe beautifully describes the life of one of the greatest dancers of their generation, Louis Antoine Duport, and the dramatic event of the performance of Beethoven's Ninth, a powerful choral symphony. To read about this "temperamental impresario" and the premiere of a concert he managed, click here.
Image of Louis Antoine Duport.
Image of the Theater am Krntnertor in Vienna, where Beethovens Ninth was first performed on May 7, 1824.
Christopher Ricks, an esteemed professor in the Editorial Institute and the Core Curriculum here at BU, recently gave a lecture to the CC201 students on Milton and Blasphemy. This lecture discusses the incredible sensitivities of the word blasphemy, what it means to blaspheme, and how anti-blasphemy laws still impact our society today. He also discusses blasphemy in conjunction with Milton'sParadise Lost, and how the two are inextricably connected. This is exemplified in the following quote from the lecture:
"Now I have a general position here, which is that unless a religious work is accused in some way, is open in some way to the accusation that it is blasphemous, it won't be a great religious work. That is, it will have 'played safe' -- and no great art, or great thought, or great personhood is ever achieved by playing safe" (Ricks).
Core community members who would like to listen to the full lecture can do soHERE.
This article by Rich Barlow allows you to see course tours of art from Boston to Paris via technology. These tours were created by BU students in Professor Kyna Hamill's "Ancient Worlds" class for their UROP projects. To read this article and see the virtual tours, click here.
This week, as CC 101 students turn their focus towards the Parthenon, classical architecture has also been getting some attention from President Trump. The Guardian reports that earlier this year, the Trump administration drafted an executive order calling for a return to a classical style in new federal buildings. The draft order, entitled "Make Federal Buildings Beautiful Again," criticizes brutalist and deconstructivist architecture for "its failure to re-integrate 'our national values into federal buildings.'" The draft order argues:
When designing and building the federal capital in Washington in the late 18th century, America's founders embraced the classical models of 'democratic Athens' and 'republican Rome' because the style symbolized the new nation's 'self-governing ideals.'
Critics say that new buildings should be a product of their time, and that an official architectural style is not compatible with a 21st century liberal democracy. Check out the full Guardian article here.
A global pandemic didnt stop Irelands love of theatre. A collaboration of theatre companies from Portstewart in Northern Ireland put on a production of Shakespeares, The Tempest via zoom during the earlier stages of the pandemic. In April of 2020, the zoom performance had its debut, selling out many weekends. This idea inspired others, leading to a new genre of theatre, called, Zoom Shakespeare. Another group of actors collaborated to create a production they cleverly titled, A Midsummer Nights Stream.
Anyone looking for more productions in the Zoom Shakespeare genre can check out this linkto more videos provided by Playbill. Students interested in accessing Shakespeares literary works can contact the Core office staffto request to borrow his works from the Core library, or to request online access to our digital copies.
Robert Alterisa scholar and translator whose rendition of the Pentateuch into English we read in the first-year Core humanists as The Five Books of Moses. Earlier this year, in January, Alter was invited to deliver a lecture to students in Brigham Young University's program in Ancient Near Eastern Studies. In his talk, he discusses The Art of Biblical Narrative, his book-length appreciation of the craft and composition of one of the world's most widely-read texts:
Core students interested in taking a look at The Art of Biblical Narrative can contact the Core office staff to request to borrow the book from the Core library, or to request online access to our digital copy. You may also be interested in his more recent work, The Art of Bible Translation.
Kathryn Donlan (CAS '18) is a writer and aspiring archivist (an an alumna of CC 111!). She likes talking about literature from the perspective of social history and historical context, and in keeping with this outlook she recently shared her thoughts on Twitter on the news of a new cinematic adaptation of Jane Austen's Persuasion. We thought it was such a timely response that we reached out and asked if we could share it here on the Core blog. She writes:
To the people complaining that we're getting another Austen film, I have this to say: The reason Jane Austen's stories are told and retold is due to the sheer fact they are timeless and constantly relevant. She would not "hate to see it." She would be fascinated by the fact we like her stories so much and feel the need to share them time and time again. She wasn't a prudish stickler! She was a real, funny, charming woman who wrote books that successfully examined womanhood from the point of view of a woman, not a man like Richardson examining it from the outside and making moral commentary on what a woman can and should do. Austen's heroines are real, human beings who live complicated livesPersuasion being a book about the reality of being a woman who is dealing with life's expectations while still holding on to this desperate hope that she can repeat, or redo, the past and find that one true love she lost. That's why we still tell Austen's storiesbecause they light within us that desire to have that happy ending. Now, more than ever, I think we deserve a happy ending.
Find Kathryn's original tweet and replies over @kateodonlan. Her newsletter about classic literature"That Book is Good, Actually"will debut later this month. The image above is the design for one of our new Fall 2020 Core tee-shirts; the quote comes from Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and seems like a sound if slant-wise comment on how we should all try to bear up during these time of social distancing. If you're a member of the Core community and you're on campus this semester, you can swing by our socially-distanced picnic this coming Sunday, September 20th, and see about snagging of these shirts, while supplies list. If you would like to stop by,RSVP using these links to let us know in which time-block you'd like to visit the distribution table:2-2:30,2:30-3,3:-3:30, or3:30-4.
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.
