Winter 2018 In this lecture, Andrew Prevot shares some new research about the reception of Christian mysticism in contemporary theology and philosophy. He argues that certain postmodern ethical discourses about the self’s experience of being flesh and the self’s porosity to the other can be traced back to mystical sources in the Christian tradition. Yet what is …
Astonishing Creatures
This post was written by Benjamin Jacob, HC Student Fellow, Interdisciplinary Humanities major I hope you will indulge a personal piece on this week’s blog. You see, this will be my last chance to write for the illustrious (nay the prestigious!) Humanities Center Blog, due to my upcoming graduation. In preparation for this piece, I toyed …
Literary Criticism and Bipartisanship
This post was written by Nick Mason, English, HC Faculty Fellow Much like the literary classic – which Mark Twain memorably dubbed a “book which people praise but don’t read” – political bipartisanship is at once universally endorsed and virtually extinct. In the past year alone, long-revered U.S. Senate protocols were ditched to expedite the …
Reflections on The Great British Bake-off
This post was written by Holly Boud, Humanities Center Intern I have recently started The Great British Bake-off on Netflix (I know, I am late to the game). I haven’t gotten through very much—only the first season, but like many of you, I find it utterly delightful. I love getting to know the contestants through …
#MeToo in the Humanities Classroom
This post was written by Heather Belnap, Comparative Arts and Letters, Humanities Center Faculty Fellow In my junior year of university, I “got woke” to feminism. And it was an aptly-titled text, Kate Chopin’s 1899 novel The Awakening, assigned in an undergraduate humanities critical theory course, that did it. Until then, feminism was to me …
An Ode to Environmental Humanities
This post was written by Carlee Schmidt Reber, HC Student Fellow My college experience could be summed up in a quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes: “One’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.” While I hope Holmes’ mantra inspires me to seek new knowledge for the rest of my life, …
Considering a New Year: The Virtues and Vices
The new year is full of possibilities (exciting) and unknowns (scary). 2018 has come barreling through the gates at the heels of an incredibly eventful and unpredictable year. 2017 was … well, it was something. With a president at the helm unlike any we have ever seen, multiple global tragedies including Manchester, London, New York, …
Silent Art
This post was written by Benjamin Jacob, HC Student Fellow Last summer, my family embarked on a quest to see several paintings by Johannes Vermeer that we had not yet seen. Led by my intrepid mother, we traveled to museums in Frankfurt, Berlin, and Dresden specifically to see these Dutch gems. Unfortunately for our purposes, …
Digital Humanities: A Bridge between Researchers in Our College
This post was written by Mark Davies, HC Fellow, Department of Linguistics and English Language The College of Humanities has faculty from across a wide range of disciplines, including literary studies, cultural studies, linguistics, and language pedagogy. In addition to the wide range of topics covered by faculty in these different fields, there are also …
The Emotional Hook—and Am I the Fish?
This post was written by Carlee Schmidt Reber, Humanities Center Student Fellow We’ve all had one of those hodge-podge dreams where the book, TV series, and movie you recently watched mix themselves into a tangled narrative in which you are centrally involved. It’s always about ten minutes after I wake up, getting ready in the …