The Graduate Center announced today that Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and journalist Kai Bird has been appointed Executive Director of the Leon Levy Center for Biography, effective January 27, 2017. He succeeds noted biographer and jazz and film critic Gary Giddins in this role. Bird's work includes critical writings on the protagonists of important historical events, including the Vietnam War, Hiroshima, [...]
The Leon Levy Center for Biography has announced its 2015-2016 resident Biography Fellows: Colin Asher, for a biography of Nelson Algren, the Chicago-bred novelist and essayist; Blake Gopnik, for a biography of Andy Warhol, the Pop visual artist and filmmaker; Gordana-Dana Grozdanić, for a biography of Zija Dizdarević, the neglected Bosnian Muslim story writer; and, [...]
On Tuesday, May 5, the GC’s European Union Studies Center will commemorate the end of World War II with the Otto and Fran Walter Memorial Lecture, “Victory in Europe: The 70th Anniversary of the Defeat of European Fascism." Moderated by John Torpey (Sociology/History), the discussion will feature several key scholars, among them Ira Katznelson, Ruggles [...]
Gary Giddins, executive director of the Leon Levy Center for Biography, has announced the recipients of the center’s 2014-2015 residential biography fellowships: Esther Allen, for a biography of José Martí, the Cuban writer and political activist; Peter Filkins, for a biography of H. G. Adler, the German-Jewish novelist; Ruth Franklin, for a biography of Shirley Jackson, the American writer; and James Romm, [...]
The nation’s first antidrug warrior, a Chilean surrealist painter, former Manhattan district attorney Robert Morgenthau and his famous forebears, and a Congolese man who became a Bronx Zoo exhibit in 1906—these are the subjects chosen by biographers awarded this year’s Leon Levy Center biography fellowships. The winners are Alexandra Chasin, Andrew Meier, Pamela Newkirk, and Justin Spring. Now [...]
The scandale militaire involving biographer Paula Broadwell and General David Petraeus has generated much handwringing over the ethics of biography in recent weeks. By all accounts, sleeping with your subject is unethical; keeping it a secret is worse. The Leon Levy Center for Biography (LLCB) at the Graduate Center, CUNY, will address these and related [...]
The Leon Levy Center for Biography at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, has announced that Ron Chernow, the award-winning biographer of Alexander Hamilton and John D. Rockefeller, will give the 2010 Annual Leon Levy Biography Lecture. Chernow’s latest biography -- the highly anticipated Washington: A Life -- will be published by Penguin [...]
The Leon Levy Center for Biography at the CUNY Graduate Center has announced its 2010-2011 Biography Fellows. Established by a generous gift from the Leon Levy Foundation in 2006, the Center offers annual fellowships to writers working in the genre. The 2010-2011 Biography Fellows are: Jed Perl, art critic for The New Republic and author [...]
The Leon Levy Center for Biography at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, has announced that Robert A. Caro, the award-winning biographer of Robert Moses and Lyndon Baines Johnson, will give the 2009 Leon Levy Biography Lecture. Mr. Caro’s lecture, which is free and open to the public, will take place on Tuesday, [...]
The Leon Levy Center for Biography at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, has announced that Dr. Brenda Wineapple will serve as its new director. Wineapple is known for her remarkable achievements as author, biographer, scholar, and teacher. Her most recent book, White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson [...]