Category: utopia
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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November 7, 2025
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
In October, I was fortunate enough to join the Great Books Council of San Francisco for a discussion of Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower. This book depicts an apocalyptic scenario in southern California. It begins in a tightly controlled suburban neighborhood. Stucco walls and metal fences offer a sort of boundary line between the community and the much darker,
January 24, 2025
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
The Winter Film Series kicked off with the hard-hitting Women Talking. The film, directed by Sarah Polley, profiles a small, isolated Mennonite community in Bolivia. A series of incidents lead the women to discover that some men in the community have repeatedly drugged and then sexually assault them. The women hold a plebiscite on whether to do nothing,
September 6, 2024
Thanks to Tyler Wright, a 2024 HMU Fellow in Ideas, for today’s post.
How must we approach signs of life which defy our present understandings of what it is to be alive? Viruses, for instance, are periodically reexamined by scientists as they exist in a sort of transitory area between the living and nonliving (Villarreal, 2004). A specimen might exhibit characteristics so unique that a new branch of life begins to emerge.
August 2, 2024
Thanks to 2023 HMU Fellow in Ideas Chad Greene for today’s post.
“We’re on a road to nowhere”?
Why was that line – seemingly depressing on a surface level – so inspiring to me that I unexpectedly found myself on my feet in front of the TV in my living room, dancing, singing, and even crying?
During my 2023 Fellowship in Ideas at Harrison Middleton University,
June 12, 2020
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
Geoffrey Chaucer lived during a very tumultuous time in England. Chaucer’s patron was John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, a prince and statesman. Gaunt was the third son of Edward III, which enabled his rise to fame and fortune. Additionally, when Richard II, Gaunt’s nephew, assumed the throne at the age of ten, Gaunt handled most of the affairs of state until Richard II was prepared for the state’s business.
June 8, 2018
Thanks to Ben Peterson, a 2018 Harrison Middleton University Fellow in Ideas, for today’s post.
“Laughter is the best medicine.” — everybody ever
If you have been alive at any point in time, you have probably heard this expression. If you’ve been alive for more than a few years strung together, you may have heard it evoked in many different situations by many different voices,
May 6, 2016
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
I recently attended Great Books Chicago 2016 to discuss utopias and dystopias. One of our readings for this event was George Orwell’s 1984. At the end of the session, someone asked me whether I believed 1984 to be the darkest novel I have ever read. My immediate response was no,
December 25, 2015
Today, the day that celebrates the birth of Jesus, presents the perfect opportunity to continue our discussion of utopia. To catch up on past conversations, visit the last blog posts about Utopia here: (Universal Spirit and Utopia or Imperfect Ideal ).
“Looking for Paradise”, a song by Alejandro Sanz and Alicia Keys, grounds today’s discussion. Feel free to listen while reading: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRFegcmOTPE.