Neda Ulaby
Neda Ulaby reports on arts, entertainment, and cultural trends for NPR's Arts Desk.
Scouring the various and often overlapping worlds of art, music, television, film, new media and literature, Ulaby's stories reflect political and economic realities, cultural issues, obsessions and transitions.
A twenty-year veteran of NPR, Ulaby started as a temporary production assistant on the cultural desk, opening mail, booking interviews and cutting tape with razor blades. Over the years, she's also worked as a producer and editor and won a Gracie award from the Alliance for Women in Media Foundation for hosting a podcast of NPR's best arts stories.
Ulaby also hosted the Emmy-award winning public television series Arab American Stories in 2012 and earned a 2019 Knight-Wallace Fellowship at the University of Michigan. She's also been chosen for fellowships at the Getty Arts Journalism Program at USC Annenberg and the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism.
Before coming to NPR, Ulaby worked as managing editor of Chicago's Windy City Times and co-hosted a local radio program, What's Coming Out at the Movies. A former doctoral student in English literature, Ulaby has contributed to academic journals and taught classes in the humanities at the University of Chicago, Northeastern Illinois University and at high schools serving at-risk students.
Ulaby worked as an intern for the features desk of the Topeka Capital-Journal after graduating from Bryn Mawr College. But her first appearance in print was when she was only four days old. She was pictured on the front page of the New York Times, as a refugee, when she and her parents were evacuated from Amman, Jordan, during the conflict known as Black September.
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Carl Capotorto's family name translates as "twisted head," which, he says, "is no accident." In his new memoir, The Sopranos actor describes growing up Italian American and gay in the Bronx.
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In More Information Than You Require, the follow-up to the best-selling The Areas of My Expertise, John Hodgman offers another compilation of false facts and trivia.
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Miriam Makeba, whose voice gave South Africans hope when the country was gripped by apartheid, has died of a heart attack after collapsing on stage in Italy. She was 76.
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In this reading, Morrison presents a pivotal episode from her novel, A Mercy. The book explores the repercussions of an enslaved mother's desperate act: she casts off her daughter to save her.
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Though born in France, Nobel laureate Jean-Marie Gustav Le Clezio is a nomadic writer, whose work has been defined by his life of travel around the world. For him, storytelling means melting into the background. -
The Swedish Academy praised Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio for his adventurous novels, essays, non-fiction and children's literature. His work is often about wanderers, people on a quest for meaning and grappling with national histories. -
In his new book, How Does It Feel To Be A Problem? Moustafa Bayoumi profiles seven young Brooklyn residents of Arab and Muslim heritage, detailing the obstacles they've faced since Sept. 11. -
By moving from showing Akira Kurosawa films to The Real Housewives of Orange County, Bravo generously expanded its definition of arts programming and positioned itself to compete with the major networks. That model is being emulated by others.
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In a new book based on his popular blog, Christian Lander tracks the trends and tendencies of white people, from fair-trade organic coffee to vintage T-shirts.
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Critics may have called The Happening toxic, but the movie may have some value as a piece of eco-horror. As real-life environmental fears loom larger, films that warn against abusing the planet are being produced in larger numbers.
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New York City's Vision Festival honors New Orleans saxophonist Kidd Jordan Wednesday night. He still remains unknown outside avant-garde jazz circles, but Jordan says that doesn't matter. Staying true to his roots, Jordan teaches music in his hometown, where many of jazz's elite players have studied under him. -
One of the fathers of rock 'n' roll, Bo Diddley was born Ellas Bates in Mississippi and grew up in Chicago, where he played guitar on street corners before being discovered by Chess Records. Diddley leaves behind a sound that helped build a musical movement.
