Public Humanities

This post was written by Luke Beckstrand, a Humanities Center student fellow.   One of the most challenging and age-old questions in the world strikes us all close to home: “Why do bad things happen to good people?” It’s easy to wonder, if we’ve tried our best to live a good life and spread only …

This post was written by Paul Westover, a Humanities Center faculty fellow.   In my English 236 class, a GE course on C. S. Lewis, we recently read “Meditation in a Toolshed,” an essay that begins with a simple anecdote: Lewis, standing in his shed, observes a beam of light entering through a crack at …

This post was written by Ivy Griffiths, a Humanities Center student fellow.   I often find myself worrying about my future. With so many variables out of my control, there is no way to guarantee success in my endeavors. If life is a game, how can I win when I don’t hold all the cards? …

This post was written by Abigail Beus, an undergraduate student.   February 1st marked a notable occasion on BYU’s campus with the esteemed presence of Laura Huerta Migus, Deputy Director of the Office of Museum Services. As introduced by her childhood friend Professor Brian Price (Spanish and Portuguese), we learned of Migus’s devotion to the …

This post was written by Drew Swasey, a Humanities Center student fellow.   During a period of my college years, my ascent of the stairs behind the Maeser building became a ritual punctuated by necessary breaks. The physical discomfort of those moments has nearly faded from my memory, yet the process I would use to …

This post was written by Luka Romney, a Humanities Center student fellow.   It seems to me that heartbreak is the constant negotiation and renegotiation between two forces within the self: the first, the deep inner knowing that one is both a deserving recipient and a ready vessel for the fundamental metamorphosis that reciprocal love …

This post was written by Zach Stevenson, a Humanities Center student fellow.   It is impossible to know with certainty the precise thinking patterns of one’s youth, but I feel that I can confidently assert that my former understanding of free will was a faulty one. Specifically, I once understood free will to be a …

This post was written by Stephen Tuttle, a Humanities Center faculty fellow.   As a fiction writer, my preferred form has always been the short story. Although I once drafted an entire novel, the long form doesn’t suit me. I love to read a good novel (please, ask me why I love Moby-Dick), but when …

This essay was written by Gabbie Schwartz, a Humanities Center student fellow and the BYU Humanities Center Intern.   I first encountered the aesthetic theories of the sublime and the beautiful in English 292, a course that focused on British Literary History from 1789 onward. Most will be familiar with Edmund Burke’s seminal work, A …

This post was written by Rex P. Nielson, BYU Humanities Center Director. A threshold marks a distinction between two kinds of space. We typically experience thresholds as the common elements of an entrance: the line at the base of a door that separates the outside from the inside. But thresholds may also bear powerful metaphorical …