Tag: Great Books
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 24, 2023 Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post. Each fall, Great Books San Francisco hosts a Poetry Weekend. And if there’s one thing that I’m grateful for in this world, it’s poetry. I love to attend this event because of its hybrid nature. The first day is filled with reading and …
May 13, 2022 Thanks to 2022 Fellow in Ideas, David Yamada, for today’s post. Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life by Zena Hitz As the humanities and social sciences face core threats fueled by higher education budget cuts and political divisions, they are conventionally defended on vocational and practical grounds. The …
May 24, 2019 Thanks to James Keller, HMU student, for today’s post. Borrowing from Bradbury, Great Books Chicago 2019 was titled: Something Wicked This Way Comes. Taken as a statement rather than a title, it is a somewhat comforting thought—at least initially. If the wicked thing is coming, it is something outside and not of …
May 17, 2019 Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post. Great Books Chicago is a weekend of book discussions held in Chicago. We meet at the Great Books Foundation and break off into separate rooms for discussions. We also attend events as a larger group. This year’s theme was Something Wicked This Way …
January 5, 2018 Thanks to HMU student, Dave Seng, for today’s post. “So, let great authors have their due, as time, which is the author of authors, be not deprived of his due, which is further and further to discover truth.” – Francis Bacon, Advancement of Learning I began my educational journey as a liberal …
December 30, 2016 Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post. “The best nonfiction books add up to a biography of our culture.” – Robert McCrum It is difficult to determine what falls within the bounds of the nonfiction genre. Can we include cookbooks or dictionaries? Reading the dictionary is certainly a different type …
November 11, 2016 Thanks to Ann Wagner, HMU doctoral student, for today’s blog. Her essay introduces the contemporary struggle with the Great Idea of “Man”. She offers helpful historical connections regarding the lack of a female voice in the updated version of the Great Idea of “Man”. The essay is posted here in its entirety. …
December 18, 2015 In the Preface to Genius, literary critic and professor Harold Bloom asserts the existence of and need for a discussion of genius. In the book, Bloom describes one hundred different voices in which he finds an element of genius, of creation. He writes, “Talent cannot originate, genius must.” These authors are considered …
November 20, 2016 Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for the following book review. This was first published in the HMU fall newsletter. Alquist, Denise, et al., eds. Imperfect Ideal: Utopian and Dystopian Visions. Chicago: Great Books Foundation, 2015. Print. In his essay, “The Soul of Man Under Socialism”, Oscar Wilde says, “A map of …
June 5, 2015 Thanks to Marcus Conley, HMU Tutor and Dean of Undergraduate Studies, for today’s post. Last week, I posted about my experience at the 2015 MLA Convention in Vancouver, British Columbia. I mentioned my interest in a talk on the King James Bible from Cynthia Wallace, and a talk on animal studies and …
