Think clearly. Act well. Appreciate life.
A headline caught my eye while trolling the Internet for finals week memes that said, “An Invisible Artwork by Yves Klein Just Sold for More than $1 Million at Sotheby’s.” The article was quick to clarify that the private European collector with the winning bid didn’t buy empty space, per se, but rather a paper …
Dear Mom~ The other day I read an article in the news about parents in Tennessee and elsewhere rallying to have books removed from their teens’ school libraries—books that reference race, sexuality, or the Holocaust in ways that made them (the parents) uncomfortable. I wondered how those kids felt, watching their parents on social media …
In William Shakespeare’s Othello, Othello wrestles with the rumors circling around his wife, Desdemona, and her virtue, and counsels with Iago in his private chambers. Their exchange is full of echoing repetitions and circuitous thoughts that come bouncing back to Othello, further disorienting him. Iago: Indeed? Othello: Indeed? … Is he not honest? Iago: Honest, …
“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 a student of rhetoric, I’m well aware of my obligation to wax eloquent on the democratic process and the power of deliberation on the heels of an historic election, but can I please not, please? Instead I want to talk about punk rock. I was introduced to punk rock in high school when a …
I’ve just finished reading Ulysses in one of my classes. As a group, we struggled and wrestled and plodded through the dense text in a month, coming to class only to realize that a mere three hours a week was barely enough to scratch the surface of the segment we had read. Ulysses—and Joyce’s writing …
Here’s a question: could the mediated essay be an underutilized opportunity to expand the scope of academia? >> Intro music and graphics Hey guys, welcome back to the channel! Huge shout out to Squarespace for sponsoring this episode, and of course, thank you to all the patrons who support the channel. Without all of you, …
In his 1929 lecture “What Is Metaphysics?” Martin Heidegger laid out a series of propositions regarding scientific attitudes, and specifically how the sciences assess their objects of study. “What should be examined are beings only, and besides that—nothing; beings alone, and further—nothing; solely beings, and beyond that—nothing.” Science, that is, should take up only those …
On Friday, February 20th, Eric Hayot will be on campus as the guest at our Humanities Center Annual Symposium. Hayot is Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature at Penn State, and while much of his work is in Chinese he is also a major commentator on the humanities, with a great deal of wide-reaching (and very …
On September 30, President Obama declared October 2014, National Arts and Humanities Month. This is the 29th year in a row that October has been dedicated to celebrating Arts and Humanities. In his proclamation, Obama wrote, “Since our earliest days, America has flourished because of the creative spirit and vision of our people. Our Nation …