April 22, 2025, Filed Under: Authors, Exhibitions + EventsLiterature and Change: Flair Symposium 2024 A recap with Q&As from Colm Tóibín, Ayad Akhtar, and Lisa Lucas by ERICA NUNN-KINIAS Flair was a groundbreaking magazine created by Fleur Cowles in 1950, known for its provocative design, insightful articles, and creative approach to blending literature, art, and culture. In honor of Cowles’s legacy, the Ransom Center’s… read more
April 22, 2025, Filed Under: AuthorsMark Sainsbury on W. S. Merwin An Interview with Mark Sainsbury by STEPHEN ENNISS W. S. Merwin (1927–2019) was one of the leading American poets of his generation, a poet who in verse and in his manner of living engaged in a life-long reflection on our relationship to the natural world. During a highly productive career,… read more
March 20, 2025, Filed Under: Art, Authors, ConservationNancy Cunard in the Studio by DR. TRACY BONFITTO, CURATOR OF ART In the Studio Is it March, spring, winter, autumn, twilight, noon Told in this distant sound of cuckoo clocks? Sunday it is—five lilies in swoon Decay against your wall, aggressive flocks Of alley-starlings aggravate a mood. The rain drops pensively. ‘If one could… read more
December 10, 2024, Filed Under: Exhibitions + Events, PhotographyVisualizing the Environment: Ansel Adams and His Legacy by STEVEN HOELSCHER The first time I encountered the photography of Ansel Adams wasn’t in a museum gallery, but during a college course. I remember the moment well. The course, “Wilderness and the American Mind,” introduced me to that critical, contested concept through a wide range of memorable texts. In… read more
December 10, 2024, Filed Under: Authors, Exhibitions + EventsFreedom to Write, Freedom to Read: The Story of PEN by MARION WYNNE-DAVIES Defending freedom of expression is a crucial issue for writers worldwide. Authors have united to fight for the freedom to write and defend readers’ rights. The most influential of these groups is PEN (originally P.E.N., an acronym for Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists, and Novelists), an international organization… read more
December 10, 2024, Filed Under: Authors, Books + Manuscripts, Research + TeachingMilton in Phoenix by AARON T. PRATT Any Shakespeare collector would want a copy of Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles, which is arguably the most comprehensive history of England, Ireland, and Scotland written during the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries. Carl H. Pforzheimer bought a copy of the first edition (1577) for his library of early… read more
