Category: Communication
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.
CATEGORIES
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.
October 18, 2024
Thanks to 2024 Fellow in Ideas, Tyler Wright, for today’s blog.
You know how the saying goes— “There is only one way to eat a whale: one bite at a time.” Most readers get into the work of Herman Melville by tackling his 1851 magnum opus Moby Dick; or, The Whale right from the get-go, politely passing over the shorter pieces dotting his literary output. Like Captain Ahab,
May 17, 2024
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s blog.
Metaphor was born from curiosity. From metaphor comes astonishing revelations. Such was the experience of this year’s April Quarterly Discussion. We discussed two short stories written by completely different authors, one by the contemporary science fiction and fantasy author Ted Chiang, and one by the Canadian Lucy Maud Montgomery.
Montgomery’s story “The Man on the Train,” first published in 1914,
September 3, 2021
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
The brutal editing process is, unfortunately, necessary. For one example, editing identifies extra language. This makes the essay flow in a tight and smooth manner which your readers will appreciate. It also highlights your main idea by removing excess jargon. Proofreading ensures that your tone, verb tenses, and language all make sense, granting a more polished tone. I suggest that you spend thirty minutes reading through your paper before you hit submit.
December 18, 2020
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
During this pandemicky year, a friend of mine has taken to writing me a letter every day. She usually includes details about the workday, family responsibilities, emotions of being at home, etc. A few times, she has included an old postcard, written more than a century ago, as part of the letter. These post cards have created an intense curiosity in me.
December 4, 2020
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
The tricky nature of love never ceases to amaze me. George Eliot’s novel Middlemarch explores many complicated examples love. Today’s blog will focus on the relationship between Tertius Lydgate and Rosamond Vincy. Rosamond is Lydgate’s second love. Before moving to Middlemarch, he had fallen for an actress. Though we don’t know much about this experience, the narrator does tell us that he when he confessed his love to her,
December 13, 2019
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
Some people in my family say “cut on the light” when they want the light on. This drives the younger generations crazy because, of course, it sounds like the opposite of what is meant. English is a very accommodating language, however, which can privilege use over meaning. In this case, the idea of cutting on or off the lights may come from a time when a knife blade switch provided power.
August 30, 2019
Thanks to Jennifer Taylor, a 2019 Harrison Middleton University Fellow in Ideas recipient, for today’s post.
It feels like August has only just begun, but somehow it is drawing to a close suspiciously quickly. As a new teacher, this inevitably results in mixed emotions. I – and I believe I can safely say most teachers – spend a good chunk of the summer thinking about and working on my job.
» Read more about: The Creative Process in the Arts and Beyond »
June 28, 2019
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
Letters often hold interest for me as a researcher and reader. They demonstrate humanity in ways that other writing cannot. People allow themselves a level of intimacy on paper that is not allowed in other areas of life. I love to write letters and I do lament that they are not as popular now as they once were. This is one of the reasons that I became interested in a collection of letters titled Velocity of Being,
January 18, 2019
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
Every Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I enjoy rereading some of Dr. King’s remarkable works. As a culture, we are still coming to terms with his life, his death, and his very beautiful words. Personally, his words resonate with me in any number of ways. Foremost, perhaps, is the fact that he calls for honest (and perhaps painful) dialogue.