Wolfram Alpha and Shakespeare

A post on the blog for the “knowledge engine” Wolfram Alpha alerted us to an intriguing use of its search functionality. Wolfram Alpha is now capable of quickly providing a broad set of information about famous literary texts, including the complete works of Shakespeare.

You can try it yourself by typing the title of a play into Wolfram Alpha’s search box. A search for The Tempest, for example, tells us that the play contains 16,222 words, 3,113 of them unique, that the longest words in the play are “disproportioned” and “notwithstanding,” and that its most frequent speaker is Prospero. Also available is a “Dialog Timeline” – a useful graphical representation of characters’ speeches during the course of the play – and information on the play’s most frequently used words. All of this information is also available for individual acts and scenes within the plays (e.g. search for “The Tempest, Act 5, Scene 1”).

Twitter Email

Online Research Resources to be retired this Friday

If you’ve used Online Research Resources (ORR) to find Library e-resources in the past, please be aware that this interface is being permanently retired this Friday, to be replaced by Online Journals & Databases. The functions formerly served by the ORR are all available through Online Journals & Databases: you can use this tool to search for journals, databases, and other Library resources.

You can also search for journals and databases through the Easy Search box at the top of the Literatures and Languages Library homepage: for example, a search for JSTOR will bring up this message at the top of your search results:

You can click the “Direct link to: JSTOR” to be taken directly into the database. You can do the same for journal titles.

Links to ORR search screens (for example, this search for a journal which is held in several databases) will no longer be valid after Friday. If you have links like this bookmarked, you can update them to links in Online Journals & Databases (like this search for the same journal) and these links will work the same way.

If you have any questions about the migration from Online Research Resources to Online Journals & Databases, please feel free to get in touch with us.

Twitter Email

Mexican author Carlos Fuentes passes away at 83

AP Photo/Rick Maiman, File

Carlos Fuentes, a prominent Mexican intellectual and writer, passed away last Tuesday at the age of 83.  He authored a wide variety of works, including plays, short stories, political nonfiction, novels, and even an opera. He stood as a leading writer in the Latin American literary boom of the 1960s and 1970s. He was friends with many of the other well-known Latin American writers, including Gabriel García Márquez and Mario Vargas Llosa.

Several major news sources have posted obituaries, including the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the CS Monitor. The CS Monitor’s coverage is of particular interest, as the paper has posted a tribute from the Associated Press that is derived from interviews late in the author’s life. Photos from his wake at the Art Palace are posted online as well.

Some of his most acclaimed works are The Old Gringo, Where the Air is Clear, The Death of Artemio Cruz, and Terra Nostra. The library holds several of his works, both in Spanish and in English translation, as well as a variety of commentaries about Fuentes and his works.

Twitter Email

The Artist and the silent film heritage

Michel Hazanavicius’s recent film The Artist has garnered acclaim from critics and audiences for, among other things, carrying the tradition of silent film forward into the 21st century. While contemporary silent films are uncommon, this area is crucial to film history.

Several groups and individuals are working steadily to preserve and promote silent films. The Film Foundation, founded by director Martin Scorsese, is one such organization. Film preservationist Kevin Brownlow has also dedicated his career to preserving the silent film legacy; one of Brownlow’s most ambitious projects has been the restoration of Abel Gance’s Napoleon, a new version of which has recently been re-released in California to much acclaim. Brownlow’s books, such as The Parade’s Gone By, also provide an interesting overview of this era in film history.

Some other contemporary silent films, like The Artist, include Guy Maddin’s Brand Upon the Brain! and the H.P. Lovecraft adaptation The Call of Cthulhu. Other films made in the sound era also pay tribute to the unique nature of silent film: Jacques Tati’s celebrated comedies such as Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday and Playtime rely heavily on physical comedy of a primarily visual form, and classics including Singin’ in the Rain and Sunset Boulevard reflect on the legacy of the transition from silent film to sound.

UIUC’s Library holds many resources of interest for anyone who’d like to learn more about silent film. The online catalog lists over 500 silent titles on video and DVD, and the Library acquires new titles of this sort all the time: for example Wings (other than The Artist, the only silent film to have won Best Picture at the Academy Awards), or the famous French serial Les Vampires.

Works on early cinema (including silent film) can generally be found in LOC classification under PN1995.75, and a subject search for “Silent films – history and criticism” also yields many titles of interest. Searching in International Index to Film Periodicals for “Silent Cinema” as subject, or in International Index to Performing Arts for “Silent films” as subject, can also lead you to scholarly articles on the field in general.

The Media History Digital Library offers a wealth of primary sources: this collection of digitized film magazines from the early 20th century provides an invaluable glimpse at film culture in the pre-sound era.

Twitter Email

New Digital Publication for Spanish Art and Cultural History

The Spanish Ministry of Culture, in collaboration with the National Research Council (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas – CSIC) has announced a project that may be of interest as a source for art and cultural history research, but also for the historiography of Spanish art and cultural history.

CSIC has completed the digital publication of the Catálogo Monumental de España (1900-1961):

http://biblioteca.cchs.csic.es/digitalizacion_tnt/index.html

Organized by regions, this survey of Spain’s artistic heritage consists of texts and photographs on a range of media including paintings, sculpture, furniture, textiles, books, architecture. It includes all the published volumes with their black and white photographs, as well as the manuscripts of unpublished volumes, in come cases with photographs.

In addition to the original texts it is accompanied by recent studies on the value of this archive for identifying works of art and architecture destroyed during the 20thC as well as the histories of medieval art and decorative arts amongst other themes.

It can be read on-line and downloaded in PDF format.

See also this announcement in the Spanish digital arts newspaper Hoyesarte: http://www.hoyesarte.com/politica/nacional/11451-cultura-presenta-el-catalogo-monumental-de-espana-1900-1961-.html

Twitter Email

Thomas Pynchon at 75

image credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity%27s_RainbowToday is the 75th birthday of acclaimed American novelist Thomas Pynchon. Perhaps best known for his challenging 1973 novel Gravity’s Rainbow, Pynchon has been known for decades as an enigmatic and private figure whose elaborate works blend a paranoid sensibility with a fondness for pop cultural ephemera.

Pynchon’s first novel, V (1963), inaugurated a literary career of relatively few books, but these generally greeted with intense critical and public anticipation. Gravity’s Rainbow in 1973 won the National Book Award, and was recommended by the jury for fiction as the Pulitzer Prize winner for that year, but was denied the award by the larger Pulitzer jury. Seventeen years lay between Gravity’s Rainbow and Pynchon’s next work, Vineland, and his most recent novels are Against the Day and Inherent Vice (this last is rumored to be in development as a film). Other works of Pynchon’s include The Crying of Lot 49, Mason and Dixon, and the collection of early stories Slow Learner.

Given the challenges of Pynchon’s work, a good deal of scholarship has discussed and helped to explicate the novels: UIUC’s Library owns many such works, including books of more general Pynchon criticism and several works dealing specifically with Gravity’s Rainbow. A search in MLA International Bibliography for “Thomas Pynchon” as Subject leads to many articles as well.

Twitter Email

Amelia Gray reads at Author's Corner April 18th

photo credit: http://ameliagray.com/AGRAY.jpgAs part of the Carr Reading Series, Amelia Gray will be reading her work at the Author’s Corner at Illini Union Bookstore this Wednesday, April 18th, at 4:30 p.m.

Gray’s most recent book is the novel Threats; she is also the author of two collections of stories, AM/PM and Museum of the Weird.

Gray blogs at ameliagray.com. Her site includes links to her stories on the Web, as well as interviews and reviews of her work.

Twitter Email

Our Town and Thornton Wilder

Thornton Wilder’s classic play Our Town will be performed at Krannert Performing Arts Center from April 12 – April 22 (view a schedule of performances here). Wilder, three-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, wrote this and other works that have become classics of American literature.

Wilder is perhaps best known for his ambitious dramas – the most prominent are Our Town (1938) and The Skin of Our Teeth (1942), both of which won the Pulitzer Prize – but he is also known for his novels, which included The Bridge of San Luis ReyThe Ides of March, and The Eighth Day. Wilder also co-wrote the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt.

The UIUC Libraries hold many books by and about Wilder, and here are some more resources on Thornton Wilder and his work:

  • Chadwyck-Healey’s Twentieth-Century Drama collection includes full-text for a number of Wilder’s plays, including Our Town.
Twitter Email

Joy Harjo to speak at Author’s Corner April 11th

Photo: Paul Abdoo

Poet Joy Harjo will be reading at Author’s Corner in the Illini Union Bookstore this Wednesday, April 11th, at 4:30 p.m. Harjo’s reading is part of the Carr Reading Series.

Harjo has written a number of books of poetry and children’s books, and has also released recordings of her readings with musical accompaniment. Her books include She Had Some Horses, The Woman Who Fell from the Sky, and How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems, 1975-2001. Harjo’s memoir Crazy Brave will be released in July.

Harjo’s website features interviews and information on her poetry and music, and she maintains a blog, Joy Harjo’s Poetic Adventures in the Last World Blog. The Poetry Foundation also has an article on Harjo’s life and work.

Twitter Email

Midwest Symposium in German Studies 2012

The annual Midwest Symposium in German Studies will be taking place at UIUC on April 13-14. The Symposium will be held at Levis Faculty Center.

A conference program is available at the Symposium’s website, listing speakers and their topics. The Symposium is free and open to the public, and no registration is necessary.

Sponsors of the Symposium are the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, the School of Literatures, Cultures, and Linguistics, the Center for Advanced Study, the Department of History, the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory, and the European Union Center.

Twitter Email