Marriage. One of the world’s most traditional institutions, present in every culture, the same across centuries and millennia — at least until recently. Right? Um, not quite. In fact, as Hope students taking the new Cultural Heritage course “Marriage in the Modern Age” this semester could tell you, none of that is true. Everything from …
Continue reading “Searching for Marriage: From Primary Sources to Digital Tools”
Grace Goszkowicz, a student in Dr. Salah’s Cultural Heritage course “Marriage in the Modern Age,” shares her reflections below on a recent WGS & History event commemorating 100 years of women’s suffrage. This past Tuesday, I had the privilege of attending the talk given by guest speaker Dr. Kristin Kobes Du Mez, an established historian …
Continue reading “Women of Faith and the First Women’s Rights Movement: Lessons for Today”
by Keri Haddrill & Claire Buck Snow and ice are threading their way into the atmosphere here in Holland, Michigan. That means it’s the season to curl up with a good book (or five), so let’s agree to only venture out from our Hobbit-holes, magical treehouses, or bedrooms under the stairs for bookstore runs and …
In this post, we hear from alumna Annalise “Cici” Klein (’14) about how her cross-divisional majors sparked a global pursuit of vocation post-college. On a humid Saturday morning in Serere, Uganda, three high school boys stood at the front of a large classroom, addressing a packed room of several hundred parents. One boy wrapped beef …
Continue reading “In Search of Rich Soil: Alumni Feature by Annalise Klein ’14”
As the fall semester draws to a close, two students — Paige Nelson and Isadora Baughman — offer their thought-provoking reflections on how they came to study literature and how it can enhance knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. More Than Fiction: How Stories Make Us Better People by Paige Nielsen My first exposure to literature was …
Continue reading “Is Literature a Vehicle for Learning Empathy?”
A Faculty Feature by Dr. Emily Tucker Popular theater in nineteenth-century Britain drew enormous audiences and exerted tremendous influence on writers in other genres. Sadly, though, it has a bad reputation as “the nadir of the English drama.”1 Other than late-century playwrights like Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw, most writers for the nineteenth-century stage …
Continue reading “Fun Facts about Going to the Theater in the 19th Century”
With all the snow coming down this week, it’s not so hard to believe that Thanksgiving is just around the corner. To get us in the mood for food, we’re thinking about some of the most memorable feasts in fiction. What’s the first one to pop into your mind? Supper and a Toast in Joyce’s …
Continue reading “5 Literary Feasts to Sate Your Imagination”
Hope graduate Brooke (McDonald) Furry shares her surprising journey into the world of marketing, and how her English degree prepared her to thrive in business and leisure. Thanks for speaking with us, Brooke. So, what do you do now? And we’ve love to hear about how you got there, as well. I’m a marketing manager. …
Continue reading “For the English Major with No Plan: Alumni Interview with Brooke Furry ’13”
Today we continue with more brief personal reflections written for Professor Curtis Gruenler’s Literary Theory course. Aine O’Connor and Taylor Lombard illuminate how their study of history and biology (respectively) has intersected with their literary learning. Aine O’Connor, “Miracle of Miracles: Storytelling as Power” I am often asked, especially now in my senior year, what …
Continue reading “The Benefits & Beauties of Pairing English with Another Discipline”
Artists often take inspiration from each other’s work. Picasso’s painting Don Quixote, inspired by the literary character of the same name, may be more recognizable to viewers today than the story itself. The famous painting Ophelia by Sir John Everett Millais, depicting that character from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, almost seems to be part of the play. …
