Tag Archives: manuscripts

Benson Goes for Baroque

Iglesia de Santa María Tonantzintla, Puebla. Caroyln Brown.
Iglesia de Santa María Tonantzintla, Puebla. Caroyln Brown.

The extravagance of the Baroque period in Spanish America is currently on display in an exhibition at the Benson Latin American Collection.

Inside the Baroque illuminates the splendor and diversity of Mexican arts and letters in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and their enduring legacy. A selection of photographs by Carolyn Brown accompanies rare books and manuscripts from the Benson’s collections to present the Baroque period’s ornate style as it was manifested in the Spanish colonies of the Americas.

A complementary documentary film by Quin Mathews presents arresting views of Mexico’s baroque churches against a backdrop of life in modern-day Mexico. Mathews traveled with photographer Carolyn Brown in 2008, recording scenes of daily devotional and festive practice, and the film captures the centrality of local churches.

Wedding at Catedral de Zacatecas. Carolyn Brown.
Wedding at Catedral de Zacatecas. Carolyn Brown.

Originating in 16th century Italy as a European Catholic response to the austerity of the Protestant Reformation, the Baroque style found purchase in the art, architecture and music of the period, and made its way to the Western Hemisphere by the end of the 1600s.

Catedral de Zacatecas at dusk. Carolyn Brown.
Catedral de Zacatecas at dusk. Carolyn Brown.

What made the movement particularly unique as it was expressed in the Americas was the influence of indigenous populations, craftsmanship and resources on the decorative style of religious structures that were erected as monuments to Spanish colonial power in the New World.

The exhibition will be on display through January 31, 2015, in the Benson Second Floor Exhibition Gallery, and is free and open to the public. Check the Benson website for a complete listing of hours.

Concurrently on view in the Benson’s first floor gallery is the 5th Annual LLILAS Benson Student Photography Exhibition featuring photography by University of Texas at Austin graduate and undergraduate students highlighting their expansive research, fieldwork, and volunteer activities within Latin American and U.S. Latina/o communities during the previous year.

 

Ransom Center Nabs Laureate

J. M. Coetzee signs the authors' door of the Ransom Center during a visit in May 2010. Photo by Pete Smith. Image courtesy of Harry Ransom Center.

One has to wonder how they do it.

The Harry Ransom Center has just announced a major addition to their stellar collection of contemporary writers, and yet another Nobel laureate, no less.

The archive of UT alumnus J.M. Coetzee is now part of the Ransom Center’s vast holdings of original manuscripts and source materials from major modern works of literature. The archive includes materials from all of Coetzee’s works, including his two Man Booker award-winning novels, Life & Times of Michael K (1983) and Disgrace (1999).

The South African Coetzee has a fifty-year history with the university, earning his Ph.D. in English, linguistics and Germanic languages in 1969. He’s kept close ties with UT, teaching at the Michener Center for Writers in 1995, and most recently, visiting campus last year to give a lecture as part of the Graduate School’s 1910 Society Lecture Series, which celebrated the 100th anniversary of the school.

Tennessee at College

 

Playbill for The Garden Players production of "Cairo, Shanghai, Bombay" by Bernice Dorothy Shapiro and Tom Williams, July 12, 1935. Courtesy of the Harry Ransom Center.

For once, we’re pretty happy that a lack of space has become an issue on campus.

Thanks in no small part to the ridiculously extensive Tennessee Williams holdings at the Harry Ransom Center, the Fine Arts Library has gotten the chance to host an overflow exhibit of materials related to the HRC’s massive homage to the Southern Gothic playwright, “Becoming Tennessee Williams.”

The companion exhibit at FAL, “Tennessee Williams, the College Years” features a limited number of items from Williams’s time in the academy – both at the University of Missouri, Columbia, and at the University of Iowa – including photos, correspondence, manuscripts and more.

The exhibition opens today and runs through July 31 in the Roberts Reading Room at FAL, where it can be viewed Monday through Thursday, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and weekends from noon to 5 p.m.