Visiting Writer

Michael Pollan

Journalist and Professor of Non-Fiction at Harvard University
Michael Pollan gave a Visiting Writer Lecture at the Arts Research Center on April 24, 2009.

For more than thirty years, Michael Pollan has been writing books and articles about the places where the human and natural worlds intersect: on our plates, in our farms and gardens, and in our minds. Pollan is the author of eight books, six of which have been New York Times bestsellers; three of them (including his latest, How to Change Your Mind) were immediate #1 New York Times bestsellers. Previous books include Cooked (2013), Food Rules (2009), In Defense of Food: An Eater’s...

Ishmael Reed

Poet, Novelist, Essayist, Songwriter, Composer, Playwright, Editor, and Publisher
Ishmael Reed gave a Visiting Writer Reading at the Arts Research Center on March 15, 2017.

One of America’s most significant literary figures, Ishmael Reed has published over 30 books of poetry, prose, essays, and plays, as well as penned hundreds of lyrics for musicians ranging from Taj Mahal to Macy Gray. His work is known for its satirical, ironic take on race and literary tradition, as well as its innovative, post-modern technique. Critic Robert Elliot Fox described Reed’s work: “In his writing, Reed is a great improviser, a master of collage with an amazing ability to...

Solmaz Sharif

Poet and Professor of English at UC Berkeley
Solmaz Sharif gave a Visiting Writer/Scholar Talk at the Arts Research Center on February 22, 2024.

Born in Istanbul to Iranian parents, Solmaz Sharif is the author of Customs (Graywolf Press, 2022) and Look (Graywolf Press, 2016), a finalist for the National Book Award. She holds degrees from U.C. Berkeley, where she studied and taught with June Jordan’s Poetry for the People, and New York University. Her work has appeared in Harper’s, The Paris Review, Poetry, The Kenyon Review, the New...

Daniel Leeman Smith

Director, Playwright, Dramaturg, Producer, and Program Manager of NYU's Creative Career Hub
Daniel Leeman Smith gave a Visiting Writer/Scholar/Director Talk at the Arts Research Center on April 10, 2024. Daniel Leeman Smith is a proud two-spirit citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. He is a New York City based director, playwright, dramaturg, producer, and theatre educator whose work is positioned at the intersection of art, education, community, and activism, focusing on Native joy.

Recent credits include Stories of the Land (Dramaturg, Long Wharf Theatre), Chicago: Pigeon (Dramaturg, New Native Play Festival, Yale Indigenous Performing...

SA Smythe

Writer, Artist, and Assistant Professor of Black European Cultural Studies in the Department of African American Studies at UCLA
SA Smythe gave a Visiting Writer/Scholar Lecture at the Arts Research Center on September 13, 2018.

SA Smythe is a blktrans nonbinary theorist, multi-instrumentalist, transmedia storyteller, and educator currently based in Tkaronto and Rome. Smythe’s antecartographic practice conjures black belonging and is concerned with the thrival of our relations beyond every border. They weave blktrans poetics, performance, light sculptures, sound composition, photography, and found footage/archival ephemera. Smythe’s transmedia work has been featured...

Pamela Sneed

Poet, Performance Artist, Actress, Activist, and Professor of Visual Arts at Columbia University
Pamela Sneed gave a Visiting Writer Lecture at the Arts Research Center on November 8, 2023.

Pamela Sneed is a New York–based poet, performer, and visual artist. She is the author of Imagine Being More Afraid of Freedom Than Slavery (Holt, 1998), KONG and Other Works (Vintage Entity Press, 2009), Sweet Dreams (Belladonna*, 2018), and Funeral Diva, published by City Lights in Oct 2020. Funeral Diva was featured in The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, Literary Hub, Artnet, and...

Robert Sullivan

Poet, Academic, and Editor
Robert Sullivan gave a Visiting Writer Workshop at the Arts Research Center on September 20, 2023.

Robert Sullivan (Ngāpuhi and Kāi Tahu) has won awards for his poetry, editing, and writing for children, including the 2022 Lauris Edmond Memorial Award for a distinguished contribution to New Zealand poetry, Distinguished Visiting Writer at the University of Hawai’i, the Montana New Zealand Book Award for co-editing Whetu Moana: Contemporary Polynesian Poems in English, the Māori Literature Award for co-editing Puna Wai Kōrero: An Anthology of Māori Poetry in English, and...

Joel Tan

Playwright and Dramatist
Joel Tan was a Visiting Writer Panel Participant at the Impact in the Arts Think Tank Conference at the Arts Research Center on January 17, 2014. Joel Tan is a Singaporean playwright based in London and Singapore. Recent work in the UK includes No Particular Order at Theatre503; When The Daffodils at the Orange Tree Theatre; Living Archive at the Royal Court; Ghosts in the Blood for Audible UK; Overheard, and Augmented Chinatown with Chinese Arts Now. He is under commission with the Royal Court, Headlong Theatre, and the...

Alice Te Punga Somerville

Poet, Irredentist, and Department Head & Professor at the University of British Columbia
Alice Te Punga Somerville gave a Visiting Writer Lecture at the Arts Research Center on March 8, 2023.

Alice Te Punga Somerville is a scholar, poet and irredentist who writes and teaches at the intersections of literary studies, Indigenous studies and Pacific studies.

Since 2022, she has been a full professor at the University of British Columbia in the Department of English language & literatures and the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies. Before arriving on Musqueam territory, Te Punga Somerville previously taught at universities in Australia, Hawai’i...

Sarah Thornton

Writer, Ethnographer, and Sociologist of Culture
Sarah Thornton was a Visiting Writer Panel Participant at the Art of Cultural Criticism Lecture Series at the Arts Research Center on November 10, 2016.

Sarah Thornton is a sociologist who writes about art, design and people. She is the author of four critically acclaimed books. A Canadian who went to the UK on a Commonwealth Scholarship, Thornton was once hailed as “Britain’s hippest academic.” Now based in San Francisco, Thornton is better known as “the Jane Goodall of the art world.”

Thornton’s latest book Tits Up explores the universal truths of mammary...