Acquisition News
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International Herald Tribune |
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London Sunday Times |
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Washington Post The Associated Press reports on the opening of the Norman Mailer archive, the largest collection of a single writer at the Ransom Center. Filling more than 1,000 boxes, the Mailer materials range from more than 40,000 pieces of correspondence to unpublished works. |
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USA Today.com The Associated Press reports on the Ransom Center's acquisition of the papers of playwright, writer and film director David Mamet, author of more than 50 plays and 25 screenplays. "Having an archive in the care of the Ransom Center, in the care, if I may, of intelligent and dedicated enthusiasts, fulfilled both the fantasy of the parent, and that of the artist, who now, though absent, might envision a cost-free colloquy with a perfect interlocutor," said Mamet in a statement. Mamet's full statement concerning the acquisition is available. |
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KUT KUT highlights "The Legacy of Watergate: Why it Still Matters," the two panel discussions hosted by the Ransom Center to celebrate the Woodward and Bernstein Watergate papers. "Watergate and Presidential Accountability" included professors from government, law, and public affairs while "Watergate and the Media: Did the System Work?" discussed the role of the media in the Watergate scandal. Links to the audio from each panel discussion are available. |
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American Photo American Photo highlights the significance of photographer Arnold Newman's archive. The article quotes Director Thomas F. Staley as saying, "With this acquisition we add to our collections not only the works and papers of a renowned photographer, but also important, revealing images of many of the 20th century's most celebrated figures in culture, science and politics." |
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BBC A recent article by the BBC detailed actor, producer, director Robert De Niro's donation of his archive to the Ransom Center. "We're all very excited about this archive," said the Center's Director Thomas Staley. "Students and the public are sure going to have fun with it." |
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Rolling Stone Douglas Brinkley's profile of Norman Mailer uses the acquisition as an opportunity to assess the author's legacy. It mentions the recent acquisition of his collection. It also shows Mailer speaking at a university theater and touring the stacks: "'It's like being cremated,' Mailer quipped as he surveyed the rows upon rows of sterile-looking file boxes." It says that Mailer will turn over dozens of screenplays and short stories, an unpublished novel, scrapbooks, family photographs, precious keepsakes" and that his "his Ransom Center papers will now sit alongside those of American literary talents such as Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams and Don DeLillo." |
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New York Times The New York Times Arts section covers the Ransom Center's acquisition of author Norman Mailer's life work. The acquisition consists of 20,000 pounds of materials associated with every one of Mailer's literary projects. Mailer said his decision to send his life's work to the Center "...grew out of the fact that the Ransom Center at The University of Texas has one of the finest, if not the finest, collections of American literary archives in the world." |
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Austin American-Statesman Book critic Jeff Salamon previews an upcoming DeLillo lecture by exploring the author's recently acquired collection — "125 boxes of rough drafts, correspondence, research materials, reviews, ephemera and more." DeLillo quips that, since unloading his papers on the Ransom Center, "I've got a little more space that's no longer taken up by those boxes. They were good insulation. The house is colder now." Salomon digs into the collection itself to put together an annotation of the first page of 1985's White Noise. He drops some of the other titles considered for the novel, like Panasonic and Psychic Data, and traces the evolution of a single phrase, from its rough beginning ("vague and somewhat softer men") to a finished polish scarcely resembling the original ("content to measure out the time"). |
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NBC Nightly News NBC reports the public opening of the Woodward and Bernstein Watergate Papers at the Harry Ransom Center. Woodward and Bernstein's notes reveal how much of President Nixon's own party contributed to unraveling the affair. "The Republican Party came together, recognized what this president had done, and was really responsible for him leaving office," says Bernstein. The piece noted that the archives would continue to grow as important sources, such as Deep Throat, become revealed. |
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C-SPAN To celebrate the opening of the Woodward and Bernstein Watergate Papers, top scholars and journalists participated in the "Legacy of Watergate" symposium. Speakers such as Richard Ben-Veniste, Stanley Kutler, Richard Reeves, and John Taylor discussed the famous scandal uncovered by Woodward and Bernstein, along with other surrounding issues. The event was organized into two panels, "Watergate, Nixon, and the Presidency" and "Watergate, the Press, and the First Amendment." |
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Associated Press The article announces the acquisition and mentions some of Adler's most famous students: Marlon Brando, Robert DeNiro, Martin Sheen, Harvey Keitel, Melanie Griffith, and Warren Beatty. It says the collection includes "correspondence, manuscripts, video and audio tapes, photographs and other materials." Director Thomas F. Staley weighs in: "The Adler archive is a deep and rich source for the study of 20th-century American theater. This archive is a significant acquisition." |
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Washington Post The story focuses on the financial magnitude of the acquisition — "one of the largest such purchases in American history" — and says "it surprised some academic and archives directors, who could not cite a comparable price paid to a living author for written materials." Explains Director Thomas F. Staley: "We were offered a fair price, and we felt this was the range... This is a part of history." The piece reports that Woodward and Bernstein agreed to participate in symposia and fund a "$500,000 endowment at the university for the study of Watergate, journalistic ethics, and the archive itself." |
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