In an effort to enact orthography reform during the nineteenth century, Brigham Young sought to implement a new phonetic alphabet for learning. Ultimately deciding, through the recommendation of Willard Richards, to separate from using any traditional characters in the new phonetic alphabet, Young allowed George D. Watt to create the Deseret Alphabet. This information is …
Thoughts on Humor and Humility and on Rainforests as Resources for Laughter
The following post was written by Janis Nuckolls, a Faculty Fellow for the Center. While doing research for my PhD dissertation in a remote location in Amazonian Ecuador among Runa people, I had many amazing experiences. However, one experience in particular continues to be vivid. My friends and consultants had invited me to accompany them …
Mourning the Dead
In a powerful scene in James MacPherson’s Ossian poems, the king mourns the loss of his son in battle: “My eyes are blind with tears; but memory beams on my heart. How can I relate the mournful death of the head of the people! Prince of the warriors, Oscur, my son, shall I see thee …
The Moral Imagination, Crises of Conscience, and the End(s) of Literature
As the humanities and, more narrowly, literary studies suffer through something of a present-day identity crisis—as the number of majors dwindle, and as literary scholars migrate into media studies, the environmental humanities, and other fields—literary traditionalists seem increasingly given to creative defenses of the value of their work. This has been brought to mind recently …
Urban Narratives and the Provo City Planning Commission
In 2013, Dr. Jamin Rowan of the BYU English Department attended a neighborhood meeting to discuss the proposed routes for the new Bus Rapid Transit line that will soon connect the Provo and Orem Frontrunner stations. Although he had never imagined that he would be involved in city politics, participating in this meeting helped him …
Colloquium: Translation Studies
The Translation Studies Research Group will present at our weekly Colloquium on October 8th @ 3:00 in JFSB 4010. The group will present on the state of the Translation Studies field as well as current research. Catering by Banana Leaf.