Kenneth Williams is an English and Plan I Honors student in Dr. Elon Lang’s “Drama in the Archives” course. In the class, students used resources at the Harry Ransom Center to better understand plays, texts, dramatists, cultures from which they are drawn, and the archival process itself. Below, Williams shares his experience in the class. [Read more…] about Notes from the Undergrad: Reviving Linda Loman in “Death of a Salesman”
Archives for March 2015
Michael Ondaatje, author of “The English Patient,” discusses work with fellow writer
Acclaimed novelist and poet Michael Ondaatje converses with writer Geoff Dyer in a Harry Ransom Lecture on Tuesday, March 31, at 7 p.m. The event takes place in the Jessen Auditorium, in Homer Rainey Hall, across the plaza from the Ransom Center.
Although he is best known as a novelist, Ondaatje’s work also encompasses poetry, memoir, and film. His Booker Prize–winning novel The English Patient was adapted into an Academy Award–winning film. His other works include his memoir Running in the Family, four collections of poetry, the non-fiction book The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film, and his novels In the Skin of a Lion, Anil’s Ghost, Divisadero, and The Cat’s Table.
Ondaatje discusses his novels and poetry and his book on film editing, as well as research, editing, adapting books to film, and film as an art itself.
Audience members will be able to ask questions, and a reception and book signing follow at the Ransom Center.
The event is free and open to the public. Priority entry is available to Ransom Center members (one seat per membership card) who arrive by 6:20 p.m. Members arriving after 6:30 p.m. will join the general queue. Complimentary parking for Ransom Center members is available at the University Co-op garage at 23rd and San Antonio streets.
This program is presented by the University Co-op.
National Endowment for the Humanities awards grant to preserve and enhance access to sound recordings
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has awarded the Ransom Center a $18,900 grant to preserve and enhance access to the Ransom Center’s non-commercial sound recordings. The grant allows the Ransom Center to complete a preservation survey of more than 13,000 archival sound recordings to establish and document preservation digitization priorities, processes, and standards to enhance access to these research materials.
“To make the most prudent and productive use of resources available, the Ransom Center must understand the condition of its sound recordings, as well as their intellectual and research value, in order to make preservation decisions based on clear principles that will expand current and inform future reformatting, stabilizing, and cataloging efforts,” said Ransom Center Director Steve Enniss. “This support from the NEH is powerful validation of the Center’s efforts.”
A majority of the recordings are unique and were made for private, non-commercial use. The content varies widely but includes literary spoken word, conference proceedings, dictated notes and letters, field recordings, structured interviews, lectures and readings, musical performances, radio broadcasts, rehearsals, telephone conversations, dictated drafts of writings, and even therapy sessions and psychic readings.
Recordings in the collection belong to some of the twentieth- and twenty-first-century’s most notable writers, artists, and performers including Stella Adler, Neal Cassady, Andre Dubus, David Douglas Duncan, Norman Bel Geddes, Spalding Gray, Denis Johnson, Ernest Lehman, Norman Mailer, Bernard Malamud, Gerard Malanga, David Mamet, Nicholas Ray, Ross Russell, David and Jeffrey Selznick, Anne Sexton, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Warren Skaaren, Ted Spagna, Gloria Swanson, and Leon Uris.
Of the more than 13,000 audio recordings cataloged in the Ransom Center’s Sound Recordings Collection database, 2,700 have been digitized and are available for streaming onsite in the Center’s Reading and Viewing Room.
A long-term goal is to place the Sound Recordings Collection database on the Ransom Center’s website, providing patrons access to existing sound recordings.
“In the 50 years since NEH’s founding, the Endowment has supported excellence in the humanities by funding far-reaching research, preservation projects and public programs,” said NEH Chairman William Adams. “The grants continue that tradition, making valuable humanities collections, exhibitions, documentaries, and educational resources available to communities across the country.”
Upon completion, the project will serve as a model for a follow-up project to survey the Ransom Center’s archival moving image materials.
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