Public Humanities

This essay was written by Sawyer Wood, a BYU Humanities Center intern. Recently I’ve been re-reading the novel Amor de Perdição (generally translated as “Doomed Love”), written by 19th-century Portuguese author Camilo Castelo Branco. The book is frequently compared to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, as it also follows the story of two young lovers from …

This essay was written by Rex P. Nielson, Director of the BYU Humanities Center. In 1962, Paulo Freire, a young and idealistic lawyer-turned-educator, embarked on an ambitious educational experiment that aimed not merely to teach people how to read, but to transform Brazilian society itself. Consider this startling fact: the 1960 Brazilian census recorded an …

This poem was written by Marie Hua, winner of the 2026 Artistic Narrative section in the 2026 Humanities Center Tell Your Story Contest.   Tonight, my Nǎinai makes wontons: ground pork bok choy xiāmǐ  thumbs up! chop to mix, hǎo hǎo hǎo… We wrap them like small talk; like how on the way to buy …

This essay was written by Paige Winegar Fetzer, winner of the Creative Nonfiction section of the 2026 Humanities Center Tell Your Story Contest.   Most of what I know about God has arrived sideways—caught like dust motes illuminated in a warm slant of light. The summer before I started graduate school, the sun slipped through …

This essay was written by Sawyer Wood, BYU Humanities Center intern and student fellow. A few months ago, Wicked: For Good was released in theaters. As the concluding adaptation of one of Broadway’s longest-running musicals, it stood among the year’s most anticipated films, and seemed to be something the whole world was talking about. When …

This essay was written by Justin F. White, a BYU Humanities Center faculty fellow. In “A Theory of Jerks,” Eric Schwitzgebel describes the jerk as someone who “culpably fails to appreciate the perspectives of others around him, treating them as tools to be manipulated or fools to be dealt with rather than as moral and …

This essay was written by Aiden Jones, a BYU Humanities Center student fellow. I don’t know that I’ve ever been able to use words to communicate as well as Helen Burns, whose “soul sat on her lips, and language flowed” as she spoke to her friend Jane Eyre. [1] Today, language, like almost everything else …

This essay was written by Julia Morgan, a BYU Humanities Center student fellow.   Dear Rilke,         I know you were born in 1875, and that you didn’t write Letters to a Young Poet to me. But I’m in need of some counsel, and, as I am a Young Poet as well, …

This essay was written by Chris Rogers, a BYU Humanities Center faculty fellow. I think, write, and teach about language diversity a lot. In my classes students are asked to analyze the similarities and differences between languages from all over the world, how they have independently developed, and what they uniquely represent for the people …

This essay was written by George Dibble, a BYU Humanities Center student fellow. Alone in my room, I listened to a neuroscientist (Caroline Leaf) talk about the 21st century’s rise in preventable deaths. She talked about surging anxiety, depression rates, and especially of my generation (Gen Z). Gallup reports that 47.8 million Americans are diagnosed …