Visiting Artist/Writer/Curator/Lecturer

Juliana Spahr

Poet, Critic, Editor, and Professor and Unit Chair of Arts & Humanities at Mills College at Northeastern University
Juliana Spahr gave a Visiting Writer Reading at the Arts Research Center in April 2021, part of the Spring 2021 Flash Reading Series.

Juliana Spahr is a poet & scholar of 20th c. literature. Her poetry moves between lyricism, explanatory prose, and theoretical discussion. In her most recent book, That Winter The Wolf Came, concerns global struggle, especially those located at the intersection of ecological and economic catastrophe. Previous to this, she has published four full-length collections of poems and two books of prose that might be...

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...

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...

Sunny A. Smith

Dean of Fine Arts and Professor of Sculpture at CCA
Sunny A. Smith was a Visiting Artist Panel Participant at the Situated Symposium at the Arts Research Center on October 10, 2011.

Sunny A. Smith (they/them) is a queer trans* non-binary artist, time traveler, and practical animist based in Yelamu and Huchiun a.k.a. the San Francisco Bay Area, on unceded Ohlone territory.

Smith has presented their work at museums such as SFMOMA, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, The Arts Club of Chicago, and S!GNAL Center for Contemporary Art, P.S.1/MoMA, Palais de Tokyo, the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, MASS MoCA, and...

Patricia Smith

ARC Fellow, Poet, Spoken-Word Performer, Playwright, Author, Writing Teacher, and Former Journalist.
Patricia Smith was an ARC Poetry & the Senses Fellow in Spring 2020.

Patricia Smith is the 2021 recipient of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for Lifetime Achievement, presented by the Poetry Foundation, and a 2022 inductee of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. She is the author of nine books of poetry, includingUnshuttered (Feb 2023);Incendiary Art, winner of the 2018 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, the 2017 Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the...

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...

Henriette Slorer Jacobsen

Dancer and Professor at the Norwegian Theatre Academy
Henriette Slorer Jacobsen was a Visiting Scholar Panel Participant at the Nordic Time Zones Symposium at the Arts Research Center on March 26, 2014.

Henriette Slorer Jacobsen is a Norwegian dancer. She was educated at Den Norske Opera's Ballettskole and the Norwegian Academy of Ballet. Later, she was employed as an aspirant at the National Ballet and has worked freelance in Oslo with, among others, Lise Eger and Odd Johan Fritzøe, and she has appeared in the short film Exit by Marit Schade Ødegaard. From 1996 she was employed...

Maya Sisneros

Writer and Undergraduate Advisor in the UC Berkeley School of Education
Maya Sisneros gave a Visiting Writer Reading at the Arts Research Center in April 2022, part of the Spring 2022 Flash Reading Series.

Maya Sisnerosis a Bay Area-based writer whose poetry and fiction explore identity, intimacy, and lines of f/light. She is a recipient of the inaugural 2021 SFF/Nomadic Press Lit Award and AWP's 2021 Kurt Brown Prize for Fiction. She attended a Tin House Summer Workshop in 2021. Maya is currently at work on a novella of speculative fiction.

Kevin Simmonds

Musician and Writer
Kevin Simmonds gave a Visiting Writer Reading at the Arts Research Center in October 2021, part of the Fall 2021 Flash Reading Series.

Kevin Simmonds is a musician and writer originally from New Orleans. He studied music at Vanderbilt University, Middle Tennessee State University and completed the Ph.D. at the University of South Carolina. He founded Tono International Arts Association, an international arts presenter in northern Japan (Iwate Prefecture).

Kevin received a Fulbright fellowship to Singapore where he started the first-ever poetry workshop in Changi...

Jordan Simmons

Former Artistic Director of East Bay Center for the Performing Arts
Jordan Simmons was a Visiting Lecturer Panel Participant at the 2014 Artist-in-Residence: Rick Lowe 10-day residency at the Arts Research Center on November 21, 2014.

Richmond native and proud graduate of JFK High, Jordan Simmons served as Artistic Director at the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts (1984 – 2021) and has been a faculty member since 1974. A graduate of Reed College, active Mestre of Capoeira, licensed Shakuhachi (Japanese flute) teacher, and theater director, Mr. Simmons’ portfolio includes more than 50...