Emily Nussbaum

Emily Nussbaum is an American television critic, essayist, and editor renowned for her influential and incisive cultural criticism. She has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 2011, where her work has profoundly shaped the discourse around television as a serious artistic medium. Nussbaum won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 2016 for her vibrant and authoritative reviews, becoming the first television critic to receive the award. Her acclaimed essay collection, I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution, consolidates her key writings on the evolution and cultural impact of the medium.

Early life and education

Emily Nussbaum was born in New York City and grew up on the Upper West Side. She developed an early passion for storytelling through voracious reading and an engagement with popular culture, including television and film. She attended Oberlin College, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature. Following her undergraduate studies, she pursued a Master of Arts in poetry from New York University, where she studied under noted poets and honed her analytical and compositional skills. During this period, she also began writing for various publications, including The Village Voice and Lingua Franca, initially focusing on topics like feminism and internet culture.

Career

Nussbaum's professional criticism career began in earnest at New York magazine, where she served as the television critic and a culture editor. In 2011, she joined The New Yorker as its television critic, a position that established her as a leading voice in the field. Her tenure at the magazine coincided with the rise of premium cable networks and the advent of streaming services like Netflix and Hulu, which she chronicled and analyzed with great acuity. Prior to her criticism work, she held editorial roles at Lingua Franca and was a co-founder of the feminist website Mighty God King. Nussbaum has also taught writing and criticism at Princeton University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Writing style and critical approach

Nussbaum's criticism is characterized by its intellectual rigor, deep empathy, and rejection of simplistic high-low cultural hierarchies. She champions television as a complex narrative art form, applying a literary critic's sensibility to series like The Sopranos, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and The Good Wife. Her work often explores themes of feminism, moral ambiguity, fandom, and the structural innovations of serialized storytelling. She is known for coining influential critical concepts, such as the "Great Man" theory of television history, which she challenged by highlighting the contributions of female showrunners like Shonda Rhimes and Jenji Kohan. Her prose is both accessible and erudite, weaving personal reflection with sharp analysis of auteurist vision and audience reception.

Awards and recognition

In 2016, Emily Nussbaum was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism for a body of work that judges described as "television reviews written with an affection that never blunts the shrewdness of her analysis." She has received the National Magazine Award for Columns and Commentary and the George Polk Award for Criticism. Her essay collection, I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution, was published in 2019 to widespread critical acclaim and was named a notable book of the year by The New York Times. She has been a finalist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay and is a frequent guest on programs like Fresh Air and The Treatment.

Personal life

Emily Nussbaum is married to Klaus Biesenbach, a German-born curator and museum director who has held leadership positions at the Museum of Modern Art and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The couple resides in New York City. She is known to be an avid participant in and observer of internet culture and social media, often engaging with readers and fellow critics on platforms like Twitter. Her personal interests and experiences frequently inform her critical perspective, adding a relatable dimension to her analysis of television's role in contemporary life.

Category:American television critics Category:Pulitzer Prize winners Category:The New Yorker staff Category:1966 births Category:Living people Category:Writers from New York City Category:Oberlin College alumni Category:New York University alumni