an image of a woman sitting on the beach looking at the water

Thinking through a new Odyssey

This post was written by Roger Macfarlane, Comparative Arts & Letters, Humanities Center Fellow “This book is really based on the Odyssey. All Roy really wants is to return to a clean home and to a faithful wife.” KUER pitched me this pair of sentences out of the blue when I cranked the ignition and …

an image of a building with a clock on the top of it

Astonishing Creatures

This post was written by Benjamin Jacob, HC Student Fellow, Interdisciplinary Humanities major I hope you will indulge a personal piece on this week’s blog. You see, this will be my last chance to write for the illustrious (nay the prestigious!) Humanities Center Blog, due to my upcoming graduation.  In preparation for this piece, I toyed …

an image of a woman holding a man ' s hand in a black and white photo

Literary Criticism and Bipartisanship

This post was written by Nick Mason, English, HC Faculty Fellow Much like the literary classic – which Mark Twain memorably dubbed a “book which people praise but don’t read” – political bipartisanship is at once universally endorsed and virtually extinct. In the past year alone, long-revered U.S. Senate protocols were ditched to expedite the …

an image of a number of donuts with fruit and flowers

Reflections on The Great British Bake-off

This post was written by Holly Boud, Humanities Center Intern I have recently started The Great British Bake-off on Netflix (I know, I am late to the game). I haven’t gotten through very much—only the first season, but like many of you, I find it utterly delightful. I love getting to know the contestants through …

an image of a painting of a man being held up by a crowd

#MeToo in the Humanities Classroom

This post was written by Heather Belnap, Comparative Arts and Letters, Humanities Center Faculty Fellow In my junior year of university, I “got woke” to feminism. And it was an aptly-titled text, Kate Chopin’s 1899 novel The Awakening, assigned in an undergraduate humanities critical theory course, that did it. Until then, feminism was to me …

an image of a woman with a backpack walking through a field

An Ode to Environmental Humanities

This post was written by Carlee Schmidt Reber, HC Student Fellow My college experience could be summed up in a quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes: “One’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.” While I hope Holmes’ mantra inspires me to seek new knowledge for the rest of my life, …

an image of a fireworks display with the word 2018 written in it

Considering a New Year: The Virtues and Vices

The new year is full of possibilities (exciting) and unknowns (scary). 2018 has come barreling through the gates at the heels of an incredibly eventful and unpredictable year. 2017 was … well, it was something. With a president at the helm unlike any we have ever seen, multiple global tragedies including Manchester, London, New York, …

an image of a woman writing a letter at a table

Silent Art

This post was written by Benjamin Jacob, HC Student Fellow Last summer, my family embarked on a quest to see several paintings by Johannes Vermeer that we had not yet seen. Led by my intrepid mother, we traveled to museums in Frankfurt, Berlin, and Dresden specifically to see these Dutch gems.  Unfortunately for our purposes, …

an image of a woman sitting on a bench with a dog

The Emotional Hook—and Am I the Fish?

This post was written by Carlee Schmidt Reber, Humanities Center Student Fellow We’ve all had one of those hodge-podge dreams where the book, TV series, and movie you recently watched mix themselves into a tangled narrative in which you are centrally involved. It’s always about ten minutes after I wake up, getting ready in the …