Think clearly. Act well. Appreciate life.
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 …
“Where are your monuments, your battles, martyrs? Where is your tribal memory? Sirs, in that grey vault. The sea. The sea has locked them up. The sea is History.”[1] In Dr. Brian Russell Roberts’s latest book, Borderwaters: Amid the Archipelagic States of America, out with Duke University Press in May of this year, he immerses …
As long as I have been a student at BYU, I have always adored the home of the Humanities: the Joseph Fielding Smith Building (JFSB). On bright, sunny days, I often meander into the Mary Lou Fulton Plaza and idle away several peaceful moments sitting next to the towering broken rocks. I listen to the …
Affect, verb: (1) have an effect upon; make a difference to. (2) touch the feelings of (someone); move emotionally. Elliott D. Wise, assistant professor of Art History in the Comparative Arts and Letters department, confesses that he teaches in a rather emotional style—dramatic, even—in part to keep people awake in the dim light of an …
I’m a sucker for astronomical clickbait. “The Moon is Wobbling!” got me. My world tilted on its axis when I discovered the rock that existed peripherally at the foggy edges of perception is a bit like a staggering drunk on his way home from the pub: reliably unstable on his feet, creating mild annoyance in …
Locker 5NW11, Harold B. Lee Library, 40°14’55.6” N, 111°38’58.4” W The existence of rentable lockers, scattered across various BYU campus buildings, flies under the radar of many students. Well, at least it did for me. The particular lockers pictured here [i] stand along the back wall of the Harold B. Lee library’s fifth floor, beige rectangles …
This past year, my experience with COVID has taught me the importance of mobility. I realize I had taken for granted going out and getting around, and having access to work, stores, and face-to-face church services. Perhaps like me, you only discovered this when your ability to leave home, go to school or work, go …
I have always hated making my bed. It’s a funny thing to hate, because making a bed really isn’t a particularly terrible task. When you make a bed, you just shake out and smooth your sheets and your blanket. Pretty simple. You don’t have to get your hands dirty, you don’t have to exert much …
“My work in teaching and studying feminist art history,” says Heather Belnap, associate professor of art history in the department of Comparative Arts and Letters, “is about the recovery of lost voices and recognizing the historic contributions of women.” But in addition to conventional scholarly projects, publications and academic endeavors, Professor Belnap adds that her …
Language is uniquely human I imagine most definitions of “the humanities” include something about the study of human expression and, to a lesser extent, human interaction. Perhaps the most quintessentially human activity that we do is to communicate with others in one or more human languages. Of course, we are not the only species that …