Things have changed since Harold Ross, the founding editor of The New Yorker, famously declared in 1925 that his new magazine wasn’t going to be edited for the “little old lady from Dubuque.” Nearly 80 years later, the magazine’s signature style and urbane sophistication are appreciated in Dubuque, Duluth, and points far beyond the American Midwest. As our 21st-century media systems become ever more global and instantaneous, regional boundaries fall by the wayside, and the old ladies in Dubuque are as hip as anyone on the planet.
Instead, The New Yorker is now reaching out to young readers by taking its show on the road. In between a visit last week to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and an upcoming trip to Georgetown University, The New Yorker College Tour pulls into the University of Texas at Austin Nov. 9-13. The tour will feature in-classroom visits by New Yorker writers, editors, and artists; free daytime, on-campus lectures open to the public; and three consecutive evenings of popular-culture programming also open to the public. New Yorker film critic Anthony Lane will be joined for the conversation Everyone’s a Critic, hosted by Austin journalist and author Stephen Harrigan. The panel takes place at 4pm on Wednesday, Nov. 10, in the Texas Union Theatre on campus, and will be followed at 6pm by a screening of Preston Sturges’ comedy classic The Lady Eve, starring Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda, which will be followed by commentary by Lane.
For the complete schedule of events and ticket info, see www.newyorkercollegetour.com.
This article appears in November 5 • 2004.
