The Graduate Center
The City University of New York

Welcome to the Leon Levy Center for Biography at the CUNY Graduate Center. Established by a gift from the Leon Levy Foundation, the Leon Levy Center for Biography aims to identify, support and present excellence and innovation in biography.

Envisioned as a hub for writers, scholars, students and readers of the genre, the Leon Levy Center for Biography seeks to build connections between independent and university-affiliated biographers working in print, film, visual arts and new media across academic disciplines. Through public programs, an annual conference and lecture we endeavor to raise the profile of biography within the academy and cultivate lively interdisciplinary discussion about biography in our time.

Apply for 2009-2010 Biography Fellowships
Applications for 2009-2010 Biography Fellowships
are now available.
Apply Here »



Featured Fellow - James Davis

James Davis
Biography Fellow
James Davis is an Associate Professor of English at Brooklyn College, CUNY, where he also teaches in the American Studies program. He received his B.A. from Oberlin College and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Indiana University. His publications include essays on Henry James and Ida B. Wells and a book about the intersection of race and emergent U.S. consumer culture entitled Commerce in Color (University of Michigan Press, 2007).
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Featured Fellow - Thulani Davis

Thulani Davis
Biography Fellow
Thulani Davis is a journalist, playwright, and author of several books. Her most recent book, My Confederate Kinfolk, explores her black and white ancestors' lives around the time of the Civil War. Her other works include two novels, 1959 and Maker of Saints, several plays and the scripts for the films Paid in Full and Maker of Saints.
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Featured Fellow - Molly Peacock

Molly Peacock
Biography Fellow
Molly Peacock has published six volumes of poetry, including The Second Blush and Cornucopia: New and Selected Poems, and a memoir, Paradise Piece by Piece, and is the writer/actor of a one-woman show in poems, "The Shimmering Verge." Her poems are widely anthologized, appearing in The Best of the Best American Poetry and The Oxford Book of American Poetry.
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Featured Fellow - Mary Anne Weaver

Mary Anne Weaver
Biography Fellow
Mary Anne Weaver, author of Pakistan: In the Shadow of Jihad and Afghanistan and A Portrait of Egypt: A Journey Through the World of Militant Islam, was at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in 2007. She was the Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a Guggenheim Fellow for 2004-2005.
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Featured Incoming Fellow - Wendy Lesser

Wendy Lesser
Incoming Biography Fellow 2009-2010
Wendy Lesser is the founding editor of The Threepenny Review and is the author of eight books, including one novel, The Pagoda in the Garden, and seven works of nonfiction, the most recent of which is Room for Doubt. Besides writing for Threepenny about dance, music, theater, and other cultural subjects, she occasionally reviews books for Bookforum, The New York Times Book Review, and other publications.
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Featured Incoming Fellow - Mary Lisa Gavenas

Mary Lisa Gavenas
Incoming Biography Fellow 2009-2010
Mary Lisa Gavenas was a columnist at ELLE and served as senior editor at Glamour, In Style, and Mirabella; she writes for the academic and popular press. Following publication of Color Stories: Behind the Scenes in America's Billion-Dollar Beauty Industry, she became a consultant on the beauty industry.
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Featured Incoming Fellow - John Matteson

John Matteson
Incoming Biography Fellow 2009-2010
John Matteson is an Associate Professor of English at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY. His scholarship in 19th-century American literature includes articles published in Leviathan, Streams of William James, and The New England Quarterly. His first book, Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father, was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Biography.
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Featured Incoming Fellow - Vanda Krefft

Vanda Krefft
Incoming Biography Fellow 2009-2010
Vanda Krefft's articles on the entertainment industry and social issues have been published in magazines and newspapers, including ELLE, Redbook, Woman's Day, and the Los Angeles Times. She is currently at work on her first book, a biography of Twentieth Century Fox founder William Fox, to be published by HarperCollins.
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