Hilton Als

Hilton Als (born 1960) is an American writer and theater critic. He is an associate professor of writing at Columbia University[1] and a staff writer and theater critic for The New Yorker magazine.[2] He is a former staff writer for The Village Voice and former editor-at-large at Vibe magazine.

Hilton Als
Born1960 (age 59–60)
New York City, New York, United States
OccupationWriter, critic
GenreTheatre criticism

In June 2020, Als was named an inaugural Presidential Visiting Scholar at Princeton University for the 2020-2021 academic year.[3] At Princeton, he will teach the "Yaass Queen: Gay Men, Straight Women, and the Literature, Art, and Film of Hagdom", a course offered by the Program in Theater, the Program in Creative Writing, and the Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies.

Background and career

Hilton Als was born in New York City, with roots in Barbados.[4]

His 1996 book The Women[5] focuses on his mother (who raised him in Brooklyn), Dorothy Dean, and Owen Dodson, who was a mentor and lover of Als.[6][7][8] In the book, Als explores his identification of the confluence of his ethnicity, gender and sexuality, moving from identifying as a "Negress" and then an "Auntie Man", a Barbadian term for homosexuals.[8] His 2013 book White Girls continued to explore race, gender, identity in a series of essays about everything from the AIDS epidemic to Richard Pryor's life and work.

Als received a Guggenheim fellowship in 2000 for creative writing and the 2002–03 George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism.[9] In 2004 he won the Berlin Prize of the American Academy in Berlin, which provided him half a year of free working and studying in Berlin.[10] In addition to Columbia, he has taught at Smith College, Wellesley College, Wesleyan University, and Yale University, and his work has also appeared in The Nation, The Believer, and the New York Review of Books.

In 2017, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism: "For bold and original reviews that strove to put stage dramas within a real-world cultural context, particularly the shifting landscape of gender, sexuality and race."[11]

As an art curator, Als has been responsible for exhibitions including the group show Forces in Nature (featuring work by such artists as Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Peter Doig, Chris Ofili, Celia Paul, Tal R, Sarah Sze, Kara Walker, and Francesca Woodman) in 2015,[12] and most recently an exhibition of work from the Manhattan years of portraitist Alice Neel, entitled Alice Neel, Uptown, at David Zwirner Gallery in New York City and Victoria Miro Gallery in London (May 18–July 29, 2017).[13][14][15]

Awards and honors

Bibliography
  • Golden, Thelma (1994). Als, Hilton (ed.). Black male: representations of masculinity in contemporary American art. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art.[22]
  • Als, Hilton (1996). The women. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
  • Als, Hilton (1998) [1996]. The women. Paperback ed. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
  • Als, Hilton (2000). "GWTW". In Allen, James (ed.). Without sanctuary: lynching photography in America. Santa Fe, NM: Twin Palms. pp. 38–45.
  • Sills, Vaughn (2010). Places for the spirit: traditional African American gardens. Foreword by Hilton Als. San Antonio: Trinity University Press.
  • Als, Hilton (2013). White girls. San Francisco: McSweeney's.
  • Opie, Catherine; Als, Hilton; Sischy, Ingrid (2015). 700 Nimes Road. DelMonico Books, Prestel. ISBN 978-3-7913-5425-5.</ref>

References
  1. Hilton Als faculty page, Columbia University School of the Arts
  2. Hilton Als | The New Yorker
  3. "Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Hilton Als named Presidential Visiting Scholar at Princeton". Princeton University. Retrieved 2020-06-16.
  4. Trachtenberg, Peter, "I Am He As You Are He As You Are Me And We Are All Together", Los Angeles Review of Books, November 29, 2013.
  5. Als, Hilton (1996). The Women. United States of America: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 978-0374525293.
  6. Fusco, Coco (Winter 1997). "The Women". BOMB.
  7. Lee, Andrea (January 5, 1997). "Fatal Limitations". New York Times.
  8. Bernstein, Richard (January 1, 1997). "Feminine Mystique in the Eyes of an 'Auntie Man'". New York Times. Retrieved December 1, 2009.
  9. Crawford, Franklin (December 15, 2003), "Hilton Als, New Yorker critic, wins George Jean Nathan Award", Cornell Chronicle, archived from the original on June 18, 2009, retrieved September 3, 2014.
  10. "Hilton Als - Holtzbrinck Fellow, Class of Fall 2004". American Academy in Berlin. Retrieved March 10, 2012.
  11. "The 2017 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Criticism | Hilton Als of The New Yorker", The Pulitzer Prizes.
  12. "Forces in Nature: Curated by Hilton Als | 13 October - 14 November 2015", Victoria Miro Gallery II.
  13. "Alice Neel, Uptown", Victoria Miro.
  14. Adams, Tim, "Meet the neighbours: Alice Neel's Harlem portraits", The Observer, April 29, 2017.
  15. "Alice Neel, Uptown curated by Hilton Als, David Zwirner.
  16. Reach, Kirsten (January 14, 2014). "NBCC finalists announced". Melville House Publishing. Retrieved January 14, 2014.
  17. "Announcing the National Book Critics Awards Finalists for Publishing Year 2013". National Book Critics Circle. January 14, 2014. Retrieved January 14, 2014.
  18. "Hilton Als". Windham–Campbell Literature Prize. February 29, 2016. Retrieved March 2, 2016.
  19. "HILTON ALS WINS THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR CRITICISM". The New Yorker. April 10, 2017. Retrieved April 10, 2017.
  20. "News: The New Yorker is proud to announce a 2017 Pulitzer Prize for its writing". x.eml.condenast.com. April 14, 2017. Retrieved April 14, 2017.
  21. "Meet The New School's 2018 Honorary Degree Recipients". 2018-05-17.
  22. Catalog of an exhibition held at the Whitney Museum of American Art, November 10, 1994–March 5, 1995.
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