January 31, 2012, Filed Under: Authors, Theatre + Performing ArtsTom Stoppard’s "Arcadia" opens this week in Austin Playwright Tom Stoppard wanted to incorporate ideas of chaos theory and thermodynamics into the intricately structured plot of his play Arcadia. His archive shows how he consulted with his son, a physics graduate student at Oxford University, and with his son’s colleagues to get the details just right. The play… read more
January 26, 2012, Filed Under: PhotographyBook chronicles “Postcards From America” road trip with Magnum photographers In May 2011, five Magnum photographers and one writer hopped on an R.V. at the Harry Ransom Center and launched a two-week road trip from Texas to California. 1,750 miles and thousands of photographs later, the result of the “Postcards from America” road trip is a limited-edition book that was… read more
January 26, 2012, Filed Under: Books + Manuscripts, Research + TeachingScholar discovers missing bassoon line in Ravel manuscript While studying the 1911 manuscript of Maurice Ravel’s “Mother Goose” ballet suite, housed at the Ransom Center, scholar Arbie Orenstein discovered the largest error in all of Ravel’s scores: a bassoon line that’s been missing from the published edition for the last century. Orenstein’s discovery comes just in time for… read more
January 19, 2012, Filed Under: Authors, Books + ManuscriptsAnita Desai’s latest book now on shelves Anita Desai, whose archive is housed at the Ransom Center, recently published The Artist of Disappearance, a collection of three novellas that ruminate on art and memory, illusion and disillusion, and the sharp divide between life’s expectations and its realities. Born in India, Desai often explores themes related to her… read more
January 17, 2012, Filed Under: Exhibitions + EventsFrom Longhorn to the "Mayor of Greenwich Village" Before Lew Ney became the Mayor of Greenwich Village (and a signer of the door featured in the current exhibition The Greenwich Village Bookshop Door: A Portal to Bohemia, 1920–1925), he was a Longhorn. Born and raised in Austin, Texas, as Luther E. Widen, Lew Ney graduated from Austin High… read more
January 12, 2012, Filed Under: Research + TeachingGobsmacked: Professor Recounts Class’s Tour of the Ransom Center In October, University of Texas at Austin Psychology Professor Marc Lewis brought his freshman Plan II Honors class on a trip to the Ransom Center. Professor Lewis has won numerous teaching awards, including the Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award and the President’s Associates Teaching Excellence Award. Below, Professor Lewis writes about… read more
