by Jenae Cohn | Jun 24, 2018 | National Endowment for the Humanities Institute
“This was a well-curated day!” exclaimed one of my NEH institute colleagues as we waited for our train in downtown Salt Lake City. Indeed, we enjoyed a rather full and playful break day from the institute, starting with a tour of Temple Square and the...
by Jenae Cohn | Jun 23, 2018 | National Endowment for the Humanities Institute
What does it look like to pay attention to someone? As an instructor, there are few obvious signs that a student is paying attention: they sit up straight in their chairs, they make eye contact with me, and they’ll often nod their heads as they listen in...
by Jenae Cohn | Jun 22, 2018 | National Endowment for the Humanities Institute
Today’s experiences at the institute made me think about my apartment. In my living room, one whole wall of my apartment is full of bookshelves. They are obscenely large – purchased from a closing Borders bookstore in 2011 – and they fill the room...
by Jenae Cohn | Jun 21, 2018 | National Endowment for the Humanities Institute
In roughly 3200 B.C., people used mobile devices. Sumerian clay tablets weren’t exactly like smartphones, but they had a lot of the same benefits: you could hold them in the palm of your hand, you could access records of past transactions or conversations, and...
by Jenae Cohn | Jun 20, 2018 | National Endowment for the Humanities Institute
Yesterday, I sat at the desk, hunched over a piece of wax thread, and a stack of papers. I was supposed to be making a coptic book, a medieval style of book where the papers are woven together to create an organically coiled binding. The process is strenuous,...
