Category: Emotion
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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September 30, 2022 Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post. Some of the primary texts that we study at Harrison Middleton University date back to the Roman Empire. Obviously we use popular translations of these texts, but it is always a worthy exercise to look at the primary texts. Much information can be …
July 8, 2022 Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post. Happiness is of such importance that the Declaration of Independence uses it as a foundational principle. Considering its importance in my own society, one would think that I thoroughly understand the term. However, it is as slippery today as it has always been. …
Ahab Rages and Odysseus Weeps: Trauma as a Core Concept for Humanistic Inquiry June 24, 2022 Thanks to David C. Yamada, a 2022 Fellow in Ideas, for today’s post. The Great Books of the Western World series includes the two-volume Syntopicon, An Index to the Great Ideas, which contains 102 core ideas and accompanying entries …
Friday, May 6, 2022 Thanks to David Kirichenko, a 2022 Fellow in Ideas recipient, for today’s post. Understanding your place in the universe is difficult. It requires facing, and then transcending, your deepest concerns, with death as one of our core fears. One day you will die. Everyone you know and love will die. All …
February 18, 2022 Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post. In Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 film Rashomon few facts can be established. As with most murder mysteries, the viewer sees a tangled web of evidence unfold before them. Unlike most murder mysteries, the audience begins to assume the role of judge and jury. Though …
October 8, 2021 Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post. During the 90s, Seinfeld garnered a huge viewership. In an attempt to bring the classics to the present, our recent Quarterly Discussion drew connections between Seinfeld and Aristotle’s Poetics. We also tried to discover keys to the sitcom’s great appeal. Considering the characters’ …
June 11, 2021 Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post. When looking through the Syntopicon under “F,” I find Family, Fate, and Form. Yet, the more I think about it, I want to find Forgiveness. Merriam-Webster defines “forgive” as: to cease to feel resentment against; to give up resentment or requital; to grant …
April 2, 2021 Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post. As a reader, and a human, I am always drawn towards love’s many dimensions. Unlike Janus who faces in two directions only (forward and backward), love is indescribably complex. For that reason, it absolutely fascinates me. Although Louise Glück’s book Ararat from 1990 …
March 26, 2021 Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post. Part of my attraction to the Brontës is the excruciating and raw emotions. It is as if they speak truth when others would rather avoid the issues. It is a form of witness to their own reality, to the harshness and beauty of …
March 5, 2021 Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post. The Great Books Foundation recently hosted a virtual Great Books Chicago (in place of the usual in-person Great Books Chicago). Beauty was the topic of discussion. I gained wonderful perspectives from the weekend and so, today’s blog attempts to address a number of …
