Austin, Texas 78712
United States
The Ransom Center is an internationally renowned humanities research library and museum at The University of Texas at Austin. Its extensive collections provide unique insight into the creative process of writers and artists, deepening our understanding and appreciation of literature, photography, film, art, and the performing arts. Visitors engage with the Center’s collections through research and study, exhibitions, publications, and a rich variety of program offerings including readings, talks, symposia, and film screenings.
The Center houses 42 million manuscripts, more than one million rare books, five million photographs, and 100,000 works of art and design, as well as major collections in film and the performing arts. Highlights from the collections include the Gutenberg Bible (ca. 1455); the earliest known surviving photograph made in a camera, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce’s View from the Window at Le Gras (1826 or 1827); film archives of Robert De Niro and Gone With The Wind producer David O. Selznick; paintings by Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera; and the manuscripts of James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Tennessee Williams, Doris Lessing, Norman Mailer, Anne Sexton, J. M. Coetzee, and David Foster Wallace. The Center is home to a dynamic collection that continues to evolve and grow.
The Ransom Center annually awards fellowships for research projects that require substantial on-site use of its collections. Learn more about fellowships here.