Category: Environment
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 »
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) »
December 20, 2024
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s blog.
I recently entered a writing course through the University of Chicago, Graham School. Led by writer Dina Elenbogen, it focused on the intersection between walking and writing, a topic which many of our HMU students find important as well. We discussed craft but also motivation, inspiration, and the importance of journey. For many writers, movement inspires thought and helps to bring ideas together.
September 20, 2024
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
Journeys have been on my mind. Possibly because I’ve been close-reading Moby Dick for some time now, I am thinking of seas, and adventures, ships and boats, of long walking, of trial and tribulation. So, as part of my summer fun reading, I picked up a book that has been on my shelf for far too long: The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History through the Heart of the Grand Canyon by Kevin Fedarko.
January 14, 2022
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
Though I do not excel at problem solving, I always like to know that someone has a plan. I like the security of emergency plans in hotels, for example. In the outdoors, I have first-aid supplies for all sorts of possibilities. And I never leave home without water and gear to change a tire. So while recently reading Bill Gates’s book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and The Breakthroughs We Need,
» Read more about: Book Review: How to Avoid a Climate Disaster »
December 3, 2021
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
Listen to “Misty Mountain Hop” by Led Zeppelin while reading today’s blog.
In The Meaning of Travel by Emily Thomas, she explains that mountains used to be feared, vile, despicable places. In literature, they were described with disdain and hatred. She quotes John Donne’s “Anatomy of the world” in which he calls mountains “warts and pock-holes” as one example (113).
February 5, 2021
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
“Joy, in part, is the justice we give ourselves.” – Dr. Drew Lanham
This post is about the love of being. Also, the love of birds. After listening to Krista Tippett (of OnBeing) interview Dr. Drew Lanham, ornithologist, writer, and Wildlife Biologist at Clemson University, I felt the first few positive strings of hope arrive.
Thanks to Dylan O’Hara, a 2020 HMU Fellow in Ideas, for today’s post.
May 22, 2020
Some of the research that has inspired me the most over the last two years or so has been Urban History. The academic crossover between History, Anthropology, Political Science, Cartography, Geography, and Environmental Studies suddenly opened up a whole new world of exploration for me. I was excited to find it was creative, expressive, expansive,
April 24, 2020
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
“If you observe the hot-foot sun and the moon’s phases,/ To-morrow will never cheat you” – Virgil, Georgics, Book I
In celebration of poetry this month, our April Quarterly Discussion focused on Virgil’s Georgics, Book I, and a selection of poems from Wendell Berry’s Farming: A Handbook. Not only do these readings align with National Poetry Month,
February 21, 2020
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
In her book, Appalachian Elegy, bell hooks links poetry and place. At the book’s outset, in Elegy #1, the narrator invokes spirits in order to speak to all of us. The narrator asks the dead to “speak to us/ from beyond the grave/ guide us/ that we may learn.” This narrator promises that in time,