Tag: Beauty
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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February 27, 2026
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
The soundtrack to The Hours by Philip Glass
The Hours, a 2002 film based on the novel by Michael Cunningham, weaves together the lives of three complicated women. First, Virginia Woolf is shown writing the manuscript for Mrs. Dalloway. Next, Laura Brown, a housewife in the 1950s,
October 17, 2025
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
In Macbeth, King Duncan says, “There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face.” To put it bluntly, the King laments the fact that we cannot know what’s below the surface. Below the surface, underneath the skin, humans buzz with thoughts, emotions, and questions. These hidden things act as motivation for our actions. In Macbeth,
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 13, 2023
Thanks to Ally Zlatar, a 2023 Fellow in Ideas, for today’s post.
My journey into the realm of art activism was ignited by my personal battle with severe ill health, which included a protracted struggle with an eating disorder spanning over a decade. Throughout my recovery journey, I came to realize that many, particularly within the medical profession, often fixated on the diagnosis rather than recognizing the person grappling with the illness.
» Read more about: Ally Zlatar: Navigating the Intersection of Art and Activism »
February 24, 2023
Thanks to Eden Tesfaslassie, a 2022 Fellow in Ideas, for today’s post.
Quintilian said, “the height of art is to conceal art.” In this quote, conceal does not mean to hide away but to be fully immersed. There should be no separation between the art and the experience of the art itself– as a viewer or an artist. This idea can be seen in the film Black Swan when the dance instructor,
August 26, 2022
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
From Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek:
“I wonder whether what I see and seem to understand about nature is merely one of the accidents of freedom, repeated by chance before my eyes, or whether it has any counterpart in the worlds beyond Tinker Creek. I find in quantum mechanics a world symbolically similar to my world at the creek.
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 we never receive an answer to the crime, the audience weighs details from each testimonial.
December 24, 2021
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
Recently, I discovered a rare gem at my local library. How lucky to have chanced upon this reading near the holiday season, a time when I contemplate the goodness of life, of language and literature, art, my wealth in terms of family and friends, and of the goodness of the earth. Bashō’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches has nourished these contemplations.
March 19, 2021
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
Comparing translations often leads to interesting results. Last year, I read Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice in the Great Books of the Western World, which uses H. T. Lowe-Porter’s translation (published in 1928). This year, I read Stanley Applebaum’s translation from the Dover Thrift edition (published in 1995). I do not think that differences in either translation directly affected discussion topics or the flow of the discussion.
» Read more about: Translations of Mann’s “Death in Venice” »
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 comments. Obviously, I do not have time for the majority of comments and conversation, but here are a few thoughts that stick with me as I continue to dwell upon ideas of beauty.