Featured Projects

In his opening devotional this fall, President Worthen expressed concern that at BYU “our sense of community has lessened, and our sense of loneliness and isolation has increased.”  The solution he proposed to our waning sense of belonging is to knit our hearts together in a community that gives more weight to what we have …

If you ask Professor Marie Orton for her philosophy on life, she will answer, “In my family, we say for most any experience: it’s either a good time or a good story.” She exudes a contagious fervor for her work, for mentoring, and for life in all of its complexities. And she captures this fervor …

When I walk into Dr. Hans-Wilhelm Kelling’s office, he’s diligently working at his computer. “Have a seat,” he says kindly, “and help yourself to any of these treats.” On his desk is a pear, a bowl of M&Ms, and a bag of grapes. He jokes that he always keeps snacks at his desk so students …

As academic publishing becomes increasingly complex, many believe that single-author journals are on the decline. As newly appointed editor of Poe Studies: History, Theory, Interpretation, though, Professor Emron Esplin isn’t worried because “not every author is Poe; he is just that influential on world writing.” As a poet, fiction writer, critic, and inventor of the …

During the summer of 2012, shortly after Professor David Laraway had begun his doctoral coursework in Philosophy at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, he came across popular press reports featuring a botched attempt to restore a religious fresco in Spain. A well-meaning parishioner, Cecilia Giménez, had attempted to restore the painting in a …

This week we are delighted to feature the experience of a number of students who have fulfilled internships at the Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros (IEB), a research institute connected to the Universidade de São Paulo. BYU has a significant relationship to the IEB thanks to the coordinating efforts of Professor James Krause and others. Students who …

This blog post features the work of Leslee Thorne-Murphy, Department of English This week, the Humanities Center is pleased to feature the work of Leslee Thorne-Murphy. Over the last decade, Dr. Thorne-Murphy’s work on Victorian short fiction has become an invaluable resource to scholars interested in Victorian literature and those interested more broadly in short fiction. …

This post features the work of Douglas Weatherford, Spanish and Portuguese Department This year (2017) Mexico celebrates the centennial of one of its most beloved and iconic authors, Juan Rulfo (1917-1986). Although best known for two groundbreaking pieces of narrative fiction (El Llano en llamas, 1953 and Pedro Páramo, 1955), Rulfo was also an avid …

This post features the recent research of Dr. Greg Thompson, Spanish and Portuguese Department One of the challenges in learning a foreign language, especially in the first years, is communicating with native speakers of the target language. Given the limited contact that many foreign language students have with native speakers of that language, they are …