Harry Mattison, After bomb explosion
near cathedral, people try to escape
being trampled, March 30, 1980.
Inside El Salvador April 17 - August 3, 2008
In April 2008, The University of Texas at Austin will host a major conference on El Salvador called Image Memory and the Paradox of Peace, jointly sponsored by the University's Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice, the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies, the School of Journalism, and the Harry Ransom Center. As part of this collaboration, the Ransom Center presents the photography exhibition Inside El Salvador.
The 1979 coup d'état in El Salvador sparked a brutal twelve-year civil war. Events such as the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero and the murder of four U.S. churchwomen drew worldwide attention to the violence that rocked this tiny county. In 1983, 30 renowned international photojournalists on assignment for Time, Newsweek, LIFE, The New York Times, Paris-Match, and Stern contributed to a book and exhibition that chronicled the daily life of the people during the height of the civil war. The exhibition features 67 black and white photographs that depict those directly involved with the conflict, including the guerillas and the U.S.-aided army, as well as the impact upon the civilian population. The photographs are drawn from the Ransom Center's collections and were the gift of the Marlene Nathan Meyerson Family Foundation. The images are accompanied by texts written by poet Carolyn Forché.
The exhibition continues with a selection of over 30 images by award-winning documentary photographer Donna DeCesare, currently an Associate Professor in the School of Journalism at UT. This selection, called El Salvador Inside Out, starts by covering the end of the civil war, notably the murder of six Jesuit priests and the guerilla offensive in San Salvador in 1989—events that increased international pressure for the peace accords. DeCesare's images then form two stories that trace the tragedy of youth violence from its origins in Los Angeles, where the Salvadoran immigrant community forms the second largest Salvadoran "city" in the world, and back to El Salvador. The first story follows Jessica Diaz as she attempts to break the vicious circle of violence trapping her family. The second story follows Edgar Bolaños, whose mother sends him back to El Salvador, naively believing he will be safe from the world of gangs that killed his brother.
More information, including slideshows and audio interviews
Cover of journal Jack Kerouac kept
while preparing to write On the Road.
On the Road with the Beats February 5 - August 3, 2008
This exhibition will take visitors on a journey through the cities, landscapes, and communities that fostered and shaped the most important works of the Beat Generation, from the early 1940s to the mid-1960s. Writers such as Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and Gregory Corso are deeply identified with cities such as New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Tangier, Calcutta, London, and Paris. Indeed, without "visiting" these places one cannot truly grasp the nature of the Beat scene. Presses in Paris and London printed writings deemed obscene in the United States; a poetry reading in San Francisco vaulted Ginsberg's "Howl" to the sphere of literary myth; and Neal Cassady's scrawled description of a bus ride to Kansas City sparked Jack Kerouac's method of "spontaneous prose." The exhibition places the Ransom Center's most important Beat holdings into geographical context and includes special sections that highlight important themes such as jazz, marriage, and the beatnik phenomenon of the late 1950s.
Jack Kerouac's scroll manuscript of On the Road, on loan from the collection of Jim Irsay, will be on display from March 7 through June 1. The first 48 feet of this 120-foot "page" will be visible in the gallery. This visually stunning first draft has no paragraph or chapter breaks, and the characters are all referred to by their real names.
Docent-led tours are offered Tuesdays at noon and Saturdays at 2 p.m. For groups of more than 10 people, please call Lisa Murray at 512-475-8086 to arrange a tour.
Beat Voices gallery theater performances take place at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.
The Gutenberg Bible
The Gutenberg Bible is the first substantial book printed from movable type on a printing press. The Ransom Center holds one of five complete copies in the United States.
The First Photograph
One of the finest pieces of the Ransom Center's photography collection is the first photograph, which Frenchman Joseph Nicéphore Niépce produced in 1826.
