This post was written by Ansley Morris, a Humanities Center student fellow.   When I was 18 years-old, there was one word that stopped me from declaring myself an English major: prose. Not writing it, not reading it, but the very word itself. Prose. Those five letters were my roadblock, spelling out every one of my insecurities. It was the winter semester of 2021. I was a young freshman enrolled in the English Department’s Reading Series. Each week, authors would (virtually) come to BYU, read their work, and answer questions from bright-eyed students eager to learn. I was one of these stu ..read more

This post was written by Emma Belnap, a Humanities Center student fellow.   I have always been an incredibly indecisive person, something that I consider one of my biggest character flaws. Chalk it up to my perfectionism and being so worried that I’ll make a wrong decision that I won’t make one at all, but I am the friend that will always make someone else decide where we are going for dinner. It was with this mindset that I read Claire Dederer’s Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma last year. In this book, Dederer presents the question: what do we do with problematic artists? This is a question I h ..read more

This post was written by Anna-Lisa Halling, a Humanities Center faculty fellow.   I am currently preparing to direct a study abroad program in Portugal, and my children happen to have a lot of opinions about this new adventure. My daughter declared that she prefers Madrid because Lisbon has “too many hills,” a fact with which it is hard to argue. My son’s protest was not related to our destination, but to what we were leaving behind. Once I finally convinced him that a sixth-grade graduation ceremony is not all it is cracked up to be, his next grievance was missing a school event known as ..read more

This post was written by Luke Beckstrand, a Humanities Center student fellow.   One of the most challenging and age-old questions in the world strikes us all close to home: “Why do bad things happen to good people?” It’s easy to wonder, if we’ve tried our best to live a good life and spread only service and love, why we are sometimes rewarded with stark, trying pains and challenges. But on the other hand, how could it be any different? For instance, blacksmiths must heat ore to unbelievable temperatures and pound the metal into shape if they are to make quality swords, all before sharpeni ..read more

This post was written by Paul Westover, a Humanities Center faculty fellow.   In my English 236 class, a GE course on C. S. Lewis, we recently read “Meditation in a Toolshed,” an essay that begins with a simple anecdote: Lewis, standing in his shed, observes a beam of light entering through a crack at the top of the door. He observes the light from the side, watching the motes of dust floating in it, essentially “seeing the beam” but “not seeing things by it.” Then, Lewis resituates himself so that the beam falls directly on his face. He can now see the tree outside, the light filtering t ..read more

This post was written by Ivy Griffiths, a Humanities Center student fellow.   I often find myself worrying about my future. With so many variables out of my control, there is no way to guarantee success in my endeavors. If life is a game, how can I win when I don’t hold all the cards? I’ve been dealt a decent hand, but how can I be sure that I’ll end up on top at the end of the round? For worriers and serial planners like myself, Paul Arden’s coffee-table book Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite (2006), reads like a slap to the face. According to Arden, trying to plan everything is pla ..read more

This post was written by Abigal Beus, an undergraduate student.   February 1st marked a notable occasion on BYU’s campus with the esteemed presence of Laura Huerta Migus, Deputy Director of the Office of Museum Services. As introduced by her childhood friend Professor Brian Price (Spanish and Portuguese), we learned of Migus’s devotion to the growth and success of museums and archives in the United States as well as her important work in advocating for increased bilingual access within such institutions. Following this compelling introduction, Migus began her impassioned address which emp ..read more

This post was written by Drew Swasey, a Humanities Center student fellow.   During a period of my college years, my ascent of the stairs behind the Maeser building became a ritual punctuated by necessary breaks. The physical discomfort of those moments has nearly faded from my memory, yet the process I would use to recover remains. In those pauses, I engaged in a deliberate process to regain composure: I would make a concerted effort to control my breathing, to loosen the fierce clutch of my ribs as my heart battered against them, and to lower my head between my knees to count to ten. The ..read more

This post was written by Luka Romney, a Humanities Center student fellow.   It seems to me that heartbreak is the constant negotiation and renegotiation between two forces within the self: the first, the deep inner knowing that one is both a deserving recipient and a ready vessel for the fundamental metamorphosis that reciprocal love brings. The second, the inevitable reality that the love we encounter in the world is fragmented, stunted, unready, and often unwilling. And of course, that kind of broken love is what we, despite the ideals of our hearts, have to give others as well. When we ..read more

This post was written by Zach Stevenson, a Humanities Center student fellow.   It is impossible to know with certainty the precise thinking patterns of one’s youth, but I feel that I can confidently assert that my former understanding of free will was a faulty one. Specifically, I once understood free will to be a sort of superpower that would permit me to achieve any and all dreams, whereas I now recognize it as a phenomenon that, while being absolutely real, both functions within and is bounded by genetic, social, and psychological contexts. In addition to hewing more closely to the fac ..read more