DeLillo Meditation on Art in Spotlight at WT’s July Great Books Series

Copy by Chip Chandler, 806-651-2124, cchandler@wtamu.edu

CANYON, Texas — The mercurial nature of art will be examined at the July meeting of West Texas A&M University’s Great Books Series.

Dr. Ryan Brooks, associate professor of English, will lead the discussion of Don DeLillo’s short story “Baader-Meinhof.”

The story was inspired by a 15-painting series called “18. Oktober 1977” by the German artist Gerhard Richter, who created them in 1988, Brooks said. He based the paintings on photographs of the Baader-Meinhof Gang, a group of armed radicals who were active in Germany in the 1970s.

The story focuses on the brief relationship between a man and a woman who meet at an exhibition of the paintings, and DeLillo was probably partially inspired by a specific exhibition hosted by the MOMA in NYC in 2000, Brooks said.

“I want readers to think about the relationship between the story and the paintings. Can we think of the story as critical commentary? Can we think of it as an attempt to translate the experience of the art into a different medium?” Brooks said. “More specifically, I also want readers to think about what DeLillo is trying to say about how the meaning of an artwork can shift from person to person, or in other words how public meaning can be shaped by private experience, and from moment to moment, or in other words how meaning can be shaped by historical context.”

The Great Books discussion will take place at 7 p.m. July 21 at Burrowing Owl Books’s Amarillo location, 2461 W. Interstate 40 in Wolflin Square.

The discussion series—sponsored by the Department of English, Philosophy and Modern Languages in the Sybil B. Harrington College of Fine Arts and Humanities—is open to those who either have or haven’t read the story, said organizer Dr. Daniel Bloom.

WT professors and guest lecturers lead the monthly Great Books discussions.

For information, email Bloom at dbloom@wtamu.edu.

Readers and writers also may be interested in the monthly meeting of the Burrowing Owl Poetry Circle, led by Dr. Pat Tyrer, WT’s Jenny Lind Porter Professor of English.

At this monthly gathering, attendees can share their own works or those by others, or they can simply listen. The June meeting is set for 6 p.m. July 30 at Burrowing Owl Books, 400 15th St. in Canyon.

For information, call 806-651-2476 or email ptyrer@wtamu.edu.

The two series are ways in which WT serves the region by offering engagement with a variety of literary and philosophical texts. Being a learner-centered university is a key principle of the University’s long-range plan, WT 125: From the Panhandle to the World.

That plan is fueled by the One West comprehensive fundraising campaign, which raised more than $200 million dollars, the largest such campaign in Texas Panhandle history.

About West Texas A&M University

West Texas A&M University is a Regional Research University in Canyon, Texas, on a 342-acre residential campus, as well as the Harrington Academic Hall WTAMU Amarillo Center in downtown Amarillo. Established in 1910, the University has been part of The Texas A&M University System since 1990. WT boasts an enrollment of more than 9,000 and offers multiple options for students to graduate and succeed: 66 undergraduate degree programs, including eight associate degrees; and 44 graduate degrees, including an integrated bachelor’s and master’s degree, a specialist degree and two doctoral degrees. WT recently earned a Carnegie Foundation classification as a Research College and University. The Buffaloes are a member of the NCAA Division II Lone Star Conference and offers 16 men’s and women’s athletics programs.

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