The Harry Ransom Center has acquired the archive of American poet Peter Orlovsky (1933–2010), an important figure in the Beat Generation. Orlovsky was the companion of fellow poet Allen Ginsberg for more than 40 years, and his papers reflect significant aspects of their relationship. Orlovsky’s collection comprises manuscripts, journals and… read more
Articles
Now open: “Literature and Sport” and “Contemporary Photographic Practice and the Archive”
Two new exhibitions, Literature and Sport and Contemporary Photographic Practice and the Archive open today at the Ransom Center. Sport holds a sacred place in Western culture and literature. Writers as diverse as Ernest Hemingway, Willa Cather, Norman Mailer, Marianne Moore, Don DeLillo, Joyce Carol Oates, and David Foster Wallace… read more
Austin Critics’ Table Awards recognize two exhibitions
The Harry Ransom Center was honored this week by the Austin Critics’ Table Awards in the categories “Museum Exhibition” for I Have Seen the Future: Norman Bel Geddes Designs America and “Touring Show, Art” for Arnold Newman: Masterclass. For more than 20 years, the Austin Critics’ Table Awards have celebrated… read more
Mark Twain letter has close geographical tie to University of Texas
When Samuel Clemens—better known by his pseudonym Mark Twain—penned a letter in London in 1900 to the widow of his childhood best friend in Austin, he had no idea that it would be preserved more than a century later in the Harry Ransom Center’s archives just four blocks south. Today… read more
From the Outside In: Doodle from Notebook II of Samuel Beckett’s "Watt," 1941
The atria on the first floor of the Ransom Center are surrounded by windows featuring etched reproductions of images from the collections. The windows offer visitors a hint of the cultural treasures to be discovered inside. From the Outside In is a series that highlights some of these images and… read more
“Femme de Lettres” of the French Enlightenment: Emilie du Châtelet’s Textbook of Leibnizian Physics
Stacy Wykle is a graduate student in the School of Information at The University of Texas at Austin, where she is completing a certificate of advanced study in “Science, Information, and Cultural Heritage.” As part of her class “Rare Books and Special Collections” with instructor Michael Laird, Wykle studied the… read more