Mountain shadows, mountain light
The balance needed for wholeness.
4
02, 2017
24
01, 2017
The highest mode of life
The highest mode of life: a proposal from 2500 years ago, relevant today in all dimensions. If on the other hand I tell you that to let no day pass without discussing goodness [aretês] and all the other subjects about which you hear me talking and examining both myself and others is really the very [...]
22
01, 2017
Humanities aid the growth of STEM (Neil Kobitz, Chronicle for Higher Education)
Humanities aid the growth of STEM: a mathematics professor calculates their value, an important formula...when others are now estimating the worth of the NEH as close to zero. From the editorial: ... [F]or STEM majors, as much as for other future professionals, a broad background in the humanities is likely to give them a tremendous advantage in [...]
19
01, 2017
How language shapes the minds of infants (Helen Briggs, BBC)
How language shapes the minds of infants: our early listening, in our mother tongue, stays with us throughout our lives. More evidence on the fundamental power of language in our cultural development. From the article: ''Please remember that [the] language learning process occurs very early in life, and useful language knowledge is laid down in [...]
9
01, 2017
What do the humanities have to say? And who should listen?
What do the humanities have to say? And who should listen? A note from Mary Beard, at year's end: They have just issued on the website a top 24 of Cambridge research stories this year. On my reckoning, 19 of those are pure science.... You’d think from looking at this roster that none of the work that [...]
4
01, 2017
Heralding the creative economy: Andrew Chitty leads the effort in the UK
Heralding the creative economy: Andrew Chitty leads the effort in the UK. The Arts and Humanities Research Council strengthens the fundamental ties between business and the humanities with its new Creative Economy Champion. From the press release: The main focus will be on enhancing and extending the AHRC’s reach in the creative economy, emphasising the importance [...]
2
01, 2017
The Greatest of New Years
The Greatest of New Years: that our age of science is also the age of the humanities, from our St. Petersburg correspondent, 1 January 2017 “S nastupivishim!”: “Happy upcoming New Year!” So the new year begins here, ahead of yours, and we have been enjoying the sparkling lights in the Nevsky Prospekt. There are fewer tourists [...]
31
12, 2016
The English we thought we knew (Lennox Morrison, BBC Capital)
The English we thought we knew: now that the majority of English speakers is non-native, how is that changing the language, our prime means of communication? Is the English-speaking world getting larger, or more fragmented: more coherent, or more incoherent? And what does this portend for the learning of other languages? From the article: With non-native English speakers [...]
21
12, 2016
Material success and intellectual life: worlds collide (Ramesh Ponnuru, Bloomberg View)
Material success and intellectual life: worlds collide. Ramesh Ponnuru interviews Robert P. George and Cornell West, with surprising results. From his account: One thing that surprised me about our panel, though, was how little they dwelt on political correctness and how much they talked about another threat to the liberal arts: the tendency to view [...]
16
12, 2016
Tiny bubbles, of the mind (Sydney Finkelstein, BBC Capital)
Tiny bubbles, of the mind (make us feel happy / make us feel fine): the way technological mathematics limits our thinking, enclosing us in ever-smaller circles of awareness. From the article: The ubiquity of incredibly powerful algorithms designed to reinforce our interests also ensures that we see little of what’s new, different and unfamiliar. The [...]