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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A Brief History of the Future, on PBS, is an example of a "protopian" show from a new production studio helmed by Kathryn Murdoch. She believes we need more hopeful stories abut the future.
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YouTube is asking users to self-report when they post AI-generated videos. Experts say it's not good enough to ask people to admit when they're breaking the rules.
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Comedy fans are mourning the death of Richard Lewis, one of the stars of HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm. Lewis died Tuesday of a heart attack.
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A fire in Avalon, Miss., destroyed the museum dedicated to singer and guitarist John Hurt, and erases one of the last sites marking the community's history as a formerly all-Black town.
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A high school teacher in Houston has a library in her classroom of books she's not supposed to have, per state legislation. Students say she's helping them survive. (Story aired on ATC on 1/29/24.)
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Plenty of songs celebrate drinking. But what about music that finds joy in — well, not drinking? Music critic Sasha Frere-Jones reflects upon a few songs that have been meaningful to his sobriety.
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A 1928 movie featuring the first appearance of Mickey Mouse enters public domain on Jan. 1. But creative and commercial access to the character is complicated by both copyright and trademark law.
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On the first TubaChristmas, around 300 musicians showed up at the ice skating rink at Rockefeller Plaza in New York City, bearing their giant brass instruments. (Story aired on ATC on Dec. 22, 2023.)
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Every year, the Librarian of Congress selects 25 movies to be added to the National Film Registry. This year, the list included Home Alone and The Nightmare Before Christmas.
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After months of delay the criminal trial of actor Jonathan Majors has gotten started with jury selection. His meteoric Hollywood career has been sidetracked by charges of assault and harassment.