Think clearly. Act well. Appreciate life.
This post was written by Sydney Jo Pedersen, a Humanities Center student fellow. “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” - George Bernard Shaw Even before they speak their first word, a child begins to communicate. They express surprise with raised eyebrows, joy with a smile, and hunger …
This post was written by Starly Pratt, a Humanities Center student fellow. In the sport of bouldering, one has to be a little insane. Or, at least, it appears that way. I’ve often heard that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result. This coincides with …
Storytelling, broadly defined, represents an effort to understand the world. It is, as Peter Brooks has written, “…one of the principal ways we organize our experience…” If story, as many scholars have argued, is little more than a sequence of events, storytelling is the process by which we give shape to those events, emphasizing what …
This article is written by Matthew Ancell, a Humanities Center faculty fellow. Amidst the wars of religion instigated by the Protestant Reformation, two emissaries, Jean de Dinteville, Francis I’s ambassador to England, and his friend Georges de Selve, the future Bishop of Lavaur, were sent to the court of Henry VIII in 1533 to …
Call for Applications: BYU Humanities Center Summer Writing Retreat 2025 Deadline: 14 March 2025 Inspired by the productive example of the National Humanities Center, we are pleased to announce that the BYU Humanities Center will sponsor a Summer Writing Retreat this year from June 2 – 7 at the beautiful Zermatt Resort in Midway, UT. …
This post was written by Kaden Nelson, a Humanities Center student fellow. It’s difficult to find purpose in writing a paper when its composition sits against the backdrop of what seems to be a progressively purposeless world. Students and scholars in the humanities have been pummeled relentlessly over the last two decades with statistics …
This post was written by Mabel Court, a Humanities Center student fellow. History unspools as it occurs; the future has always been an ever-murky, ever-shifting puzzle. That being said, there do seem to be compounding factors that make this historical moment feel particularly uncertain, with mounting political polarization, wars and rumors of wars, and …
We are currently looking for a new group of Humanities Center undergraduate fellows. Generous donors have made it possible for us to fund at least four student fellowships – the equivalent of a full scholarship – next year. As always, our pool of candidates will consist solely of nominations sent by you, our faculty. The …
This post was written by Stephen Tuttle, a Humanities Center faculty fellow. The year I turned eleven, I spent a lot of time not reading. I was more interested in setting a high score on Megamania, a video game that was basically Space Invaders if the invaders were hamburgers (I know, I don’t get …
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 …
