Core Curriculum
View courses in
- Core Curriculum
- All Departments
- African American & Black Diaspora Studies
- African Studies: African Languages: Akan Twi, Amharic, Igbo, Kiswahili (Swahili), Wolof, isiXhosa, Yoruba, isiZulu
- African Studies: Culture (in English)
- American Studies
- Anthropology
- Arabic: Language, Literature, Culture (including courses in English)
- Archaeology
- Astronomy
- Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
- Biology
- Chemistry
- Chinese: Language, Literature, Culture (including courses in English)
- Cinema & Media Studies
- Classical Studies: incl. Classical Civilization and Tradition (in English), Ancient Greek, and Latin
- Classical Studies: Modern Greek
- Comparative Literature
- Computer Science
- Core Curriculum
- Earth & Environment
- Economics
- Editorial Studies
- English
- First Year Experience
- French: Language, Literature, Linguistics, Culture (including courses in English)
- German: Language, Literature, Culture (including courses in English)
- Hebrew: Language, Literature, Culture (including courses in English)
- Hindi-Urdu: Language, Literature, Culture (including courses in English)
- History
- History of Art & Architecture
- Interdisciplinary Studies
- International Relations
- Internships
- Italian: Language, Literature, Culture (including courses in English)
- Japanese: Language, Literature, Culture (including courses in English)
- Jewish Studies
- Korean: Language, Literature, Culture (including courses in English)
- Linguistics
- Literary Translation
- Marine Science
- Mathematics & Statistics
- Natural Sciences
- Neuroscience
- Persian (Farsi): Language, Literature, Culture (including courses in English)
- Philosophy
- Physics
- Political Science
- Portuguese: Language, Literature, Culture (including courses in English)
- Psychological & Brain Sciences
- Religion
- Russian: Language, Literature, Culture (including courses in English)
- SEA Courses
- Senior Year Development
- Sociology
- Spanish: Language, Literature, Culture (including courses in English)
- Turkish: Language, Literature, Culture (including courses in English)
- Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies
- Writing
-
CAS CC 101: Core Humanities I: Ancient Worlds
An interdisciplinary study of the origins of narrative, epic, tragedy, and philosophical thought including works from ancient Mesopotamia, the Hebrew Bible, and classical Greece. Focusing on close reading and effective writing, we consider the contrasting values of different cultures and explore the long-standing narrative and visual traditions motivated by creative readings and interpretations of these texts. A visit to the MFA Boston enables students to explore the rich interpretive visual traditions that follow these texts. Authors include: Homer, Thucydides, Sophocles, Euripides, and Plato; books include Gilgamesh, Genesis and Exodus. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Creativity/Innovation. Effective Fall 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Creativity/Innovation, a First-Year Writing Seminar (e.g., CASWR 120). -
CAS CC 102: Core Humanities 2: The Way: Antiquity and the Medieval World
Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., CASCC 101 or WR 120). Reading late antiquity and medieval texts in conversation, students compare and contrast pre-modern values of "The Way" one should live and asks: What is the best human life? This second semester of Core humanities focuses on oral and written communication to help students articulate and interpret the influence these texts have had globally, and a visit to the MFA Boston enables students to explore the rich interpretive visual traditions that follow these texts. Authors include: Aristotle, Confucius, Laozi, Virgil, Hrotsvitha, and Dante. We also read select New Testament Gospels and the Bhagavad Gita. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: First-Year Writing Seminar, Oral and/or Signed Communication. Effective Spring 2023, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Oral and/or Signed Communication, Writing-Intensive Course, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy. -
CAS CC 111: Core Natural Sciences I: Origins - The Cosmos, Earth, Life, and Human Beginnings
Explores the origin of the cosmos, earth, life, and humanity from a scientific perspective. This course provides an introduction to the fields of astronomy, earth science, biology, and anthropology, as each seeks to understand the origins of our world, and ourselves, through the lens of science. Topics include the Big Bang, the evolution of stars and earth, the origin and evolution of life, and the origins of early humans and civilizations. Assignments include computer-based and experimental laboratory work, as well as team-based investigation and original research. This course meets the CAS Natural Sciences Laboratory Requirement. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Quantitative Reasoning 1, Scientific Inquiry 1, Teamwork/Collaboration. -
CAS CC 201: Core Humanities 3: Renaissance, Rediscovery, and Reformation
Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., CASCC 101 or WR 120). Encountering works by Petrarch, Machiavelli, Montaigne, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Milton, Cavendish, and Descartes, we consider the revival and imitation of the classics and explore the formation of genre and the emergence of the self. A study of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel and works by Rembrandt add a visual lens to our studies. A focus on writing and research complements our emphasis on authorship and source material. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing, Research, and Inquiry; Research and Information Literacy. Effective Fall 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Research and Information Literacy, Writing, Research & Inquiry (e.g., WR 150). -
CAS CC 202: Core Humanities 4: Enlightenment, Romanticism, and Modernity
Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., CASCC 101 or WR 120). - In this fourth semester of Core humanities, we explore works of philosophy and literature that interrogate Enlightenment and Romantic ideals of social hierarchy, what it means to know, the relationship between subjectivity and reason, and how freedom can be found. Works by Voltaire, Kant, Austen, Shelley, the English Romantic Poets, Beethoven, Goethe, Whitman, Dickinson, and Douglass are included. We cross into the twentieth century with drama by Chekhov, the perspectivism of Nietzsche, and a critique of inequality by W.E.B. Du Bois. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings, Ethical Reasoning, Writing- Intensive Course. -
CAS CC 212: Core Natural Science II: Science, Reality, and the Modern World
Reality, Science, and the Modern World emphasizes scientific and mathematical reasoning to introduce students to the world of modern scientific questions and controversies. Students will also explore questions related to paradigm-shifting theories and the debates surrounding them. Topics include vaccines, special relativity, global climate change, modern neuroscience, and quantum mechanics. Through mathematical, theoretical, and analytical investigations, students will learn about the implications of discovery and the complexity of scientific “truth.” Students will learn how to analyze various approaches to argumentation, analyze data from credible sources, and evaluate and communicate results and conclusions in much the same way modern science is practiced. Effective Fall 2018, this course carries a single unit in the following BU Hub areas: Critical Thinking, Quantitative Reasoning 2, Scientific Inquiry 2. -
CAS CC 220: Multimedia Encounters with Core Texts
Allows Core students to reimagine a favorite Core text in a new, digital format. Each section has students develop a new mediation of a particular Core work to be made available to the Core community and beyond. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Digital/Multimedia Expression. -
CAS CC 221: Making the Modern World: Progress, Politics, and Economics
Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., CASCC 101 or WR 120). - Applying careful readings of Western social, political, and economic thinkers between 1600-1900, this foundational course asks: How did "society" emerge as a distinctive object of political engineering, normative discourse, and social scientific inquiry? And what economic transformations helped shape theories of justice and social contract? This course works well as a companion to CASCC 222. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry 2, Writing-Intensive Course. -
CAS CC 222: "Unmaking" the Modern World: the Psychology, Politics, and Economics of the Self
Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., CASCC 101 or WR 120). - Confronting the legacy of Enlightenment philosophy in the modern era, students encounter the postmodern psychological, political, and economic theories that expose the paradoxes behind freedom and individual rights ideologies framing slavery, colonialism, ethno-nationalism, capitalist exploitation, sexism, and institutional racism. This course works well as a companion to CASCC 221. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Critical Thinking, Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings, Social Inquiry 2. -
CAS CC 318: Public Speaking
How can you make a connection with an audience when you speak? How can you find ways to make a rhetorical argument? This course puts students in conversation with texts and ideas that guide them to find authentic voices when constructing narratives, arguments, and presentations to different audiences. Students may not receive credit for both CASCC 318 and CASWR 318. Effective Spring 2024, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Oral and/or Signed Communication, Teamwork/Collaboration. -
CAS CC 320: Extended Multimedia Encounters with Core Texts
Invites students to re-imagine Core texts in new, digital formats and contexts. Each section focuses on a particular Core text or texts to consider, reflect on and develop new mediations of the work. Prerequisite: Students must demonstrate previous experience of studying, performing, or otherwise engaging with the text on a sophisticated level, or must receive consent from the instructor. In Fall 2026, sections individually focus on: Confucian Analects; in Spring 2027, sections focus on Gilgamesh and Don Quixote. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Digital/Multimedia Expression, Teamwork/Collaboration, Creativity/Innovation.
