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 radio and online stories reflect political and economic realities, cultural issues, obsessions and transitions, as well as artistic adventurousness— and awesomeness.
Over the last few years, Ulaby has strengthened NPR's television coverage both in terms of programming and industry coverage and profiled breakout artists such as Ellen Page and Skylar Grey and behind-the-scenes tastemakers ranging from super producer Timbaland to James Schamus, CEO of Focus Features. Her stories have included a series on women record producers, an investigation into exhibitions of plastinated human bodies, and a look at the legacy of gay activist Harvey Milk. Her profiles have brought listeners into the worlds of such performers as Tyler Perry, Ryan Seacrest, Mark Ruffalo, and Courtney Love.
Ulaby has earned multiple fellowships at the Getty Arts Journalism Program at USC Annenberg as well as a fellowship at the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism to study youth culture. In addition, Ulaby's weekly podcast of NPR's best arts stories. Culturetopia, won a Gracie award from the Alliance for Women in Media Foundation.
Joining NPR in 2000, Ulaby was recruited through NPR's Next Generation Radio, and landed a temporary position on the cultural desk as an editorial assistant. She started reporting regularly, augmenting her work with arts coverage for D.C.'s Washington CityPaper.
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. Her film reviews and academic articles have been published across the country and internationally. For a time, she edited fiction for The Chicago Review and served on the editing staff of the leading academic journal Critical Inquiry. Ulaby taught classes in the humanities at the University of Chicago, Northeastern Illinois University and at high schools serving at-risk students.
A former doctoral student in English literature, Ulaby worked as an intern for the features desk of the Topeka Capital-Journal after graduating from Bryn Mawr College. She was born in Amman, Jordan, and grew up in the idyllic Midwestern college towns of Lawrence, Kansas and Ann Arbor, Michigan.
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NPR's Neda Ulaby talks to the American Horror Storystar and show creator Ryan Murphy about horror as metaphor, and what's in store in Season 2. -
The blind folk musician from North Carolina revolutionized not just how people play guitar but the way people around the world think about mountain music. He was 89 years old. -
Wells sang about the real problems of postwar life and the sad side of domesticity. -
Neda Ulaby looks at SongPop, a rapidly growing music-identification game. -
A new film looking at a possible second term for President Barack Obama is already the sixth-highest-grossing political documentary of all time. -
A check-in with what's trending on YouTube reveals interest in Korean pop, politics and science. -
Stylish, exuberant and kinetic are words often associated with the late Tony Scott's movies. The director found success with energetic films that sometimes didn't gain a following until well after their commercial release. -
Known for his sobering honesty and biting wit, David Rakoff said it was healthy to employ "a certain kind of clear-eyed examination of the world as it is." Rakoff died Thursday in New York City after a long battle with cancer. He was 47. -
In the 1970s, minimalist artist Donald Judd moved to a dusty town in West Texas, where he created giant works of art that bask beneath vast desert skies. In the years since, Marfa has emerged as a mecca for art tourism. -
Some 60,000 people have been buried in El Paso's Concordia Cemetery. The Texas graveyard is the final home to gunslingers, Mormon pioneers, Chinese immigrants, Mexican revolutionaries and Civil War veterans. Its desert setting is a venue for a popular Day of the Dead festival and nightly ghost tours.
