David Ochsner
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Gault Site Reveals Ancient Origins of Texas
More than 90 years ago the first anthropologist at the University of Texas, J.E. Pearce, began digging at a site near Florence, Texas, in effect turning the first pages on a story many millennia in the making.
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It’s More Than a Movie
There is so much to be learned from film studies — about ourselves and the world around us — if we view it through a liberal arts lens.
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The Real Diehl: A Dean Reflects on His Mission
Randy Diehl is a morning person. Rising at 4 a.m., he writes a few emails catches up on his reading and takes a brisk walk before heading to campus to lead a college with 22 academic departments, three branches of the ROTC and more than 500 faculty members. Despite long days and a demanding schedule,…
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Meet Ann Huff Stevens: Our Next College of Liberal Arts Dean
Ann Huff Stevens will begin as dean of the College of Liberal Arts on July 15, 2019. Stevens comes from the University of California, Davis, and is a Texas native with roots in Corpus Christi. She is a professor of economics who has served in a variety of leadership roles, including chair of the Department…
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Tropical Storm: How Cuba Sent Revolutionary Waves Around the World
When it comes to staging a revolution, timing is everything. In 1959 an island nation of 7 million revolted against its U.S.-backed dictator, and with its subsequent export of revolution to Latin America became a major driver of U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War. In a story as compelling as it is complex, Professor…
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American Girls in Red Russia: Chasing the Soviet Dream
If you search “women in the 1920s” in Google Images, what you get are a few photos of women working or protesting, but many more photos of sexually liberated flappers — at the beach, on the town, or dancing the night away at some speakeasy. The 1920s look like one big party. But the decade…
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Breaking Their Silence
Women’s role in early American cinema is often overlooked, but English assistant professor Donna Kornhaber — recently named a 2016 Academy Film Scholar —hopes to change that with her research on female writers who shaped the American silent film industry. Kornhaber received a $25,000 grant from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Educational…
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Pattons ‘Invest’ $20 Million in the Liberal Arts
Bobby Patton Jr. enjoyed matching wits with some of the university’s top professors when he was a Plan II Honors student back in the early 1980s, but after two years in the program he switched his major to business administration, perhaps thinking he needed a more career-oriented education. What he didn’t realize at the time…
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Not Just the Funnies: Exhibit explores the comic world of Jackie Ormes
For more than a century comic strips have provided a light-hearted diversion for newspaper readers, although a few were groundbreaking for the insights they offered about society. Peanuts captured Cold War anxieties with the existential musings of chronically depressed Charlie Brown, while the anthropomorphic Pogo and his friends in Okefenokee Swamp provided the era with…
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What’s So Funny About the Liberal Arts?
We’ve all heard the jokes about liberal arts majors, inspired by stereotypes that students in the humanities, social sciences and languages are destined to lives of underemployment: The science major asks, “Why does it work?” The engineering major asks, “How does it work?” The business major asks, “How much will it cost?” The liberal arts…
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Journeys
Why do we travel? What impels us to leave behind the comforts of home and endure the indignities of airports or the toils and snares of an interstate highway? We travel because it is in our nature. Humans have always been on the move, sometimes out of necessity — hunting and gathering, or fleeing from…
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Your Turn to Do the Dishes
Most young women – and men – prefer shared household responsibilities There’s no shortage of advice for women these days about how to balance work and family — everything from becoming a supermom who can “lean in” at the workplace and do it all, to embracing the role of a full-time homemaker. But when given…
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Bridge to Somewhere
Connecting STEM and the Humanities to Fix America’s Failing Infrastructure The next time you get behind the wheel, consider this: The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) gave our major urban highways a big, fat “D” on their infrastructure report card. A “D” on a report card usually means you’re getting grounded, and in a…
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Gordon Receives Presidential Citation
Edmund T. Gordon, chair of the African and African Diaspora Studies Department (AADS) in the College of Liberal Arts, was recognized on April 17 with a Presidential Citation from UT Austin President Bill Powers. As one of the university’s highest honors, this prestigious award was established to recognize the extraordinary contributions of individuals who personify…
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New Department Focuses on Latino, Mexican American Experience
Building Upon a 44-Year History of Mexican American Studies at UT A new academic department that takes a comprehensive look at the lives, cultures and histories of Mexican American and Latino populations has been established at The University of Texas at Austin. The Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies (MALS) will ultimately offer undergraduate…
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Rebhorn Translation Wins Prestigious PEN Award
Wayne A. Rebhorn, Celanese Centennial Professor of English, has won the PEN Literary Award for his translation of Giovanni Boccaccio’s masterpiece The Decameron. The PEN Literary Awards have honored and introduced some of the most outstanding voices in literature for more than 50 years. The awards will be presented at the 24th Annual Literary Awards…
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New Groundbreaking Department to Focus on Latino, Mexican American Experience
The first-ever academic department in the U.S. to take a comprehensive look at the lives, cultures and histories of Mexican American and Latino populations has been established at The University of Texas at Austin. The Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies (MALS) will ultimately offer undergraduate and graduate degrees that focus on the interdisciplinary…
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Ancient City on the Brink
Can a Crimean World Heritage Site Survive the Region’s Latest Political Unrest? Last June Professor Joseph Carter had reason to celebrate. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) had named the ancient city of Chersonesos—a place where he had dedicated more than two decades of his career—a World Heritage Site. It’s not easy…
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Tales for Troubled Times
Wayne Rebhorn’s Translation Brings Boccaccio’s Decameron to Life On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Professor Wayne Rebhorn was preparing to teach Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron when news came of the terrorist attacks in New York City. He wondered if he should go ahead with the class, or cancel in light of the tragedy. “Then I thought,…
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Extending the Academy Through Public Scholarship
COLA faculty, students and staff share strategies for community outreach Faculty, staff and students in the College of Liberal Arts work with a variety of audiences and partners outside of the university in teaching, research and service activities that bring new ideas and new knowledge into the public sphere. Since campus “public intellectuals” rarely have…
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UT Classical Archaeology Research Leads to UNESCO World Heritage Site Designation
After two decades of research led by a classical archaeology professor at The University of Texas at Austin, an ancient Greek settlement in southern Ukraine was granted World Heritage status by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). A port city founded by Greeks in the fifth century B.C., Chersonesos is the site…
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UT Global Initiative to Forge New Partnership at London Conference
In an effort to further extend teacher training and educational development to international markets, the Global Initiative for Education and Leadership at The University of Texas at Austin is helping to organize the Gulf Education Conference and Exhibition (GECE) on June 19-20 at the Millennium Gloucester Hotel in London. In its third year, the GECE…
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Picture Perfect
Breakthrough research in image enhancement technology leads to free online tool What began as an effort to better understand how animal and human visual systems work has led to a revolutionary method for enlarging and enhancing photos that is being made available, free of charge, from the Center for Perceptual Systems. Wilson Geisler, center director…
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The Fate of the Book, Up Close
A high-resolution image of a louse captivates team members of a project that brought together the Department of English, the Texas Advanced Computing Center, and the Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology in a collaborative effort to draw attention to the Texas Institute for Literary and Textual Studies’ “The Fate of the Book” symposia by…
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Fate of the Book
Public forum series examines the uncertain future of the book The Harry Ransom Center’s Gutenberg Bible is among the world’s most valuable books. Printed more than 550 years ago, it is one of only 21 complete copies known to exist. To discover an intact copy today would be a rare find, but not as rare…
