Category: History
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 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 »
December 12, 2025
Thanks to Ibrahim Nureni, a 2025 Fellow in Ideas, for today’s post.
In Margo Natalie Crawford’s Black Post-Blackness, tidalectics is characterized by “nonlinear” or “back-and-forth” black radical tradition of continuity in that the experiences of black people from the era of slavery to the contemporary days do not follow a parallel path but adopt a circular schema (3). English, in How to See a Work of Art in Total Darkness,
» Read more about: Alexander’s “Praise Song for the Day”: A Serial and Tide of Black Voices »
October 31, 2025
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
For the October Quarterly Discussion, we read a selection from Seneca’s “On the Shortness of Life” in combination with Nelson Mandela’s statement at the opening of the defense case in the Rivonia Trial (Pretoria Supreme Court, April 20, 1964). Mandela’s speech ends with the words:
“During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people.
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 »
June 6, 2025
Thanks to Estella Achinko, a 2025 HMU Fellow in Ideas, for today’s post.
Alfred Lansing’s Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage is a masterfully crafted narrative that chronicles one of the most extraordinary survival stories in the annals of exploration. Originally published in 1959, the book recounts the ill-fated 1914 Antarctic expedition led by the indomitable Sir Ernest Shackleton. Lansing, an American journalist, skillfully reconstructs this harrowing saga through meticulous research,
» Read more about: BOOK REVIEW: Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing »
May 30, 2025
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
Did Shakespeare’s Richard III believe in God? In the plays that lead up to Richard III, such as the First and Second Parts of King Henry the Fourth, a series of royal figures claim a divine right to the throne. Ironically, however, this “divine right” culminates in a very bloody culture of brothers killing brothers and cousins killing cousins known as the War of the Roses.
November 22, 2024
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
As usual, after completing the October Quarterly Discussions, I am left with more questions than answers. But more importantly, more vital to me, is the fact that many questions have been deepened. During discussion, these ideas evolve and morph into three and four dimensional figures, versus the two dimensional beginnings. Whether you call it Socratic dialogue or inquiry-based discussion,
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,
November 3, 2023
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
The October Quarterly Discussion merged two chapters from The Prince by Machiavelli with a chapter from Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Of prime interest was the focus on the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus. Machiavelli presents him as a champion of the princely cause since he successfully tricked and killed his opponents,
November 11, 2022
Thanks to 2022 HMU Fellow in Ideas David Kirichenko for today’s review.
The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene
There are defined patterns to how humans behave. Being social creatures, it is important to understand our own behaviors and motivations to grasp the reality of the world around us. In his book The Laws of Human Nature, Robert Greene attempts to weave together an appreciation of how humans operate through the lenses of history,