In this episode of Death and Numbers, part of a series for International Women’s Day, Amy Vidor and Caroline Barta talk about Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Listen to the podcast on iTunes! Read more: Gift a copy of We Should All Be Feminists to all your friends! The entirety of Adichie’s TEDxEuston talk “Why we should all be feminists” is available here and her TEDGlobal talk “The danger of a single story” is available here. Read the full article “Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Talks Beauty, Femininity and Feminism” by Valeriya Safronova online at The New York Times (November 28, … [Read more...]
International Women’s History: A Storm in June, Ep. 2
In this episode of Death and Numbers, part of a series on international women's history, Amy Vidor and Caroline Barta talk about author Irène Némirovsky. Listen to the podcast on iTunes! Read more: To see some of Némirovsky’s works, go to http://www.mjhnyc.org/irene/ Read Suite française by Irène Némirovsky and Le Mirador by Elisabeth Gille The Otto List, featuring the names of authors banned between 1940 and 1942 can be found here. Otto Abetz was the German ambassador to France during the Nazi Occupation. See Otto Abetz and His Paris Acolytes by Martin Mauthner for more … [Read more...]
International Women’s History: The Convoy of 31000, Ep. 1
In this episode of Death and Numbers, part of a series on international women's history, Amy Vidor and Caroline Barta talk about author and activist Charlotte Delbo. Listen to the podcast on iTunes! Read more: Be sure to read Delbo's Convoy to Auschwitz (English translation) Caroline Moorehead wrote about Delbo's convoy in her novel A Train in Winter https://youtu.be/6iIHqGjpzYg … [Read more...]
Death and Numbers: Food for Thought, Ep. 3
In this special three-part series from Death and Numbers, we’re cracking open cookbooks and archival records to learn about the bond between food and text. The final episode uses the recipe collection to represent the sometimes haphazard, but often meaningful associations created around our closest relationships with food. Listen to the podcast! Read more: Under current U.S. copyright law, individual recipes are not protected, and cookbooks must prove a high standard of creativity and originality to gain protection. One can easily reproduce the measurements and ingredient lists … [Read more...]
Death and Numbers: Food for Thought, Ep. 2
In this special three-part series of Death & Numbers written by Amy Vidor and Caroline Barta, we’re cracking open cookbooks and archival records to learn about the bond between food and text. In this second episode, we break down how technology influences food writing and criticism by focusing on the effect of visual-based technology. Read more! About best-selling cookbooks: “Cookbook bestsellers in the U.S., 2016” The New York Times Best Sellers List: Food and Diet About Michelin stars: “How Restaurants are Awarded Michelin Stars” by Christopher … [Read more...]
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Death and Numbers: Food for Thought Ep. 1
In this special three-part series of Death & Numbers, we’re cracking open cookbooks and archival records to learn about the bond between food and text. In this first episode, we pair a largely forgotten 17th century French cookbook with Julia Child’s classic cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking to consider how food writing shapes cultural transmission. Find out more! To see medieval and early modern “recipe” collections, check out the Harry Ransom Center. For more information on Le Cuisinier françois read British Library curator Polly Russell’s “The History … [Read more...]
2018 Media Production Grant Recipients
Racial Geography Tour Edmund T. Gordon, Department Chair/Associate Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies/Vice Provost for Diversity For nearly 17 years, the Racial Geography Tour of The University of Texas at Austin, led by Dr. Gordon, has provided students, faculty, and visitors with a guided opportunity to examine the historic origins of the buildings, landmarks, and spaces of the University’s campus. This experience invites the public to come to grips with the historical and present racial realities of the University and the city of Austin. The Media Production Grant will … [Read more...]
The Voting Rights Act of 1975
The 1965 Voting Rights Act has been deservedly well-documented and researched. But the ’75 VRA, when Mexican American civil rights advocates sought to expand the protections of the VRA, is relatively unknown. The expansion was the brainchild of Al Perez, the son of working class Mexican American parents in Brownsville who found it difficult to vote because they were Spanish-monolingual and could not read the ballots. His closest partner was Tom Reston, a Yankee blue blood whose father was a legendary New York Times columnist. The expansion found supporters among Congressman Edward Roybal … [Read more...]
The DWRL at 30
We were around before the digital was digital… In the mid-1980s, a group of English graduate students at The University of Texas at Austin drilled holes in the wall in the basement of the Undergraduate Library, now the Flawn Academic Center. Running cable through those holes, they connected twelve computers and formed a network that allowed for synchronous communication. This network became a classroom, and thus the Computer Research Lab (CRL) was born. Please allow me a moment of full disclosure: I was a graduate student instructor teaching and proctoring in the lab in the 1990s, when … [Read more...]
Can We Ever Kill the Author?
In this episode, written by Amy Vidor, we discuss infamous author Norman Mailer and explore a timely question, given the recent accusations of sexual misconduct throughout Hollywood and beyond and the #MeToo movement: Can you really separate the art from the artist? Read the original essay by Roland Barthes, “La mort de l’auteur” here, and the translation by Richard Howard here. Be sure to read Mailer’s works, like The Armies of the Night. Looking to read more about Mailer’s life? Grab a copy of Norman Mailer: A Double Life by J. Michael Lennon and check out Allen Barra’s profile in … [Read more...]