Announcement: Recent Grad Featured on New York Magazine's The Cut

Our graduates do incredible things! Recent PhD grad Katie Feo Kelly was featured last week on New York Magazine's The Cut, which profiled the web series she runs with good friend Katy Ansite, "Just the Tips." The series features short videos where Katie and Katy try out projects they find on the Internet via sites like Pinterest, claiming to hold the internet accountable for its DIY promises. According to The Cut,

Their projects have ranged from Hunger Games makeup, to Super Bowl face paint, to a Home Depot Christmas, to following the guidelines from "The Easy Way to Make Your Favorite Fancy Dress Work for Day." They’ve attempt to make SWANTS (pants sewn from sweaters), and they’ve adorned gourds as instructed by marthastewart.com. Thirteen videos in, their success rate hovers around 8 percent (a GOOP sweatshirt panned out).

Here, check them out trying on a little Super Bowl face paint:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cm5gmyQpzBsCheck out the interview over at The Cut for more from Katie and Katy on their inspiration for the web series. And as if The Cut wasn't enough,  Katie and Katy have also been featured on The Hairpin and Refinery29.

Katie is a producer in Texas. Katy is a copywriter in California. They are best friends who met at piano lessons in the early 18th century. In “Just The Tips,” Katy and Katie heed the siren song of “best life” advice in the realms of fashion, makeup, DIY, crafts, and home decor. Their efforts are met with only varying degrees of success; their spirits remain suspiciously undefeated. Follow them on Twitter and Tumblr.

Announcement: Two Not-to-be-missed Lectures Tomorrow!

Happy "Snow Day," Austin! The news doesn't stop over here at AMS::ATX. We have not one but two great lectures to draw your attention to, both of which are taking place on the UT campus tomorrow, Wednesday, January 29 (worry not--the forecast calls for sun and 51 degrees).At noon in Garrison 1.102, historian James Brooks will be presenting his lecture, "Species of Silence: Things Unsaid about the 'Annihilation of the Converted Indians of Agautub.'" Brook's book, Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands (University of North Carolina Press, 2001) was the recipient of the Bancroft Prize, the Francis Parkman Prize, and the Frederick Jackson Turner Award. Brooks was a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton as well as the President of the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico, for the past ten years.At 7:00, award-winning British journalist, author, and broadcaster Gary Younge will discuss his new book, The Speech: The Story Behind Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dream (Haymarket, 2013). In this lecture, Younge will examine the spirit of that historic day in Washington and the misappropriation of King’s legacy since, offering a critical analysis of why “I Have a Dream” remains America’s favorite speech. Younge will present his talk in The Joynes Suite (007 Carothers Residence Hall, UT Austin).

Announcement: Issue 4 of The End of Austin Now Available

Welcome back to school, everyone! We're thrilled that Spring 2014 has kicked off and we're excited to start sharing news and views from the department once again.What better way to begin the semester than with an announcement about a new issue of The End of Austin, one of the department's flagship digital humanities projects? Issue number 4 contains photography, nonfiction essays, memoir, prose poetry, video, and more about topics from hitchhiking around town to this summer's abortion rights protests at the Texas State Capitol.This issue also features the work of two of our department members: Dr. Jeff Meikle and graduate student Susan Quesal. Go forth and take a look - and leave a comment if any of the articles pique your interest.

Happy Holidays!

Hello, dear readers. As winter break is upon us, we'll be taking a hiatus from publishing until January 2014. Until then, we hope you have a restful, relaxing holiday season.

The wonderful purity of nature at this season is a most pleasing fact. Every decayed stump and moss-grown stone and rail, and the dead leaves of autumn, are concealed by a clean napkin of snow. In the bare fields and tinkling woods, see what virtue survives. In the coldest and bleakest places, the warmest charities still maintain a foothold. A cold and searching wind drives away all contagion, and nothing can withstand it but what has a virtue in it, and accordingly, whatever we meet with in cold and bleak places, as the tops of mountains, we respect for a sort of sturdy innocence, a Puritan toughness.

All things beside seem to be called in for shelter, and what stays out must be part of the original frame of the universe, and of such valor as God himself. It is invigorating to breathe the cleansed air. Its greater fineness and purity are visible to the eye, and we would fain stay out long and late, that the gales may sigh through us, too, as through the leafless trees, and fit us for the winter - as if we hoped so to borrow some pure and steadfast virtue, which will stead us in all seasons.

Henry David Thoreau, "A Winter Walk"