Not even Tulsa’s unpredictable weather was able to put a damper on the celebration of the McFarlin Fellows Dinner held on the evening of April 11th, 2013, in honor of Thomas F. Staley. With the reception originally scheduled to take place on the premises of Albert Plaza, the night’s festivities were moved to the Ann and Jack Graves Faculty Study due to the drop in temperature the campus had been experiencing during the week leading up to the dinner.
Arriving promptly at 6:30PM, the crowd gathered in the Faculty Study for drinks and hors d’oeuvres, and to meet with Dr. Staley during what turned out to be a very lively and entertaining reception. Following the reception, the attendees made their way to the Pat and Arnold Brown Reading Room for dinner, which began with a Tuscan white-bean salad on a bed of mixed greens with fresh mozzarella and black olives. The main course consisted of beef manicotti with stuffed mushrooms and tomatoes. To cap off the meal, dessert was a warm cannoli with ricotta filling and topped with whipped cream and sliced roasted almonds.
Following the dinner, the crowd was treated to Dr. Staley’s lecture, “The Changing Shape of the Modern Archive,” which touched on many important points within the topic of the archive and the treatment of its components, ranging from rare books and manuscripts, to artifacts and born-digital items. Dr. Staley, a world-renowned authority on Modernism and the Archive, is the director of Director of the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin, where he is also Professor of English and holds The Harry Huntt Ransom Chair in Liberal Arts. Dr. Staley has written and edited numerous books on James Joyce, Italo Svevo, modern British women novelists, including Jean Rhys and Dorothy Richardson, and modern literature in general. His critical articles on a wide range of subjects have appeared worldwide in scholarly journals and other publications. Dr. Staley is also a former faculty member of the University of Tulsa, where he founded the James Joyce Quarterly, served as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences from 1981-1983 and Provost from 1983-1988.
The University of Tulsa is delighted to have hosted Dr. Thomas F. Staley on such an entertaining evening, and the Department of Special Collections and University Archives is proud to have been part of such a memorable occasion.