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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Hundreds of costumed "Helens" are cheerfully invading bars across the country in honor of Helen Roper, from the 1970s sitcom Three's Company. -
Nearly a dozen arts workers in New York City have recently left their jobs or been fired over conflict with their employers about expressing solidarity with Palestinian suffering. -
A quarter of a million people in the U.S. wear electronic ankle monitors, in lieu of prison time. One of them will be a contestant this month on the ABC reality show “Dancing with the Stars.”
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James Baldwin died in 1987. Baldwin & Co. is a Black-owned bookstore and community hub in New Orleans. "His literature, his perspective, his insight ... have changed my life," says owner DJ Johnson. -
NPR staff recommend 6 new novels for summer reading: "How to End a Love Story," "Victim," "The Women," "A Short Walk Through a Wide World," "Birding with Benefits" and "Swift River."
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The Caesar salad was invented at a hotel in Tijuana, Mexico, on July 4, 1924, to feed hungry American tourists. We've been enjoying it in various incarnations ever since. -
A woman on TikTok asked: What is a sundress? Ten million views later, the debate is still raging. -
Archivists at the University of Houston have saved decades-worth of episodes of local LGBT radio shows that started in the 1970s. Together they tell the story of a complex, diverse community. -
Over some five decades, Corman filled America's drive-ins with hundreds of low-budget movies. Many of Hollywood's most respected directors have at least one Corman picture buried in their resumes. -
One of the most important figures in shaping the sounds the '80s and '90s has died. Steve Albini fronted the bands Big Black and Shellac and engineered albums for Nirvana, the Pixies and PJ Harvey.
