How the calendar runs our lives. The time of science in the season of love
Do we need a calendar for the season of love?
2
03, 2016
23
02, 2016
How books lengthen our lives
Umberto Eco explains how books, as our familial elders, deepen our emotional lives across generations. Valentino Bompiani once circulated a saying: “one person who reads is worth two.” It was said by a publisher probably as a clever slogan, but I think it means that writing (and in general language) lengthen one’s life. From the time when [...]
19
02, 2016
History and nemesis, the natural and moral sciences
Thoughts of Frederick Douglass on finding the trajectory of moral and social justice in the course of history. There is, in the world's government, a force which has in all ages been recognized, sometimes as Nemesis, sometimes as the judgment of God and sometimes as retributive justice; but under whatever name, all history attests the [...]
15
02, 2016
George Washington summons the meaning of the moment (1783)
George Washington, at the close of the Revolution, imagines the nation in concert with philosophers and lawgivers, who foster letters, commerce, and well-being. The Citizens of America, placed in the most enviable condition, as the sole Lords and Proprietors of a vast Tract of Continent, comprehending all the various soils and climates of the World, [...]
13
02, 2016
What’s Wrong with the Humanities? (Bruce Cole, Public Discourse)
Words of warning from the former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The humanities are declining because too many humanities scholars are alienating students and the public with their opacity, triviality, and irrelevance.
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02, 2016
Henry VIII’s football malady
Henry VIII may have been knocked in the head, according to an expert in cognitive neurology.
2
02, 2016
A Dream of Cicero
A Dream of Cicero Marbles: What’s wrong, Swan? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Swan: I have! I had a crazy dream last night I met Cicero. Marbles: You’re kidding. You’ve been reading your books too much. Swan: As little as I can, in fact, with all my teaching. I don’t have time [...]
30
12, 2015
Times old and new: “objective” creative engagement vs. “subjective” inward regression
"As long as poets express merely their puny subjective impressions, they are not worth the name; but as soon as they know how to appropriate and express the world, they are poets. For then they are inexhaustible and can be constantly new, as opposed to a subjective nature, which quickly expresses its meagre inner life [...]
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12, 2015
Do the humanities help us understand the meaning of the moment? (Robert Newman, Raleigh News and Observer)
Humanities skills offer a multifaceted and adaptable toolbox for navigating career shifts and changing workforce demands.
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12, 2015
Society’s True Aristocrats
Every society is based on aristocracy, because this one, the true one, is demanding with regard to itself, and without this demand every society would die. Albert Camus, Notebooks, 1954