Dimension records

Collection

Call Number: YCGL MSS 29

Scope and Contents

The Dimension Records document the creation and publication of Dimension by its founder and editor, A. Leslie Willson. The collection contains subject files concerning authors and translators of German literature; drafts of writings and translations published in Dimension; drafts and proofs for Dimension, including most issues in volumes 1-19 and several special issues; subscription and other business records for Dimension; writings and translations of A. Leslie Willson; a small amount of records relating to Willson's work at the University of Texas and in professional organizations; photographs and slides of German authors and artists and their work; drawings and prints by German artists; and audio and audiovisual recordings, including Gruppe 47 conferences, author readings, radio plays, lectures, and interviews. Materials pertaining to Dimension document its history and funding; publication of authors, artists, and translators; and production of individual issues. Also present are correspondence, writings, photographs, and sound recordings concerning Willson's broader professional and personal relationships with German authors and academic colleagues. The collection is a resource for the study of German literature, art, and literary translation during the 1960s-1990s, as well as the teaching of German literature in American universities during the same period.

Dates

1962 - 2007
Majority of material found within 1968 - 1994

Creator

Willson, A. Leslie (Amos Leslie), 1923-2007

Language of Materials

In German and English.

Conditions Governing Access

The materials are open for research.

Boxes 68-69 (Teaching Materials): Restricted until 2085. For further information consult the appropriate curator.

Boxes 71-80 (Audiovisual Materials): Restricted fragile material. Reference copies may be requested. Consult Access Services for further information.

Box 81 (computer disks): â€¡a Restricted fragile material. Reference copies are available for disks 4-6 and 8-11; reference copies for disks 1-3, 7, and 12-18 may be requested. Consult Access Services for further information.

Conditions Governing Use

The Dimension Records is the physical property of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Literary rights, including copyright, belong to the authors or their legal heirs and assigns. For further information, consult the appropriate curator.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Gift of A. Leslie Willson, 1996-2008. Gift of Juliet Willson Jimenez, Brian L. Willson, and Kevin R. Willson, 2008.

Arrangement

Organized into seven series: I. Subject Files. II. Dimension Production Materials. III. Dimension Business Records. IV. Writings. V. Personal Papers of A. Leslie Willson. VI. Graphic Materials. VII. Audiovisual Materials.

Extent

75.4 Linear Feet ((85 boxes) + 1 broadside, 1 package, 1 roll)

Catalog Record

A record for this collection is available in Orbis, the Yale University Library catalog

Persistent URL

http://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/beinecke.dimension

Additional Description

Overview

Dimension

Dimension: Contemporary German Arts and Letters was a bilingual German/English literary journal edited by A. Leslie Willson, professor of Germanic Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Founded by Willson in 1968, Dimension was published through 1994 in a total of more than eighty regular and special issues. Willson stated that the goals of the journal were to improve the quality of translation and redress the time lag between the appearance of new literary writing in German and its availibility to English readers. Dimension published poems, plays, essays, short stories, radio plays, excerpts from novels, and drawings by hundreds of German-language authors and artists, including Peter Bichsel, Günter Grass, Gerhard Köpf, Günter Kunert, Siegfried Lenz, Ernst Jandl, Friederike Mayröcker, Gabriele Wohamnn, and Christa Wolf. Through publication of well-known authors, discovery of new authors, and collaboration between authors, translators, and editors, Dimension came to be regarded internationally as an influential forum for contemporary arts and letters.

Dimension was funded by the University of Texas at Austin from its inception in 1968 through 1975. Funding was increasingly problematic after this, and when Willson's term as chairman of the University's German Department ended in 1980, he continued publication of Dimension without clerical or editorial support. Volumes 1-15:1 were designed and produced by the University of Texas Press at Austin. Starting with volume 15:2, Willson designed and produced the journal himself on an Apple computer. Dimension²: Contemporary German-language Literature , edited by Ingo R. Stoehr, began publication in 1994, continuing the format of the original journal.

A. Leslie Willson A. (Amos) Leslie Willson (1923-2007), professor of German, author, editor, and translator, was born in Texas, studied journalism and German at the University of Texas at Austin, and earned a Ph.D. from Yale University in 1954. He was a member of the German Department faculty at the University of Texas at Austin, 1955-1961 and 1966-1992, and was emeritus professor of Germanic Languages, 1992-2007.

Willson's translations include novels by Michael Krüger (The Man in the Tower and Himmelfarb), Gerhard Köpf (There is no Borges; Papa's Suitcase; Innerfar; Bluff, or The Southern Cross; Way to Eden; Nurmi, or The Journey to the Trout; and Piranesi's Dream), and Ulla Berkéwicz (Angels are Black and White), and Hermann Kurzke's Thomas Mann: Life as a Work of Art. In addition to founding and editing Dimension, his work as an editor included several volumes of The German Library (Continuum Press). Willson co-founded the American Literary Translators Association in 1979 and was its first president. He served as president of the American Translators Association from 1991 to 1993.

Processing Information

The Dimension Records contain material formerly classed as Uncat Zg Ms 13. This baseline finding aid was prepared from preliminary lists made by the donor and the curator. For each series, any existing file groups were preserved, followed by related sorted and unsorted material. While most of the Archive has been rehoused, oversize galley proofs in Series II, Dimension Production Materials, have been left folded. In Series VI, Graphic Materials, a photograph album was dissasembled and slides were removed from original storage boxes. Some printed materials have been removed from the collection and cataloged individually in the Library's online catalog. Some duplicate or unmarked printed material, photocopies, and Dimension offprints were discarded by the curator before processing.