November 3, 2015 at 8:21 am
Prof. Hamill (who lectured last week in CC 201 on Hamlet, as it happens) brings to our attention this photo essay from The Guardian: Photojournalist Sarah Lee travelled to Jordan with the Globe Theatres touring Hamlet production. Aiming to visit every country in the world to commemorate the 450th anniversary of Shakespeares birth, and the […]
March 19, 2015 at 11:21 am
CC201 students know Miguel de Cervantes as the elusive author of Don Quixote. Some of the mystery surrounding him has been recently abated: forensic scientists have uncovered his remains beneath a building in Madrid. Though badly damaged, scientists found his bones alongside those of his wife and other individuals who were buried with him. Cervantes’ […]
December 4, 2013 at 2:24 pm
Related to CC201’s study of Rembrandt is the mysterious work of Johannes Vermeer, another painter of the Dutch Golden Age. His photo-realism has been a topic of debate – how did he achieve it? Vanity Fair offers some recent speculation. Here is a sample: Despite occasional speculation over the years that an optical device somehow enabled […]
October 31, 2013 at 10:30 am
Earlier this week we discussed Machiavelli’s potent shock-value. Now, Arts & Letter Daily has linked us to The New Criterion’s post on Machiavelli’s philosophical musings of truth. The claim is that they are just as important as his political work. ALDaily writes: “I depart from the orders of others.” With that, Machiavelli reconceived both politics and philosophy. […]
October 29, 2013 at 10:00 am
CC201 has started off the semester by dabbling, among other things, in Machiavelli’s The Prince. Many were acquainted with the work from their high school years, and many were not – all admit it remains potent and relevant today. This post for The National Interest highlights the way in which The Prince still shocks today. A sample: […]
October 4, 2013 at 1:52 pm
Relating to CC201’s recent study of Montaigne, Shaun Kenney discusses the idea of the 16th century French essayist as being a proto-blogger. Even though his writings came centuries before blogging and the internet, let alone the idea of a computer, it’s easy to see Montaigne’s essays being published through a popular blog on WordPress or […]
August 25, 2013 at 7:00 am
Relating to CC201’s study of Montaigne is an article by Liam Julian of The Weekly Standard, discussing the Essays. Here is an extract: Begun in 1572, the Essays is Montaigne’s 20-year examination of his own life, and not the product of that examination, either, but the examination itself. It contains more than a hundred essays and some […]
August 13, 2013 at 8:03 pm
Relating to CC201’s study of Niccolo Machiavelli’s the Prince, is an article discussing his ideas on whether law can supplant politics. Here is an extract: One of the peculiarities of political thought at the present time is that it is fundamentally hostile to politics. Bismarck may have opined that laws are like sausages – it’s best […]
March 25, 2013 at 11:39 am
Relating to CC201’s study of The Renaissance is the essay ‘One Of Us’ by John Jeremiah Sullivan on animal consciousness, in which he discusses Descartes’ views on the topic. Here is an extract: Descartes’ term for them [animals] was automata—windup toys, like the Renaissance protorobots he’d seen as a boy in the gardens at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, “hydraulic statues” that […]
