Tag: Liberal Arts
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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June 12, 2026
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
It’s been a few years since I have posted a summer reading list, so I thought it would be a great way to transition into this year’s summer recess. I often compile a summer reading list for myself. Sometimes I get through it and sometimes I don’t. These lists are not meant to be assignments, so I always shrug off any books that didn’t get to the top,
April 24, 2026
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
In my undergraduate coursework, I took a class on Shakespeare’s tragedies. We read Romeo and Juliet first. I will never forget my second day in that class because it was mortifying. The professor, a white-haired theatrical visiting professor from England, was only interested in how we could read Shakespeare out loud. On our second day in class,
» Read more about: An Honor That I Dream Not of: The Practice of Reading Aloud »
April 3, 2026
Thanks to Barbara Drobot, a 2026 Fellow in Ideas, for today’s post.
As someone who works both in the classroom as a teacher and in the studio as an artist, I often return to a fundamental question: is creativity an exceptional gift reserved for a talented few, or a human capacity that can be cultivated? In The Courage to Create (1975), Rollo May approaches this question through an existential perspective and argues that creativity emerges from the courage to confront uncertainty.
» Read more about: BOOK REVIEW: The Courage to Create by Rollo May »
February 28, 2025
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
I presented in the War and Culture group for this year’s Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Conference. War and Culture is well outside my norm, but a comment during one of last year’s roundtable discussions stuck with me. Last year, the War and Culture group was abnormally small, which seemed odd given the number of ongoing worldwide conflicts.
September 27, 2024
Thanks to Peter Ponzio, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
The forty-fourth annual Dickens Universe was held at the University of California, Santa Cruz during the week of July 21 through the 27th. Each year, one novel is selected to be read and discussed in depth. This year’s selection was the novel Great Expectations. The novel examines the fortunes of Phillip (Pip) Pirrip,
September 15, 2023
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
I recently participated in a three day online festival hosted by The Chronicle of Higher Education. The topics to be discussed mentioned AI and technology which happen to be recent fascinations of mine. Though I did not know what to expect, I immensely enjoyed the conference. Not only was it well-organized, the topics were timely and vital to the community of higher education.
July 14, 2023
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
Following our discussion series “What the Greeks Can Teach Us About AI,” I have become increasingly interested in understanding the uses and reasons for using artificial intelligence (AI). Throughout the series, participants repeated the notion that AI was simply a tool. While I believe this is true, I keep returning to the question: what is AI a tool for?
June 23, 2023
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
To all the “honest drinkers” – as Rabelais would have it – congratulations! We made it to the final post in this series on Rabelais. Hopefully the various connections have enriched your experience of what is often considered difficult reading. Today’s blog concludes with Book Four, which means that it is up to you to make modern-day connections for Book V.
April 28, 2023
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
Our recent Quarterly Discussion spanned thousands of years, jumping from a play by Aeschylus to a short story by Jhumpa Lahiri. We began with Aeschylus’s “Suppliant Maidens” and then transitioned to the short story “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine” by Lahiri.
In Aeschylus’s play, a group of fifty (or so) women attempt to flee forced marriages to their cousins.
April 14, 2023
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
In the book Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events, Robert J. Shiller argues that viral historical events should be studied by economists. He defines narrative economics as the study of narratives which drive economic events. Humans rely upon narratives, memory, and emotion to make major decisions and these decisions move markets.