Don Graham took his last breath on Saturday, June 22, 2019, at 6:33 a.m., as I held his hand in mine in a narrow room at St. David’s Hospital in Austin. It had been a long time since I had seen a sunrise, and the gray outside his window was beginning to infuse itself with rose and gold.
Blog
Primary Source: Notes for a Napoleonic Scandal
In 1815, William Warden was surgeon of HMS Northumberland as it transported Napoleon Bonaparte to his second (and hopefully final) exile. Well aware that folks back home—or even, possibly, history itself—would be interested, Warden took notes in an old surgeon’s log.
A Language for Big Data Neuroscience
Imagine your brain activity displayed on a computer screen — multiple, bustling tabs open, some sparked by a fleeting thought, others derived from prior or underlying behaviors or features. Now imagine a scientist trying to make sense of that activity.
In Memoriam: Teresa Lozano Long
Beloved philanthropist and educator Teresa Lozano Long passed away peacefully on March 21, 2021, with Joe R. Long, her loving husband of 63 years, holding her hand. She was 92.
A Texas Politics Explainer
Many Texans learned a new word this year: quorum. And, no, it’s not the collective noun for a group of opossums. A quorum is the minimum number of assembly members that must be present in order to conduct business. For the Texas House of Representatives, that minimum is two-thirds of its members.
The Exhibition on Your Screen: Selected Images from “A New Spain, 1521–1821”
A New Spain, 1521–1821, an online exhibition, traces the cultural, social, and political evolution of the Viceroyalty of New Spain from the fall of Moctezuma’s Mexico-Tenochtitlán in 1521 until the rise of Iturbide’s Mexican Empire in 1821.
Biden Administration to Nominate Liberal Arts Alumna to Chair ACHP
President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate Sara Bronin, a Plan II Honors and Architecture alumna from The University of Texas at Austin, as Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) chairperson.
The Body’s Real-Time Response to Racism
For the first time, researchers have recorded how the body responds when someone is confronted with racism or discrimination in the real world, providing new insight into health disparities in the United States and the stress experienced by students-of-color.
2021 Keene Prize for Literature
When asked where she drew inspiration for her award-winning work, fiction-writer Carrie R. Moore points somewhere between track 12 and 13 on the Solange Knowles’ album “When I Get Home.”
Making the Most of Self-Care
March marked the one-year anniversary of the WHO declaring COVID-19 a global pandemic, and to say that it’s been a rough year would be an understatement. Whether we’ve lost loved ones, jobs, or simply the ability to distinguish between Sundays and Mondays, everyone is struggling under the weight of a constantly shifting “new normal.”
Capturing Culture
When people travel to the United States, they might be shocked at how large our portion sizes are, how friendly strangers may seem or how informal and direct conversations tend to be.
Listen to Black Lives Texas
This month, millions of young Texans will face new struggles in the transition back to school amid a global pandemic. But for those facing food insecurity or limited internet access, the new school year poses greater threats.
Exploring the World Through Language
Sometimes we fall in love when we least expect it. Arriving at The University of Texas at Austin as a mathematically inclined freshman, Heather Rice had no intention of learning Russian.
Retracing UT’s Complicated Racial Past
Taking graduation photos in front of Littlefield Fountain and singing “The Eyes of Texas” at a packed home football game are common bucket-list experiences uniting UT Austin’s students and alumni.
Women’s Activism in Tunisia
In 2014, Maro Youssef arrived in Tunisia just one day before the country passed a constitution that is among the most progressive in the world. She was serving as a foreign affairs analyst at the American embassy in Tunisia.
Earliest Mayan Ceremonial Structure Unearthed
The discovery of a near 3,000-year-old platform, built among wetlands and rivers of the Mexican tropical forest, offers new insight into the Maya’s early communal development.
Three Ways Kids Can Learn through Play at Home
family and community. But recent shelter-in-place efforts have limited many of these routine yet vital experiences — especially because young kids can’t video call or text their friends as freely as others.
German Outreach Program Takes Shape
The German Outreach Program at The University of Texas at Austin grew organically from an interest on the part of undergraduates to change their roles in the classroom and share the German language with a younger generation.
Career Advice for Graduating Seniors
As we approach the last few weeks of the school year, students are beginning to look toward future plans, and for most graduating seniors this means focusing on their careers.
From Bloody Shoes to Dancing Mice: The Evolution of Fairy Tales
In the Grimms version of Snow White, our heroine is awoken from her bewitched slumber not by a handsome prince’s kiss, but when the jostling of a clumsy servant dislodges a chunk of poisoned apple from her throat.
Inhale. Exhale. Analyze.
Mehdi Haghshenas’ signature course “What We See, What We Believe” focuses on critical analysis of media, but he begins the class with a meditation.
Timeline Tool Connects the Dots
Learning history requires more than just being able to recall the dates when battles were fought or naming all 45 U.S. presidents.
Camp Alba
After spending three days on the University of Texas at Austin campus, sixth graders from Martin Middle School left with a greater sense of connection to their communities and their first single track, produced by hip-hop artist and activist Olmeca.
Finding common ground in water
When pressed to summarize the path of his wide spanning career, Paul Adams offers one word, “discourse.”
Design Thinking
Daunting problems require new ideas and a new way of thinking — design thinking.