Category: Art
We’re excited that you’ve joined the conversation! At HMU, we want to continue the great authors’ conversations in a contemporary context, and this blog will help us do that. We look back to Aristotle and the early philosophers who used reason and discourse to gain wisdom and now we endeavor to do the same every day.
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January 30, 2026
Thanks to Sabahat Ali Wani, a 2025 Fellow in Ideas, for today’s post.
Hairpins to earrings, scarves to sleeves—as a visual artist, I search for, collect, and use Kashmiri women’s clothes and accessories in my practice, primarily intending to shed light and document our lives, stories, and memories of resistance. That is at the core of my art: resistance, a medium to represent and record Kashmiri women’s narratives.
» Read more about: From Kashmir—Hairpins and Earrings, Scarves and Sleeves »
January 9, 2026
Thanks to Joy Reeves, a 2025 Fellow in Ideas, for today’s post.
In the beginning of the television show Westworld, a man stares in blushing disbelief at Angela, the lifelike cyborg who greets him upon his arrival to the robot amusement park.
“Are you real?” he stutters out to her.
She looks at him and replies, “Well, if you can’t tell,
» Read more about: “If You Can’t Tell, Does it Matter?” Discerning Realness from Spectacle »
October 24, 2025
Thanks to Sabahat Ali Wani, a 2025 Fellow in Ideas, for today’s post.
In 1971, Linda Nochlin asked, “Why have there been no great women artists?” Triggering a series of conversations, debates, and gendered concerns around art history, this question still holds classical relevance, but also reveals Eurocentric ideals and practices of celebrated feminist art historical interventions, where non-Western women artists and their artworks are “doubly marginalised,” in fact,
» Read more about: Tracing the Ebbs and Flows of Feminism and Art History Now »
October 17, 2025
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
In Macbeth, King Duncan says, “There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face.” To put it bluntly, the King laments the fact that we cannot know what’s below the surface. Below the surface, underneath the skin, humans buzz with thoughts, emotions, and questions. These hidden things act as motivation for our actions. In Macbeth,
July 25, 2025
Thanks to Chad Greene, a 2023 Fellow in Ideas recipient, for today’s post.
Part One: Why to Study Hugo Hercules
Although the study of comic books and graphic novels is becoming more and more popular with both teachers and students at the college level, faculty may feel like it’s difficult to find an introductory text suitable for their students that is not only historically significant to that medium,
» Read more about: “Just as Easy”: Introducing Students to Comics Studies with Hugo Hercules »
April 25, 2025
Thanks to Sabahat Ali Wani, a 2025 HMU Fellow in Ideas, for today’s post.
“Always seeing something, never seeing nothing, being photographer.” ― Walter De Mulder, Belgian Photographer
A camera’s eye has enveloped and seeped into our being—not only from outside but also from within. We see like a camera’s eye. We understand, confirm, document and store our reality as images.
» Read more about: Camera’s Eye, My Eye: Re-reading Susan Sontag’s On Photography (1977) »
April 18, 2025
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
The April Quarterly Discussion focused on “Donkey Skin” as told by Charles Perrault and “The Color Master” by Aimee Bender. “Donkey Skin” stretches back to ancient Asia. There are any number of interesting twists and turns embedded within centuries of retellings. In the Perrault version, after the queen dies, the king feels pressure to marry his daughter in order to fulfill the queen’s dying request.
February 14, 2025
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
If we’re going to celebrate something on this Valentine’s Day, let’s celebrate dance. Take this performance by Dai Matsuoka with Jeffrey Ziegler on the cello. Filmed in black and white with great stone structures on the stage, Matsuoka plays with shadow. He moves through space, around the pillars sometimes slowly and sometimes quickly. The viewer must ask what these actions mean.
January 17, 2025
Thanks to 2023 Fellow in Ideas, Chad Greene, for today’s post.
I was a professor, and it was the week before the semester ended, so I should have been grading. But instead of colored pens and stacks of students’ essays, on my desk were a piece of cardboard, a permanent marker, and a set of acrylic paints and brushes. After a visit to the exceptional exhibition “Peter Carr: Artist for Survival” at the Cerritos College Art Gallery,
» Read more about: Ekphrasis: When Great Art Inspires Great Text (or Comics) »
September 13, 2024
Thanks to John M. Wiley, HMU 2024 Fellow in Ideas, for today’s post.
Two things that aren’t exactly trendy today are the humanities and church music, particularly historical hymns. At first glance, such a statement seems incoherent, if not utterly ridiculous. However, I believe there’s an intertwining of the two that gives us valid insights into some of the shortcomings of our postmodern age, as well as much-needed wisdom for today.