Aren’t We All Bleak Liberals?

This post was written by Matthew Wickman, Founding Director of the Humanities Center If one reads academic news media like The Chronicle of Higher Education or Inside Higher Ed—or, for that matter, The New York Times—one quickly ascertains that these aren’t the best of times for the humanities. Lending voice to that sentiment a few years ago, in 2014, …

In Britain, Walking. And Thinking.

This post was written by Holly Boud, Humanities Center intern. I should preface this post by saying that I am spending two months touring the UK on a British literature and landscape tour. Everything that follows is reflective of this experience. This study abroad focuses on understanding the literature of Britain in different eras as well …

Leadership Material

This post was written by Ed Cutler, HC Fellow, English Department An opinion piece in a recent New York Times carries a provocative title: “Not Leadership Material? Good. The World Needs Followers.” The author is Susan Cain, founder of Quiet Revolution, a for-profit company that aims to “unlock the power of introverts for the benefit …

The BYU Humanities Center at 5(0)

This past weekend I celebrated a milestone birthday: I’m 80. Alright, shave three decades off that number, though in some ways I feel 80. Years ago, when a department colleague turned 50, his friends – or, perhaps, sworn enemies – taped a picture on his door of him lying in a coffin, smiling. I believe …

How and Why Language Changes

This post was written by Mark Davies, HC Fellow, Linguistics Department Why do languages change? The answers that some linguists tended to give 100-150 years ago strike us as being quite absurd nowadays. For example, they sometimes looked to the physical environment as a motivation for language change, such as the fact that the Germanic …

The Humanities, Medicine and Art in the Sixteenth Century

This post was written by Charlotte Stanford, HC Fellow, Department of Comparative Arts & Letters When I say I am a medievalist and that I am interested in the study of medicine, I often encounter skepticism—if not a frisson of actual horror. Wasn’t that an age that practiced bloodletting? That didn’t believe in bathing? That …

An Appreciation for Wonder-Driven Research

This post was written by Janis Nuckolls, HC Faculty Fellow As this is my last official post as a member of the first Humanities Center executive committee, I want to publicly thank (even though thanking seems paltry and inadequate) our founding director Matt Wickman, whose vision, wit, energy, eloquence, and excitement for ALL THINGS has …

Fences

This post was written by Andrew Rees, HC Undergraduate Student Fellow As I sit in the twilight of my undergraduate experience at BYU, I hope you will indulge me a little nostalgia. To do so, I’ll refer you to one of my childhood favorites: The Fellowship of the Ring and J.R.R. Tolkien’s timeless words: “The …