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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Musician and artist Tunde Olaniran is a rising star from Flint, Michigan whose exuberant work comments on serious issues such as environmental injustice and the carceral state. -
Coming out may be easier than it used to be. Where does that leave PFLAG, an organization started to support families when gay people were widely stigmatized? (Story aired on ATC on June 23, 2022.)
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Mary Badham was 10 years old when her performance as Scout earned her an Oscar nomination. Now, six decades later, she's touring the country's stages in the Broadway version.
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Vijay Gupta was a 19-year-old violin prodigy when he joined the LA Philharmonic. Now he runs Street Symphony, an organization bringing music to clinics, jails and homeless shelters on Skid Row.
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Peanuts was a place where female athletes saw their presence on the playing field explicitly supported.
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An old-fashioned steam calliope designed by luminaries in the worlds of art and jazz is on display at the National Sculpture Garden.
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Mama's boy has been viewed as an emasculating insult. But numerous men are now publicly embracing their identities as proud mama's boys. (Story first aired on Weekend Edition Sunday on May 7, 2022.)
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For eons, the term "mama's boy" was widely viewed as an emasculating insult. But numerous men are challenging such inherent misogyny and publicly embracing their identities as proud "mama's boys."
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In his new book "Pizza Quest," Peter Reinhart describes his spiritual obsession with what he calls "the ultimate comfort food."
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Artist Phung Huynh incorporates pink donut boxes into her portraits of young Cambodian-Americans who grew up in their family donut stores in Southern California.
