E-bulletin for week of 10/2/11

October 3, 2011 at 2:23 pm

Lectures this week

General announcements

  • A reminder to alumni — if you will be in Boston during a scheduled course lecture, and have a desire to sit in, let us know. It is often the case that you’ll be able to join the audience as a guest.
  • The Core Writing Center is now open; tutors will be available for half-hour appointments Monday through Friday, 10-1 and 2-4. Students may visit the Core office, CAS 119, to sign up for a session, or email us to request an appointment.

Upcoming events

  • Tomorrow, Tuesday 10/4: Core in the City visits the Boston Public Library at Copley, to view John Singer Sargent’s famous mural, “Triumph of Religion.” Students should bring fare money for the T.  Prof. Thornton Lockwood will lead the group, leaving from CAS 119 at 5 PM.  RSVP to tlock@bu.edu.
  • Wednesday, 10/5: Second planning meeting for the Spring 2012 Ecolympics. New and returning student committee members will join Prof. Daniel Hudon to discuss a new name for the program, to review last year’s participation and events, and to make plans to attracting more attention to this “competition for Planet Earth.” 5-6 MP, in CAS 129. Email questions to hudon@bu.edu.
  • Thursday, 10/6: Second meeting for new staff of the Core Journal, 5-6 pm in the Core office, CAS 119. Staff members of the Core Journal are responsible for choosing submissions, copyediting, proofreading, and developing the layout of the printed journal. Please direct questions to editor Megan Ilnitzki, milnit@bu.edu.
  • Sunday, 10/16: Core in the City trip to the Museum of Science Omni Theater, to see “Greece: Secrets of the Past.” Core has 15 tickets for the 1 PM showing; please sign-up in the Core office.

In other publications…

  • Alumni who remember reading the Bhagavad Gita in CC102 may be interested in this article in this week’s New York Times, “How Yoga Won the West.”

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If you have any ideas, or comments about Core activities, please contact Prof. Jennifer Formichelli.
Get connected with Core: The Core blog | Facebook | Calendar

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BPL trip rescheduled

September 29, 2011 at 4:24 pm

mura

Due to a scheduling conflict, the Core in the City trip to the Boston Public Library, meant to take place tomorrow afternoon (Friday) has been postponed tor Tuesday, October 4th, from 5-7 PM. If you'd like to attend, please RSVP directly to Prof. Lockwood at  tlock@bu.edu. The tour will meet in the Core office, CAS 119, at Tuesday at 5 PM. 

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Six Quotes: Damrosch on Exodus

September 27, 2011 at 4:59 pm

  1. “Think of the Bible as Woody Allen’s recipe for chicken salad.”
  2. “The drama of this epic is that at every moment God gives them what they need, and the next moment, they fuck up again.”
  3. “Law is the emotional center of Exodus. The stories exist as the frame FOR the law.”
  4. “Aaron should be like Moses’ chief executive officer. Instead of doing that, he tells the people what they want to hear.”
  5. “Ritual order itself carries with it this weight of trauma history. Ritual order is the heart of the cool stories; it is the heart of the Torah. “
  6. “The wilderness becomes the promised land, if you understand.”

As recorded by Core office employee Sydney Lindberg during Prof. David Damrosch's discussion of the book of Exodus this morning in CC101.

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Layers upon Layers

September 27, 2011 at 4:15 pm

A masterpiece within a masterpiece

A masterpiece within a masterpiece

All works of art are built from the works that have preceded them, in a series of creative reinterpretations that allow artists to explore new possibilities. As Core scholars, we are familiar with this flow of creation, but this week it took on a more literal meaning when the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam found a new Goya work hidden underneath one of the museum's paintings. The museum used a new X-Ray technique on the painting that had revealed a hidden Van Gogh painting in 2008.

Art historians at the museum believe the "new" portrait may depict Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon's brother, who was established by Napoleon as king of Spain from 1808 to 1813. The scholars believe Goya may have covered up his original work and started a new portrait after Bonaparte's regime fell and the political winds again favored the Spanish King Ferdinand VII.

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E-bulletin for week of 9/25/11

September 26, 2011 at 12:27 pm

LECTURES THIS WEEK
CC101: David Damrosch (Harvard) on Exodus (9/27)
CC105, Tuesday: Scott Whitaker on waves (9/27)
CC105, Thursday: Scott Whitaker on light (9/29)
CC201: Barbara Diefendorf on Montaigne (9/27)
CC203: Richard Tuck (Harvard) on Hobbes' Leviathan (9/29)

A reminder to alumni -- if you will be in Boston during a scheduled course lecture, and have a desire to sit in, email core@bu.edu and let us know. It is often the case that you'll be able to join the audience as a guest.

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THE CORE WRITING CENTER is now open; tutors will be available for half-hour appointments Monday through Friday, 10-1 and 2-4. Students may visit the Core office, CAS 119, to sign up for a session, or email core@bu.edu to request an appointment.

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UPCOMING EVENTS IN THE CORE

- TOMORROW, Tuesday, 9/27: Core Journal meeting. Returning and prospective new members are invited to attend, to begin discussing plans for the Spring 2012 issue of The Journal of the Core Curriculum. To be held in the back area of the Core office, CAS 119, from 5-6 PM. For more information, email Megan Ilnitzki: milnit@bu.edu.

- Friday, 9/30: Core in the City at the BPL. Prof. Thornton Lockwood will lead a tour through the Boston Public Library branch at Copley Square to view John Singer Sargent's famous mural, "Triumph of Religion." Students should bring fare money for the T; leaving from CAS 119 at 3 PM. RSVP at http://on.fb.me/Core-F11-5.

Students may RSVP for events by emailing core@bu.edu, by adding their name to the sign-up sheet in CAS 119, or by visiting the RSVP link provided.

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If you have any ideas, or comments about Core activities, please contact Prof. Jennifer
Formichelli at jlf@bu.edu.

Get connected with Core:
The Core blog - http://bu.edu/core/blog
Facebook - http://facebook.com/BUCore
Core events - at http://www.bu.edu/core/calendar

E-bulletin archive - http://blogs.bu.edu/core/tag/e-bulletin

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Analects of the Core: Rousseau on the social contract

September 26, 2011 at 11:57 am

The first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say this is mind and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. What crimes, wars, murders, what miseries and horrors would the human race have been spared, had someone pulled up the states or filled in the ditch and cried out to his fellow men: Do not listen to this impostor. You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to all and the earth to no one!

-- Jean-Jacques Rousseau, from his essay on the social contract (this text taken from the website of Prof. Simon Cushing at the University of Michigan-Flint). Prof. Charles Lindholm will be lecturing on Rousseau on October 13th, for the students of CC203: Foundations of the Social Sciences.

By CAS Core Curriculum | Posted in Analects | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

From Scroll to Screen

September 23, 2011 at 11:24 am

From scrolls, to the codex, to e-books, like the Amazon Kindle, the format of the book is changing in our new technological age.  A recent New York Times article describes this ever-changing phenomenon and what we should expect to sacrifice in giving up the good-ole paperback.

In the classical world, the scroll was the book format of choice and the state of the art in information technology. Essentially it was a long, rolled-up piece of paper or parchment. To read a scroll you gradually unrolled it, exposing a bit of the text at a time; when you were done you had to roll it back up the right way, not unlike that other obsolete medium, the VHS tape.

Check it out: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/books/review/the-mechanic-muse-from-scroll-to-screen.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1316788838-TgmuzUkHMc4yIq7kuKnDyA

By CAS Core Curriculum | Posted in Future of the Book, Other Publications, Uncategorized | Tagged | Comments (1)

Analects of the Core: Voltaire on people taking advantage of misfortunes

September 23, 2011 at 9:00 am

La vieille dit à Cunégonde : « Mademoiselle, vous avez soixante et douze quartiers, et pas une obole ; il ne tient qu'à vous d'être la femme du plus grand seigneur de l'Amérique méridionale, qui a une très belle moustache ; est-ce à vous de vous piquer d'une fidélité à toute épreuve ? Vous avez été violée par les Bulgares ; un Juif et un inquisiteur ont eu vos bonnes grâces : les malheurs donnent des droits. »

'Miss, you have seventy-two quarterings in your arms, it is true, but you have not a penny to bless yourself with. It is your own fault if you do not become the wife of one of the greatest noblemen in South America, with an exceeding fine mustachio. What business have you to pride yourself upon an unshaken constancy? You have been outraged by a Bulgarian soldier; a Jew and an Inquisitor have both tasted of your favors. People take advantage of misfortunes.'

-- Voltaire, Candide, Chapter 13, English trans. by William F. Fleming

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Six Quotes: Knust on Genesis

September 22, 2011 at 5:23 pm

  1. “We can think of Genesis, not as a book with a beginning and an end, but rather as an archive.”
  2. “God’s covenant with Noah is one-sided. God does not ask for anything in return but he makes a rule that no one is to kill each other but the covenant is not dependent on the compliance with this rule.”
  3. “Why is there a constant threat of bareness and famine in Genesis? Maybe because barrenness and famine is a big problem when it is really hard to get the kids born and the crops grown.”
  4. “Women get to be heroines when they are fruitful and multiply.”
  5. “Abraham asks Sarah, his wife, to pose as his sister. First of all: what the heck?! Yet, interestingly enough, she was his half-sister so technically she wasn’t lying.”
  6. “There is a tradition of sexual hospitality behind many of these stories. Yet, many of these stories reflect the problems with these traditions and it seems the authors of Genesis realized that sexual hospitality was not beneficial and they showed these problems with all the patriarchal stories.”

As recorded by Core office employee Winona Hudak during Prof. Jennifer Knust's discussion of the book of Genesis this week in CC101.

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Analects of the Core: Voltaire on sages

September 22, 2011 at 9:00 am

Après le tremblement de terre qui avait détruit les trois quarts de Lisbonne, les sages du pays n'avaient pas trouvé un moyen plus efficace pour prévenir une ruine totale que de donner au peuple un bel auto-da-fé ; il était décidé par l'université de Coïmbre que le spectacle de quelques personnes brûlées à petit feu, en grande cérémonie, est un secret infaillible pour empêcher la terre de trembler.

After the earthquake, which had destroyed three-fourths of the city of Lisbon, the sages of that country could think of no means more effectual to preserve the kingdom from utter ruin than to entertain the people with an auto-da-fe, it having been decided by the University of Coimbra, that the burning of a few people alive by a slow fire, and with great ceremony, is an infallible preventive of earthquakes.

-- Voltaire, Candide, Chapter 6, English trans. by William F. Fleming

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