From the deepest corner of our hearts, Bwog wishes underclassmen the best of luck on today's Lit Hum and CC exams. We'd wrap this post up with a classical reference, but Bwog is being edited by an engineer today, so we'll just allude to the Wretched of the Earth with a dash of übermenschen and leave it at that. Excelsior!

(Also, um, hopefully the exam stayed secret this year. Everyone hates make-ups in September.)

Plato is rooting for you!

It takes a certain degree of intellectual comfort to decide you've conceived a brilliant new direction for a century-old course. Writing it up and sending it to the entire roster of CC praeceptors, the Committee on the Core, and Deans Yatrakis and Quigley, on the other hand, takes an almost suicidal hubris. One sophomore did, and a bemused recipient passed the e-mail on to Bwog:

From: [redacted]

Date: 11 December 2007 16:17:23 EST

To: [redacted]

Subject: Columbia's Core

To whom it may concern,
You are receiving my email because you are on the Core Committee or are a preceptor for a Contemporary Civilization class. In my final essay for Contemporary Civilization, the material of the essay required that I either deny my own words or take some form of action. Attached you will find the essay that has propelled me, headlong, to this email. I think you will find that it embodies the essence of the Core Curriculum, especially CC, and is an example of what I consider to be the true power of the Core: the push to a critical evaluation and re-evaluation of the world in which we live and to action to change that world for the better. I hope that you will take the short amount of time necessary to read the document (and perhaps a little longer to consider the way it could affect your own reality).
Thank you for your time,
[redacted]
CC '10

The attached 12-page paper put Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed in dialogue with the Leviathan, and pronounces that "CC still maintains remnants of the authoritarian view of education found in Hobbes," with suggestions for non-canonical texts that might be introduced to introduce an alternate perspective. The conclusion reads as follows:

"This essay is my reflection on my current situation. However, my realization of the structure in which I reside is not enough to achieve "liberation", which can only be the result of a collective effort. Thus, I appeal to you to take into consideration the implications of my praxis and form your own. The syllabus need not be discarded immediately, it is comprised of wonderful books, but perhaps the inclusion of another source, or a class decision regarding the optional choices in the syllabus would constitute a step in the right direction."

Ah, the brash naivete of youth!

Armin Rosen reports on the big semi-annual, semi-mandatory sophomore class lecture.

The title of this post is actually a wee bit inaccurate. This wasn't just the biggest walkout of the year--it was also the biggest walkout of last year, and was probably bigger than any walkouts that were held the year before that one, too. About seven hundred students were at Roone for Friday's Contemporary Civilization course-wide lecture. By the time Berkley Talmud professor Daniel Boyarin had finished dissecting the seventh chapter of Daniel, a mere handful were left in the audience, proving that while Iraq might convince 400 or so people not to go to class, intellectual passivity is one cause around which practically everyone can rally. Even at Columbia.

If only John Erskine could have lived to have seen so spectacular a "fuck you"¯ to the Core Curriculum and everything it represents. Granted, it was a Friday afternoon. And granted, I've heard some people complain that Boyarin's central thesis--that the all-time mindblower that is Daniel 7 represents an attempt at suppressing certain polytheistic ideas within ancient Judaism, and that its formulation of an "older"¯ and "younger"¯ God provided a theological basis for the emergence of Christianity as a protestant movement within Judaism itself--has nothing to do with what we've been reading and studying in CC. I've heard others say that his brilliant synthesis of linguistics, history, literature and religion was off-topic and irrelevant; that his meticulous application of comp-lit methods both on a practical and theoretical level were limited to ideas and concepts uninteresting to people without a strong background in Judaism.

Today's Sunday Times is chock-full of Columbia nuts. First, the lead story in the Magazine, by Mark Lilla, is regurgitated CC, and any good humanities student worth his or her weight in Enlightenment and secular/liberal theory should be able to follow his argument and add a dash of insight to boot. Then, the Lives essay is by a J-school prof who meets up with a former story subject and has a ball. Over in Arts, there's a long article about "mumblecore," a micro-genre of indie film in which Barnard grad Greta Gerwig (and the WBAR station) are key elements. And, finally, there's a pretty long piece about the guys behind Indoctrinate U, which we know you all love.

We LiveBwogging this shit*

6:00 PM - it has not yet started.

6:07 PM - this is still the case. I will say when it is not.

6:10 PM - First words: "is this working? yeah." One history professor is taking over for another in introducing the event. He says it was an easy decision.

6:13 PM - He is talking about how to tell the story of the West. Could this perhaps be a lecture about Contemporary Civilization? From what I've heard, that's not the deal with these coursewide lectures.

6:20 PM - Lecture is shaping up pretty well, in every sense except attendance. The right side ("North wing") is mostly empty, and the left and center are about 2/3 full.

6:25 PM - Professor Michael Stanislawski (who introduced Mehta) has perhaps the most serious face of anyone I've ever seen. A few minutes ago, he had his left hand on his chin and periodically touched his nose. Now he had forgone the support of his hands entirely, but his face remains the same.

Looks like last Friday's CC Coursewide Lecture by the esteemed President Havel has had a real effect on class discussions. An anonymous tipster sends in this conversation, about Havel's belief in the legislation of morality, from a recent class meeting.

Student 1: I think that when private acts affect the community, that's when the government should address them.
Instructor: Are there certain private acts that don't spill out into the public?
Student 1: Like what?
Instructor: You know... Like if I dress up like a chicken and have my wife whip me. (Class laughs)
Instructor: It's a serious question! Because, in many places, it's legislated against. Like in Ireland.
Student 2: The chicken, specifically?

Bwog is certain that Vaclav would be proud.

After the reform Kol Nidre service at Hillel, everyone wishing each other a good year:

(Jewish) Law Student 1: Rosenblum? Yale '02? Seligman? We graduated in the same class!

(Jewish) Law Student 2: Yeah, yeah, you're in my litigation class now right?

(Jewish) Bystander (muttering): Bunch of Jews.

Happy atoning!

Heard outside Butler, Saturday night

"It's amazing what religion will do to a person."

CC Instructor Ivan Savic, to his 9:00 AM class:

"Not holding the door for people is just one step away from chaos and cannabalism, which is just inconvenient."

After a Blue and White meeting, Monday night:

A bearded man standing in front of St. Paul's chapel, with arms held out ą la Jesus-on-the-crucifix. A few minutes later, he lowered his arms, and left soon after.

Thanks to CML, Nick Frisch, and Grace Duffy for their observance.

Still winding down from that CC exam? Check out this mix, graciously relayed by a student of CC teacher Dermot Albert Ryan.

1. Plato - "Quiet" - The Beta Band
2. Aristotle - "We're Going To Be Friends" - The White Stripes
3. Hebrew Bible - "Israelites" - Desmond Dekker
4. New Testament - "Jesus" - The Velvet Underground
5. New World Readings - "Cortez The Killer" - Neil Young
6. Descartes - "Spirits in the Material World" - The Police
7. Hobbes - "I Fought The Law" - The Clash
8. Rousseau, Second Treatise - "Mother Nature's Son" - The Beatles
9. Rousseau, The General Will - "One Vision" - Queen
10. Kant - "Autonomy" - The Buzzcocks
11. De Tocqueville - "Philosophy of the World" - The Shaggs
12. Mill - "I Feel Free" - The Cream
13. Malthus - "Too Much Too Young" - The Specials
14. Adam Smith - "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" - Daft Punk
15. Marx - "Motoroller Scalatron" - Stereolab
16. Hegel - "He's Misstra Know It All" - Stevie Wonder
17. Darwin - "Monkey Man" - The Rolling Stones
18. Nietzsche - "Superman" - R.E.M.
19. Freud - "Where is my mind?" - Nada Surf
20. Du Bois - "True Blues" - The Last Poets
21. Du Bois - "Hip Hop" - Mos Def
22. Fanon - "Bread" - On! Air! Library!
23. Irigaray - "How Am I Different" - Aimee Mann
24. Levinas - "What's So Funny 'Bout Peace Love and Understanding" - Elvis Costello