Think clearly. Act well. Appreciate life.
On January 7, 2015, two gunmen entered the Paris office of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and killed twelve members of the staff. Further attacks on police and civilians ensued. Quickly branded in the US as France’s equivalent to 9/11, the incident incited debate over a wide range of issues: religious extremism, cultural conflict, political policies …
As I listened to news of the attack on Charlie Hebdo, my first reaction was shock and condemnation. But, as events unfolded and news continued to pour out, I realized that blame might not be so easy to place. Of course, the attack was a tragedy as is every loss of human life, especially by …
All Colloquia will take place in JFSB 4010 at 3:00pm unless otherwise specified. January 22 Tony Brown (German and Russian), Jennifer Bown (German and Russian), and Bill Eggington (Linguistics and English Language) “Developing Global Proficiency through Debate.” January 29 David Laraway (Spanish and Portuguese) “American Idiots: Outsider Music and the Philosophy of Incompetence” …
The following post was written by Beau Hilton, one of the Humanities Center’s Snow Fellows. Please forgive the cliché. New Year’s blog posts are worn out and profligate, and this one even commits the crime of tardiness. However I try to remain aloof from the notions and gyrations of New Year reflections and resolutions, I …
While the BYU Humanities Center, as its mission statement declares, features the language, literature, thought, culture, and history of the human conversation, the overarching idea of conversation places language at the center of that mission. The commitment to language is evident in many Center activities, not least of which is the formation of a new …
Matthew Wickman, Director of the BYU Humanities Center Recently, and coincidentally, I read two articles on the same day that seemed to speak to, and yet past, each other. One was in The Salt Lake Tribune and bore the ominous title “BYU Prof Fears Mormon Scholars Are Giving In to Secularism,” while the other, published in …
Throughout his career at BYU and continuing today, Dr. Hans-Wilhelm Kelling has remained an example of lifelong learning to his students. His paper entitled “Female Guards, Nurses, and Doctors in German Concentration Camps” was recently awarded the Best Paper Award by the Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters in the Humanities/Philosophy/Foreign Language Division. In …
Megan Armknecht Megan presented on how Louisa May Alcott was influenced by German Romanticism–specifically the German thinker and writer, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. She had noticed resonances between Goethe’s thinking and personality in the character of Dr. Bhaer in Alcott’s classic, Little Women, and wanted to find out if these connections meant anything and if …
We can obtain a lot of information instantly. We can check email, find the weather forecast, take a photo, make a purchase, all in a matter of seconds. The rapidity of modern–or digital–life is convenient; it makes us more efficient and frees up time to accomplish other things. It’s hard to believe that there might …
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 …
