James H. 'Jimmy' Hare crossing the Piave river, 1918, lantern slide; Gordon Conway, 'Red Cross Girl' illustration for Vanity Fair, 1918; Bob Landry, film still from 'A Farewell to Arms,' 1957; Erich Maria Remarque, 'All Quiet on the Western Front,' 1930; Lucile Patterson, National League for Woman's Service World War I military recruiting poster.

The Harry Ransom Center has awarded more than 65 research fellowships for 2013-14.

The fellowships support research projects in the humanities that require substantial on-site use of the Center’s collections of manuscripts, rare books, film, photography, art, and performing arts materials.

The fellowship recipients, half of whom will be coming from abroad, will use Ransom Center materials to support projects with such titles as “Postirony: Countercultural Fictions from Hipster to…

Graduate intern Jenn Shapland, center, shares annotated books from Wallace’s library and research materials he used while writing “Infinite Jest.” Photo by Pete Smith.

Before spring of last year, I had only heard David Foster Wallace referenced by acquaintances and a TV show character with an affinity for oversized novels. When I was applying for my undergraduate internship at the Ransom Center, I noticed that the Center had acquired Wallace’s archive and opened it for research. I knew that a course on Wallace was being offered by the University as an English Honors seminar during the fall semester, and the opportunity to combine my academic studies with my new internship seemed like a perfect way to enhance my first experience with Wallace’s…

Archival boxes in the Don DeLillo archive at the Harry Ransom Center. Photo by Alicia Dietrich.

Mary Holland  is an Assistant Professor of English at SUNY New Paltz. She recently spent time working in the David Foster Wallace and Don DeLillo archives at the Ransom Center. Her work, which was funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Research Fellowship Endowment, will be used in her article “‘Your head gets in the way’: Distortion, Vision, and Influence in Barth’s Lost in the Funhouse and Wallace’s Brief Interviews with Hideous Men.”

Last August, I spent six glorious days working in the David Foster Wallace and Don DeLillo archives at the Harry Ransom Center, research made possible by a travel stipend generously awarded by the Center. A…

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Materials related to David Foster Wallace’s posthumous novel The Pale King (April 2011) are now open for research at the Ransom Center. The materials related to The Pale King were acquired as part of the Wallace (1962–2008) archive in 2010 but were retained by publisher Little, Brown and Co. until after the book’s publication and the subsequent publication of the paperback edition.

The Pale King materials fill six boxes and  include handwritten and typescript drafts, outlines, characters lists, research materials, and a set of notebooks containing reading notes, names, snippets of dialog, definitions, quotations, and clippings.

The materials have been organized according to a spreadsheet developed by Wallace’s editor, Michael Pietsch. Pietsch, then-executive vice president and publisher of Little, Brown and Co., spent months reading through and organizing the material and found what he called “an astonishingly full novel, created with the superabundant originality and humor that were uniquely David’s.”

In conjunction with the publication of The Pale King, the Ransom Center partnered with publisher Little, Brown and Co. to offer an online preview of materials from the archive in April 2011.

David Foster Wallace's notebook, which contains reading notes, clippings, and writings related to “The Pale King.” © David Foster Wallace Literary Trust. Harry Ransom Center.

Page 1 of corrected proof of David Foster Wallace's 1996 essay on the U.S. Open for Tennis magazine.

In 1995, Jay Jennings, a former editor of Tennis magazine, commissioned David Foster Wallace to write an article about the U.S. Open, which was published as “Democracy and Commerce at the U.S. Open” one year later. In 2010, Jennings contributed a file of corrected proofs and correspondence to the Ransom Center relating to the essay and revealing Wallace’s close involvement in the editorial process. Wallace had warned Jennings that he would be a difficult editee, but the papers demonstrate the contrary. Though Wallace’s comments on the proof pages are often assertive, they are equally good-natured, dotted throughout with smiley faces, and oftentimes showing his humor. Jennings…

Cover of "The Legacy of David Foster Wallace."

The Legacy of David Foster Wallace, a collection of essays that examine Wallace, his writing, and his place in literary history, has been published by University of Iowa Press.

Wallace’s archive resides at the Ransom Center.

Molly Schwartzburg, former Cline Curator of Literature at the Ransom Center and current curator at Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia, contributed an essay about how Wallace’s manuscripts and personal library were handled and processed after they arrived at the Ransom Center.

Other contributors include Don DeLillo, whose papers reside at the Ransom Center, Jonathan Franzen, George Saunders, Rick Moody, Dave Eggers, and David Lipsky, and Wallace’s Little, Brown editor, Michael Pietsch. The book was edited…

Each Friday, the Ransom Center shares photos from throughout the week that highlight a range of activities and collection holdings. We hope you enjoy these photos that reveal some of the everyday happenings at the Center.

Undergraduate intern Bethany Johnson reads, reviews, and summarizes correspondence for inclusion in an upcoming exhibition about the centennial of World War I. Photo by Pete Smith.

Registrants of The David Foster Wallace Symposium view a case of materials related to Wallace in the Ransom Center’s lobby. Photo by Alicia Dietrich.

Los Angeles Times book critic David Ulin, literary agent Bonnie Nadell, and Little, Brown editor Michael Pietsch gather before their public program, “"Everything and More: A Conversation About David Foster Wallace." Photo by Alicia Dietrich.

Pete Smith photographs…

Continue Reading Photo Friday

Letter from David Foster Wallace to Frederick Hill Associates, dated Sept. 28, 1985, containing a chapter from "Broom of the System." Bonnie Nadell collection.

On Thursday, April 5, the Ransom Center kicks off The David Foster Wallace Symposium with a public event featuring Wallace’s literary agent, Bonnie Nadell, and his editor, Michael Pietsch, in conversation with Los Angeles Times book critic David Ulin. The free, public event will take place at 7 p.m. (C.S.T.) at Jessen Auditorium, across the plaza from the Ransom Center on The University of Texas at Austin campus. Please note that seating will be limited. Registrants of the symposium will have reserved seating, and Ransom Center members will receive priority entry at 6:20 p.m. Doors will open to…

Opening page of corrected proof of Wallace's 1996 essay 'Shipping Out: On the (Nearly Lethal) Comforts of a Luxury Cruise' for Harper's magazine.

The Harry Ransom Center will host the David Foster Wallace Symposium on April 5 and 6 at the Ransom Center. The symposium includes a public program on Thursday, April 5, at 7 p.m. in Jessen Auditorium.

Symposium
registration is limited and opens January 23 at 11 a.m. CST. Participants must register online. The $55 registration fee includes access to all events on the schedule.

All symposium events will be webcast live.

The Ransom Center holds Wallace’s archive, which was made accessible for research in September 2010. For the symposium, writers, editors, journalists, and critics gather to discuss Wallace’s life and work in panel discussions on such…

David Foster Wallace, who was regarded by many as the best writer of his generation, was a talented essayist who was commissioned by several publications, from Harper’s and The Atlantic Monthly to Rolling Stone and Gourmet, to write on topics as disparate as a luxury cruise, tennis, the Illinois State Fair, and the first presidential campaign of John McCain.

Wallace, whose affinity for and comprehension of the rules of grammar and usage were widely known, published an essay entitled “Tense Present: Democracy, English, and the Wars over Usage” in Harper’s in April 2001. An early draft of his essay can be seen in the Ransom Center’s current exhibition, Culture Unbound: Collecting in the Twenty-First Century. The draft is a veritable rainbow, covered in red,…