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.
-
Private eye John Shaft was a new kind of figure in film: unapologetically Black with swagger. He clapped back at white cops, he busted mobsters, and helped create the entire genre of Blaxploitation.
-
Naked Attraction and Sex/Life are among the shows on streaming television using uncensored nudity, including men seen full-frontal, to create buzz and attract subscribers. -
A 24-year-old piano prodigy, Jahari Stampley, has won one of the most prestigious awards in jazz. The competition held by the Herbie Hancock Institute is widely seen as anointing new stars. -
The Kirkus Prize is one of the most prestigious literary awards in the U.S. This year's winners are Ariel Aberg-Riger, Héctor Tobar and James McBride. -
A Norwegian writer, Jon Fosse, has won the 2023 Nobel Prize in literature. Though little-known outside his home country, he is celebrated in literary circles.
-
Historians say that a little more than a century ago, when cars first hit the roads, they caused nervous laughter and raised real concerns, much like driverless vehicles today. -
Author Ghassan Zeineddine's new collection of short stories, Dearborn, takes a tenderhearted look at interconnected characters in the largest Arab American community in the country -
The first official outdoor exhibition on Washington D.C.'s National Mall showcases six artists whose monuments honor American stories missing from the heart of the country's capital. -
Jamal Jawad's shop was stymied when cars kept running into his business in Dearborn, Mich. But the entrepreneur persevered and he now has three stores and a partnership with the Detroit Pistons.
-
Greta Gerwig's film joins a high-grossing list of mostly male-directed movies, most of them with men leading the casts.
