News

NAROPA UNIVERSITY RECEIVES GRANTS from
THE NEH, THE NEA & THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION of RECORDING ARTS & SCIENCES
TO PRESERVE PREEMINENT CULTURAL ARCHIVE

BOULDER, Colo. (April 29, 2003) - Naropa University (Boulder, Colo.) today announced the receipt of three major grants, two of them from U.S. government agencies, for the purpose of preserving the university's preeminent cultural audio archive, amassed in the nearly 30 years since Naropa was founded. The archive, initially recorded on close to 4,000 audiotapes, comprises 6,000 hours of readings, performances, lectures and workshops led by the nation's foremost post-World War II poets, writers, musicians and visual artists, whose influence on American culture has extended from the middle of the 20th century through the present day. The Naropa University Audio Archive was collected under the auspices of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University.

The grant funds will help Naropa University achieve its objective of preserving the archive in digital format, to ensure longevity as well as to make the material easily and publicly available. Naropa University is using state-of-the-art digital technology in an ambitious bid to save the collection -- called one of the top three literary audio archives in the U.S. by The New York Times -- for posterity. The process is both time-consuming and expensive, which makes the grant monies particularly important. The grants include $180,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), $25,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and $20,000 from the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences, for a total of $225,000. The NEH and NEA funds have been given to the Naropa University Audio Archive Project in the form of matching grants. Naropa University has one year in which to match the NEA grant and two years to match the NEH grant.

The larger mission of the Naropa University Audio Archive Project is to enhance appreciation and understanding of contemporary literature and its role in social change. By transferring the audio archive materials to digital format (to be available both on CD and via streaming audio within three years), the project organizers intend to make the archive contents readily accessible to the public, thereby advancing the overarching project goal. The contents of the collection demonstrate a clear connection between literary and artistic voices speaking out in support of social justice and the major changes that can result.

"These grants demonstrate that there is significant support for the use of public funds to preserve America's cultural heritage," said Steven Taylor, chair of the Writing and Poetics department at Naropa University as well as director of the Naropa University Audio Archive Project. "It is difficult to overestimate the importance of this collection. Working with this treasure of American literary culture has enriched my life, as I believe it will enrich the lives of everyone who will be able to access the materials once the digital reformatting is completed. Easy public access to this collection will make it an invaluable resource for scholars, school teachers, students of American culture and lovers of literature."

The scope of the collection is so broad that, of the more than 100 poets represented in the Norton Anthology of Postmodern American Poetry, about two-thirds are represented in the Naropa University Audio Archive. The archive includes leading poets from the Beat Movement, such as Gregory Corso, Diane DiPrima, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder; New York School poets John Ashbery, Bill Berkson, Ted Berrigan, Kenward Elmslie, Barbara Guest, Kenneth Koch, Bernadette Mayer and Anne Waldman; San Francisco Renaissance poets Robin Blaser, Robert Duncan and Joanne Kyger; Black Mountain School poets Robert Creeley and Ed Dorn; Black Arts Movement poets Amiri Baraka and Lorenzo Thomas; L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E poets Charles Bernstein and Lynn Hejinian; and many contemporary poets including Ammiel Alcalay, Andrei Codrescu and Michael Ondaatje, among others; and numerous authors, including William S. Burroughs, Bobbie Louise Hawkins, Ken Kesey and Timothy Leary. Also recorded are musicians Philip Glass and Marianne Faithfull, among many others.

Naropa University is the only accredited, Buddhist-inspired university in North America. Founded nearly 30 years ago as a summer institute, Naropa University has grown into a thriving academic environment, comprising a four-year college and 14 graduate programs, including the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, co-founded by poets Anne Waldman and the late Allen Ginsberg. Naropa's masters programs also include degrees in Contemplative Education, Divinity, Engaged Buddhism, Environmental Leadership, Physical Theatre, Religious Studies and Transpersonal Psychology, among others. Located in the heart of Boulder, Colorado, Naropa University attracts students from across the globe and serves remote locations with a leading-edge distance education curriculum. Naropa University also runs study abroad programs in Bhutan, the Czech Republic, India and Germany. Naropa University was conceived of by founder Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche as a place where "East meets West and sparks will fly." The institution remains committed to teaching the world wisdom traditions in a climate of lively inquiry and universal respect. For more information, visit www.naropa.edu.

Contact:
Jane Rubinstein
Director, Marketing & Communications
Naropa University
Tel: 303-245-4643
Email: jrubinstein@naropa.edu