Skip to main content

College News

24 results found
Comparative Arts & Letters English French & Italian Spanish & Portuguese Foreign Language Language Learning Literature
BYU’s Marlene Hansen Esplin, Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Humanities, shares how the study of problems of translation can lead to greater social consciousness. 
Albert Camus’ novel depicts the city of Oran, Algeria during a contemporary outbreak of the plague. While there are obvious parallels between the plague in the novel and the peste brune (the brown plague, a nickname for the Nazis who occupied France during World War 2), by transforming the threat into an act of nature, Camus shifts the focus from human cruelty to the many reactions to suffering: some pretend it doesn’t exist, some try to escape it, others accept it and try to alleviate pain.
Illness has been recorded in art for much of human history. In the fall of 2017, my colleague Brian Poole and I co-taught an Honors 220: Unexpected Connections course we titled “Literature and Disease.” The class was Brian’s idea. He’s a microbiologist in the College of Life Sciences, a virologist, and an expert on the human immune system.
How can poetry, plays, and art flourish during a deadly pandemic? Learn how Shakespeare used the time of plagues to spur his creativity!
Greek myths have been told time and again, but Professor Roger Macfarlane explores how these myths have been adapted to our modern culture.
Associate Dean Leslee Thorne-Murphy lectured during Education Week 2019 on Victorian Christmas literature and how authors focused on Christ despite the rise of commercialization.
Dr. George B. Handley of the Comparative Arts & Letters Department recently published his 11th book, If Truth Were a Child (2019). Unlike his previous titles—which include creative non-fiction, scholarly works, a memoir, and a novel—this book is a compilation of reflective essays analyzing the intersection between faith and intellectualism.
Florida State University's Dr. Juan Carlos Galeano addressed BYU students, faculty members, and others in a pair of lectures on January 30, 2020.
In his Education Week lecture titled “Becoming Bilingual: Language-Learning Tips, Tricks, & Motivation for All Ages,” Dr. Rob Martinsen taught listeners the “why” and “how” of language learning.
2014 James Barker award winner Gregory Clark, associate dean and English professor in BYU’s College of Humanities, explains how language strives to express experience and how jazz music exemplifies a possible solution when words fail.
At a Humanities Center colloquium, Spanish professor Dale Pratt shares his research on time-travel fiction and its paradoxes.
We are pleased to announce that the Board of Trustees has approved the transfer of the Art History program to the College of Humanities, and that it will be housed in the Department of Humanities, Classics and Comparative Literature, to be renamed the Department of Comparative Arts and Letters (CAL).