Faculty Fellow

Clinical Professor, Liberal Studies

American Kosmos: The LIves, Loves, and Worlds of Walt Whitman

A dedicated and passionate educator, Karen Karbiener has taught in NYU’s Liberal Studies program since 2003 and received the university-wide Distinguished Teaching Award in 2024.  As a public scholar and cultural activist, she has published, presented, curated exhibitions, and developed public-facing initiatives inspired by the life and writings of Walt Whitman.  Her current project, American Kosmos: The Lives, Loves, and Worlds of Walt Whitman (Mariner/HarperCollins, 2028), is the first biography of the poet in more than a quarter of a century and has been supported by a NEH Public Scholars grant, a New York Historical fellowship, a Kluge Fellowship at the Library of Congress, and an NYU Center for the Humanities Fellowship.