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Averill Corkin describes the moment she decided to major in the humanities after seeing a video performance of the song “Du måste finnas” (“You Have to Be There”),…
At the end of my sophomore year in high school, during the awards ceremony in June, I received my varsity letter for playing football. And then my history…
According to the ancient Greeks, harmony is discord rendered concordant, a concept that applied not just to music but everything from the order of the cosmos to human…
Ben Vinson III reflects on how an appreciation for history can enrich our understanding of what he calls the “depth to our days.” Specifically, he recalls how the…
Mirah Horowitz describes the lessons imparted from her mother, an English professor, on reading and writing as ongoing practices of critical inquiry. Building on their shared love of…
In my late 20s, I knew that I wanted to make a vocational shift, but I struggled to find the courage to do so. One day, I came…
I feel robbed that I did not get the opportunity to ask my Great Uncle Burl what it was like to train in North Africa or share stories…
A single question changed the course of my life. When I first began studying Latin in 1996, it was a dead language, no doubt about it. It was…
I was a newspaper reporter covering the War in Iraq in the late 2000s. My assignment was exciting, but often lonely. I bounced from town to town, usually…
During college I was on my way to becoming a scientist when I decided to get my education license on the side. During my student teaching internship, I…
I like picnics. Picnics take us outside, to share food with people we like. Those are my three favorite things, and picnics offer all three with a minimum…
My Humanities Moment happened when my husband and I received the results of the genetic testing kits we’d ordered. The stories that my husband’s DNA told matched up…
While taking Latin in high school, I became fascinated by the story of the Trojan War. I loved the interconnected perspectives of soldiers, royalty, deities, and ordinary people….
I remember seeing the images on the television, in newspapers, and in magazines. It was such an epic event. The Berlin Wall was coming down, something I never…
My family always visited art museums when I was a child. I’m not quite sure why, as we never talked about the art, and I wondered, in secret,…
Esther Mackintosh explains how a single letter from her father offered solace during an especially trying period of her life. As a graduate student facing an uncertain future,…
Growing up in a very small town that once had the most churches per capita in the country, Catherine Newell was around many people who were believers. Moving…
As a 21-year-old senior in college, Nancy Hirschmann encountered—and was forever changed by—German philosopher Hegel’s notoriously difficult passages in The Phenomenology of Spirit. Suddenly, she “broke through the…
I recall flipping through Ebony magazine as a child in the 80s and often seeing pictures of Fashion Fair models. It didn’t dawn on me then how the…
I was in my English class and we were talking about humanities moments for extra credit. We talked about a woman who disagreed with the “mimetic” effect and…