January 21, 2014, Filed Under: Books + ManuscriptsRansom Center acquires archive of poet Billy Collins The Harry Ransom Center has acquired the archive of American poet Billy Collins. The materials span Collins’ personal and professional life from the 1950s to the present and documents in detail his creative development. Collins, born in 1941, is known as a poet for the people, with a witty, conversational… read more
January 20, 2014, Filed Under: Books + Manuscripts, Research + TeachingRare French “Cisiojanus” fragment identified in bookbinding through crowdsourcing project Farley P. Katz is a tax lawyer in San Antonio who collects rare books, manuscripts, and “too many other things.” He is one of the contributors to the medieval fragments project, a crowdsourcing research project headed by archivist Micah Erwin to identify fragments of medieval manuscripts bound into rare books… read more
January 20, 2014, Filed Under: Books + Manuscripts, Cataloging, Research + TeachingArchivist declares medieval manuscript fragment crowdsourcing project success During the late medieval and early modern period, it was a common practice for bookbinders to cut out the sturdy parchment leaves of outdated or unwanted handwritten books to reuse those leaves as covers or binding reinforcements in new “cutting edge” printed books. This practice lasted until roughly the seventeenth… read more
January 20, 2014, Filed Under: Books + ManuscriptsNew J. D. Salinger biography draws on letters in Ransom Center’s collection In early September, David Shields and Shane Salerno published Salinger, an oral biography of the well-known author of The Catcher in the Rye and infamous recluse, J. D. Salinger. Along with the publication, Salerno released an accompanying documentary film of the same title that features interviews, footage, and photographs related… read more
January 16, 2014, Filed Under: Exhibitions + Events, Photography, Research + TeachingWar photography exhibition showcases images from the Ransom Center’s photography collection Back in November the exhibition WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath opened at its fourth and final venue, the Brooklyn Museum. This exhibition, which I curated with Anne Tucker and Will Michels in my former role in the photography department at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, featured… read more
January 14, 2014, Filed Under: Exhibitions + Events, Theatre + Performing Arts“Der Bestrafte Brudermord”: A puppet version of “Hamlet”? Tiffany Stern, Professor of Early Modern Drama at Oxford University, delivers the English Department’s Thomas Cranfill Lecture about her research on the play Der Bestrafte Brudermord (Fratricide Revenged) at the Harry Ransom Center this Thursday, January 16 at 4 p.m. Stern, the Hidden Room theater company, and the American… read more
