The Journal of the Core Curriculum is a student-produced anthology of exemplary writing by the students and faculty of the Core. For each issue, the editors select works of academic and imaginative writing, which engage deeply the topics and texts encountered in the Core. The Journal is published annually in April, and is available at no cost to members of the Core community and to interested members of the public. To request a copy, please contact the Core staff.

The paintings which adorn the ceiling and walls of the Sistine Chapel present so many images and allusions that it is impossible to see and appreciate them all in any sort of organized manner. Yet that is exactly the point of a Core education: it trains us to interpret each layer of meaning, to recognize the threads of tradition and allusion—Genesis in Dante, Dante in Michelangelo, and Michelangelo in Velázquez. The Core foundation is valuable because it teaches us to think of these works as acts of human wisdom, feeling and creativity which belong in a continuous timeline, rather than as isolated works that emerge from history without context or cause.These books are not only stories, but varying interpretations of a theme. Core teaches us to think of themes, whether shown through literature, art, or music; they are layered in works like the Ptolemaic universe, each piece distinct but still part of a greater whole.We can read Gulliver’s Travels and feel pity for its lost and foolish narrator, or we can hear Jonathan Swift echoing Voltaire’s and Wordsworth’s criticism of the Enlightenment’s misapplication of reason. What Core shows us is that these and other interpretations are not only all possible, but are of critical importance to understanding the spirit and role of the work.

The making of this journal has been a rewarding if grueling experience for all of us, a journey through Purgatory with a literary Beatrice waiting to reward us at the top.Much appreciation is due to the members of my dedicated editorial staff, with whom I have enjoyed making this steep climb.Thanks also to Professor Tabatabai, for this opportunity and for his guidance and his good-natured patience in moments of panic; and of course thanks to Zak, our journey’s Virgil, for his humor, his teaching, and his general embodiment of the Core spirit.

To those students whose two years in the Core are now coming to a close, I encourage you to take the humanistic education you’ve been given and start making your own interpretations of the world. Seek fame if you will and fortune if you can, but remember your time in Core and the heroes you have joined on their journeys. Keep Aristotle in your pocket and remember his admonition that no one can be happy without friends, be they living or literary.

- Erin McDonagh (CAS '10), Editor-in-Chief

Contents of Volume XVII, Spring 2009:

• The Malevolent Enchanter by Ethan Rubin
• Misogyny by Zachary Bos
• How to Build a Planet by Daniel Hudon
• The Sign and the Sacrifice by Yuliya Belyayeva
• I Am He as You Are He… by Elena Thurman
• Like a Bamboo by Meena Aier
• Traveler's Woes by Alexandra Levitskaya
• First Year Analects compiled by the Editors
• Spiral Lines by Zachary Bos
• A Perfectly Unreasonable Claimby Erin McDonagh
• Viens Ici by Amiel Bowers
• The Core Hamlet by David Green
• After Dark by Lindsey Gould
• The Tragic Solitude of Doctor Pangloss by Elena Baranes
• Cantdide by Mat Leonard
• The Reunion by Chloe Tuck
• Second Year Analects compiled by the Editors
• Struck to the Core by Mat Leonard
• Interview with David Ferry by Erin McDonagh
• Euripides 2008 by Brian Jorgensen
• Sanguine Shore by Jameson Tieman
• Inspired Interpretation by Ana Dias-Mandoly and Meena Aier with Erin McDonagh
• Genesis 3:1-4 by Zachary Bos
• Omnipotence by Zachary Bos
• Transforming the Epic Tradition by Katherine Lochery
• Land of the Houyhnhnms by Sassan Tabatabai
• S'Cores: Musical Analects of the Core by Katherine Book
• The Literary Dating Game by Elizabeth Perry