ShelfLife@Texas

Lucas A. (Scot) Powe Jr., a professor of law and government at The University of Texas at Austin, will be at BookPeople this Monday, May 4, at 7:30 p.m. to discuss and sign his lastest book, “The Supreme Court and the American Elite, 1789-2008″ (Harvard University Press, 2009).

Powe, who clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas in 1970-71, is a leading historian of the Supreme Court and a First Amendment scholar.

In his new book released this month, Powe provides a
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The Harry Ransom Center has introduced the Web exhibition “Sanora Babb: Stories From the American High Plains,” which highlights the work of American novelist Sanora Babb (1907-2005). Babb drew on the natural beauty of the American High Plains and the difficult conditions of her childhood there to give voice to a people who left little written record of their own lives and who have received scant representation in history.

The exhibition highlights Babb’s accomplishments as a fiction writer and illustrates with historical photographs
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H.W. Brands, professor of history at The University of Texas at Austin, was among the 93rd annual Pulitzer Prize finalists. He was nominated in the category of biography or autobiography for his book “Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.”

This is the second time Brands has been nominated for the honor. Brands was also named as one of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize nominees, which will be announced during a ceremony on
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In a special Poetry on the Plaza event in honor of National Poetry Month, the Harry Ransom Center presents a marathon reading of “Shake-speares Sonnets” (1609) at noon on Wednesday, April 22.

“Shakes-peares Sonnets” turns 400 this year, and to celebrate, Shakespeare scholars, poets, and others will read from “Shake-speares Sonnets” and “The Lovers Complaint.”

Starting at noon, all 154 of Shakespeare’s sonnets and the poem “The Lovers Complaint” will be read on the Ransom Center plaza. Readers include Dean Young, the William S.
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Legendary poet W.S. Merwin will read as part of the Michener Center for Writers’ literary series at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 16, 2009 at the Avaya Auditorium, ACES 2.302, on the corner of 24th and Speedway on campus.

In a career spanning five decades, William S. Merwin has published more than fifty books of poetry, translations and prose. Beginning with the Yale Younger Poets award in 1952 for his first collection “A Mask for Janus,” his work has received the highest accolades
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In religious tradition Easter commemorates the resurrection of Jesus. But how well do historical findings match up to the stories Christians have long told each other?

According to L. Michael White, the Ronald Nelson Smith Chair in Classics and Christian Origins, stories of Jesus’ resurrection originated from memories and storytelling by followers who sought to create a unified religion and tell the story of Jesus’s life.

Drawing upon historical evidence and archaeological finds, White reveals new insights into the life of
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Fred Heath became Vice Provost and Director of the University of Texas Libraries in 2003.

Six years later, the Libraries have become a proving ground for numerous technology initiatives, from a digitization project with Google Books, the recent launch of its Institutional Repository and the steady transformation of spaces to meet the needs of modern connectivity to almost constant Web 2.0 interactivity trials.

Yet despite these moves away from a traditional library archetype, Heath still finds joy in the centrality of the book in
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Susan Somers-Willett (M.A. English, ‘98; Ph.D. English, ‘03) will read as part of the Michener Center for Writers’ spring series at 7:30 p.m., April 2, in the Avaya Auditorium (ACES 2.302).

Somers-Willett has earned praise not only for her poetry collections, “Roam” (2006) and “Quiver” (2009), but also as a scholar of the slam poetry phenomenon.

A veteran spoken word performer, she is the author of “The Cultural Politics of Slam Poetry: Race, Identity, and the Performance of Popular Verse in
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