Public Humanities

This post was written by Coleman Numbers, a Humanities Center student fellow.    “I teach them correct principles, and they govern themselves.” —Joseph Smith, 1851 Why is so much science fiction concerned with totalitarianism?   This question has infected me since I started Adrian Tchaikovsky’s latest novel, Alien Clay. It’s not the question I expected …

This post was written by Kathryn Charles, the current Humanities Center Intern.    Under most circumstances, I would jump at the chance to visit Monet’s garden at his home in Giverny, France. Under jet-lagged circumstances in the early morning, I did not. My husband, Sam, who had visited the garden before, promised me that if …

This post was written by Cherice Montgomery, a Humanities Center faculty fellow.    As a child, I loved stories; and if the thirty books now precariously perched on my nightstand are any indication, that has not changed much. Books are some of my best friends. They tell me everything from their most trivial thoughts to …

This post was written by Rex P. Nielson, BYU Humanities Center Director.    I’ve just returned from attending the MLA annual convention, held this year in a very chilly and rainy New Orleans. Following a lengthy more-than-ten-year stretch in which I deliberately avoided the MLA convention, a hiatus that I freely admit was prompted by …

This post was written by Aaron Eastley, a Humanities Center faculty fellow.    On a recent research trip, I found myself in a place even quieter than the library archives I have sometimes visited. I was on Cranberry Island off the coast of Maine, following in the footsteps of Leslie Norris, a Welsh poet I …

This post was written by James Swensen, a Humanities Center faculty fellow.    Last year, I visited the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. As a scholar of American art from the 1930s, I was eager to see the museum’s new exhibitions. I was pleased, but not surprised, to see a photograph I …

This post was written by Starly Pratt, a Humanities Center student fellow.    I sat on the edge of the cliff at Tintagel Castle as the wind pushed salty air into my lungs. To the right of me stretched miles of the Cornwall coast in all its cloudy glory, the soiled smell of the ten-minute-past …

This post was written by Sydney Jo Pedersen, a Humanities Center student fellow.    To live is to breathe,  To breathe is to voice, To voice is to speak, To speak is to share, To share is to love, To love is to be.   Language reveals. It shares. It unites.  But, it can also divide.  Sitting …

This post was written by Chris Rogers, a Humanities Center faculty fellow.    The first time I wanted to learn another language was because a new student, Edgar, had moved from Mexico into my fourth-grade classroom in Southern California. I asked my dad to teach me how to introduce myself to Edgar in Spanish (my …

This post was written by Sophie Hirtle, a Humanities Center student fellow.    For my family, staying in a hotel often means watching the home renovation channel together and mercilessly tearing apart the perky hosts and their design choices. We watch people enter a dilapidated, old home and, within the span of thirty minutes, transform …