December 15, 2009, Filed Under: Exhibitions + EventsCurator’s Choice: Among 200 Poe objects, this one stands out The Ransom Center’s Koester Poe collection contains 72 letters written by Edgar Allan Poe, 16 of which appear in the bicentennial exhibition, From Out That Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Edgar Allan Poe. One of these letters has become my favorite item to share with visitors during tours through… read more
December 8, 2009, Filed Under: Research + TeachingFellows Find: Fannie Hurst and Diets Before the Atkins, South Beach, and Cabbage Soup diets was the Hollywood Eighteen Day Diet from the 1920s, which demanded fewer than 600 calories per day. One of its earliest practitioners was American novelist Fannie Hurst, who wrote extensively about her weight loss struggles in the early 20th century, when… read more
December 3, 2009, Filed Under: Books + Manuscripts, Exhibitions + EventsFrom the Galleries: Tycho Brahe’s "Astronomiae instauratae mechanica" Before the telescope was invented, 16th-century Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe built his own instruments to measure star and planetary positions with accuracy up to one arcminute. Brahe described these home-made instruments in his 1602 book, Astronomiae instauratae mechanica, the first edition of which is on display in the Ransom Center’s… read more
December 1, 2009, Filed Under: Research + TeachingHow to have literature in a pandemic Today is World AIDS Day, a day dedicated to raising awareness about HIV and AIDS, remembering the dead, and celebrating the living. The Ransom Center’s collection includes several people, both famous and ordinary, whose lives have been touched by AIDS. Among the most well known is Terrence McNally, whose plays… read more
November 24, 2009, Filed Under: Film, Research + TeachingFellow’s Find: Screenwriter Warren Skaaren What do Batman, Top Gun, and Beverly Hills Cop II have in common? All were rewritten by versatile screenwriter and “script doctor” Warren Skaaren. As a fellow at the Ransom Center last summer, Alison Macor, independent scholar and former film critic for The Austin Chronicle and the Austin American-Statesman, immersed… read more
November 19, 2009, Filed Under: Books + Manuscripts, Exhibitions + EventsCassini’s moon map Before “Where’s Waldo?” there was the “moon maiden,” a shadowy figure hiding in the Ransom Center’s current exhibition, Other Worlds: Rare Astronomical Works. One of the exhibition’s highlights is a first edition map of the moon rendered by Giovanni Domenico Cassini from 1679, the rarest edition of the first published… read more
