Wendy S. Walters

Wendy S. Walters (Associate Professor of Writing and Director of Non-Fiction) is a Creative Capital Awardee in literary nonfiction and the author of three books.  Her current projects address intersections between writing and design. climate change and its reverberations, class and racial disquietude in the industrial Midwest, and organic forms in the essay. A recipient of fellowships from NYFA, the Ford Foundation, and the Smithsonian Institute, she has a broad history of engagements with writing in and about performative contexts. In a sustained collaboration with Elyse Nelson, Walters co-curated the exhibition, Fictions of Emancipation: Carpeaux Recast, at The Met, on view from March 10, 2022 to March 5, 2023. It was the first exhibition at The Met to examine Western sculpture in relation to the histories of transatlantic slavery, colonialism, and empire. They have edited a collection of essays as a companion to the show, titled Fictions of Emancipation: Reconsidering Carpeaux’s Why Born Enslaved! (The Met/Yale University Press).