Category: Beauty
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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April 17, 2026
Thanks to Natalie Sum Yue Chung, HMU 2026 Fellow in Ideas; PhD Candidate in Climate Policy, Princeton University
Walden; or, Life in the Woods (1854) by Henry David Thoreau: review by Natalie Sum Yue Chung
There are books we read, and then there are books that read us—that somehow knew us before we knew ourselves. Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden; or, Life in the Woods” (1854) has been such a companion throughout my life.
» Read more about: Finding Walden: A Personal Reflection on Thoreau’s Masterwork »
February 27, 2026
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
The soundtrack to The Hours by Philip Glass
The Hours, a 2002 film based on the novel by Michael Cunningham, weaves together the lives of three complicated women. First, Virginia Woolf is shown writing the manuscript for Mrs. Dalloway. Next, Laura Brown, a housewife in the 1950s,
February 13, 2026
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
I just finished a Mary Oliver seminar which was hosted by the Academy of American Poets and taught by Lindsay Whalen. I appreciated Whalen’s historical insights into Oliver’s writing. Here are a few things that I love, admire, cherish about Mary Oliver’s poetry.
First, as Lindsay Whalen eloquently expressed in class, for Oliver, memories are attached not just to a moment in time but to a very physical place.
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,
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.
November 8, 2024
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
Today is our final nod to Melville. A handful of posts is not enough, but it never would be. And really, rather than elaborate on what I find beautiful or how it’s beautiful to me, I’d rather just present Melville in his own words. So, the following are two of my favorite passages. However, I also want to note that one of the most beautiful chapters in the entire book is “The Symphony” (Chapter 132),
November 1, 2024
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
Moby Dick can be summed up with something like the following:
A man (the narrator) decides to join a whaling crew. The captain of his ship is possessed with thoughts of revenge. The man learns a lot about whales. The captain’s pursuit of vengeance gets everyone killed with the exception of the narrator (and perhaps the whale).
October 13, 2023
Thanks to Ally Zlatar, a 2023 Fellow in Ideas, for today’s post.
My journey into the realm of art activism was ignited by my personal battle with severe ill health, which included a protracted struggle with an eating disorder spanning over a decade. Throughout my recovery journey, I came to realize that many, particularly within the medical profession, often fixated on the diagnosis rather than recognizing the person grappling with the illness.
» Read more about: Ally Zlatar: Navigating the Intersection of Art and Activism »