Speaker Bio

Jules Feiffer has had a remarkable creative career turning contemporary urban anxiety into witty and revealing commentary for over fifty years. From his Village Voice editorial cartoons (see Explainers: The Complete Village Voice Strips, 1956-1966) to his plays and screenplays including Little Murders and Carnal Knowledge, Feiffer’s satirical outlook has helped define us politically, sexually, and socially.

The first cartoonist commissioned by The New York Times to create comic strips for their Op-Ed page, Feiffer has since shifted his focus towards writing and illustrating books for children and young adults including The Man in the Ceiling, A Room with a Zoo, and Bark, George!

He won a Pulitzer Prize and a George Polk Award for his cartoons; an Obie for his plays; an Academy Award for the animation of his cartoon satire, Munro; and Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Writers Guild of America and the National Cartoonist Society. Feiffer has taught at the Yale School of Drama, Northwestern University, Dartmouth, and presently at Stony Brook Southampton College. He has been honored with major retrospectives at the New York Historical Society, the Library of Congress, and The School of Visual Arts.

In these challenging political times, Feiffer’s presentations mix personal anecdotes, current events, and satirical commentary. His forthcoming memoir, Backing into Forward (March 2010), relates how persistent failure inspired him to reinvent himself as an artist over and over.