news, events, and commentary from the Arts & Sciences Core Curriculum
March 1, 2011 at 1:10 pm
‘Men of Troy, what madness has come over you?
can you believe the enemy truly gone?
A gift from the Danaans, and no ruse?
Is that Ulysses’ way, as you have known him?
Achaens must be hiding in this timber,
Or it was built to butt against our walls,
Peer over them into our houses, pelt
The city from the sky. Some crookedness
Is in this thing. Have no faith in the horse!
Whatever it is, even when the Greeks bring gifts
I fear them, gifts and all.’
– Virgil, The Aeneid (Book II, 60-70)
February 28, 2011 at 4:24 pm
Lectures This Week
Class Notes
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February 28, 2011 at 2:04 pm
COM student Jordan Diaz prepared this video feature, showing Prof. Sassan Tabatabai moonlighting as a boxing coach. While training his students at The Ring, Diaz notes, Prof. Tabatabai draws upon the wisdom of the literary tradition to remind his boxing students, no one can teach you what you need to learn about yourself. NB: The Ring offers free week-long trial memberships.
February 28, 2011 at 1:05 pm
Energy is an eternal delight, and he who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.
-- William Blake, "The Fly." Fun Fact: Esperanza Spalding put out a song based on this poem.
February 25, 2011 at 5:54 pm
(featuring the voice of Prof. Daniel Hudon)
The Ecolympics are coming: April 1-15, 2011
Help mobilize for Planet Earth.
February 25, 2011 at 5:51 pm
The 1940 Census had revealed that some 10 million Americans had not been schooled past the fourth grade, and that one in eight could not read or write. This, primarily, was a southern problem. A higher proportion of blacks living in the North had completed grade school than whites in the South.
-- Ira Katznelson, page 101 of When Affirmative Action was White
February 25, 2011 at 3:30 pm
Frequent Core lecturer and former Core seminar leader Gregory Fried has co-authored a new book, Because it is Wrong: Torture, Privacy and Presidential Power in the Age of Terror , in collaboration with his father, Charles Fried. Harper's magazine recently posed 6 questions to them, probing into the reasons behind the points made in the book:
4. You argue against “Machiavellian heroes” while recognizing that Machiavelli’s arguments carry much weight. Instead you ask us to look at Nelson Mandela as another sort of hero. What guidance does Mandela give us in forging a new moral consensus about torture?
Gregory Fried: Mandela’s example serves as a model, not for the question of torture specifically, but rather for what constitutes genuine statecraft. When he came to power in South Africa in 1994 after the fall of apartheid, Mandela understood that however important good laws and a new constitution may be, they are meaningless if the people do not share a sense of common commitment to the core principles of the nation. That is why Mandela insisted that not just the former ruling National Party but also his own African National Congress must admit its violations of human rights in the truth and reconciliation process. That is why he took so seriously the whole country uniting behind the national rugby team, the Springboks, as a symbol of racial unity and equality (as portrayed in the wonderful film Invictus).
The rule of law, which is so crucial to free republics, cannot be upheld by law itself; it requires the united commitment of the people to democratic principles such as human dignity. When leaders embrace techniques such as torture for short-term gain, they forget a key lesson of statecraft, which is that radical departures from foundational principles, no matter how useful they might appear at the moment, can result in lasting changes to the living character of a people and its government.
Is it ever right for a democracy to torture? Read Professor Fried's book to see his answer, but feel free to leave your opinion below or as part of a discussion at the EnCore Facebook page.
February 25, 2011 at 3:25 pm
Woody Allen gives a comical and tongue-in-cheek summary, complete with excerpt, of Nietzsche's alleged lost book on dieting to The New Yorker:
No philosopher came close to solving the problem of guilt and weight until Descartes divided mind and body in two, so that the body could gorge itself while the mind thought, Who cares, it’s not me. The great question of philosophy remains: If life is meaningless, what can be done about alphabet soup? It was Leibniz who first said that fat consisted of monads. Leibniz dieted and exercised but never did get rid of his monads—at least, not the ones that adhered to his thighs. Spinoza, on the other hand, dined sparingly because he believed that God existed in everything and it’s intimidating to wolf down a knish if you think you’re ladling mustard onto the First Cause of All Things.
Is there a relationship between a healthy regimen and creative genius? We need only look at the composer Richard Wagner and see what he puts away. French fries, grilled cheese, nachos—Christ, there’s no limit to the man’s appetite, and yet his music is sublime. Cosima, his wife, goes pretty good, too, but at least she runs every day. In a scene cut from the “Ring” cycle, Siegfried decides to dine out with the Rhine maidens and in heroic fashion consumes an ox, two dozen fowl, several wheels of cheese, and fifteen kegs of beer. Then the check comes and he’s short. The point here is that in life one is entitled to a side dish of either coleslaw or potato salad, and the choice must be made in terror, with the knowledge that not only is our time on earth limited but most kitchens close at ten.
Read the full text here. Can you think of any other Core authors' approaches to food? Feel free to leave your thoughts below.
February 25, 2011 at 3:22 pm
The second-ever Ecolympics, April 1-15, is going to be bigger and better than last year's, and you can help: by contributing to the Core Eco-quotes Project.
As you know, Core is about tackling the big questions in life and certainly one of the biggest these days is how can humans best live with and within their surrounding natural environment. For students, after one or three semesters, your readings must have already touched on this question numerous times. For faculty, you must have a list of favorites! Please send your favorite eco-themed quotes to the Core email account, and we will post your contribution as an analect here on the Core blog, and incorporate your quotes on the Ecolympicss homepage.
With thanks for your eco-assistance,
Prof. Daniel Hudon, Prof. Alex Coverdill, and the Ecolympics Organizing Committee
February 24, 2011 at 12:45 pm
Domestic service reveals the contradiction in a a feminism that pushed for women's involvement outside the home, yet failed to make men take responsibility for household labor. Employed middle- and upper-middle class women escaped the double day syndrome by hiring poor women of color to perform housework and child care, and this was characterized as progress. Some feminists defined domestic service as progressive because traditional women's work moved into the labor market and became paid work. However, this definition neglects the inescapable fact that when women hire other women at low wages to do housework, both employees and employers remain women. As employers, women continued to accept responsibility for housework even if they supervised domestics who performed the actual labor. If we accept domestic service as central to women's oppression, the contradiction, as Linda Martin and Kerry Segrave have pointed out, is that “every time the housewife or working woman buys freedom for herself with a domestic, that very same freedom is denied to the domestic, for the maid must go home and do her own housework.
– from page 128 of Maid in the U.S.A. by Mary Romero. This study of the circumstances of domestic employees in the United States is being read this semester in CC204, as part of a unit on gender inequality.
