Franke Visiting Fellows

The Franke Visiting Fellows Program, made possible by the generosity of Richard and Barbara Franke, allows the WHC to host one fellow each year. Since 2005, the program has supported an eclectic range of visiting fellows; the residency offers time to nurture creative processes and provides opportunities for informal collaboration across the University. Fellows set their own agendas while also participating in cross-disciplinary conversations with a collective of humanities scholars at the weekly WHC Fellows Forum. During their residency, Franke Visiting Fellows deliver a lecture or presentation about their works-in-progress; these events are free and open to the public.

Please note there is no application process—Franke Visiting Fellows are selected and invited by the director of the WHC.

Spring 2026 Fellow

Julian Lucas's picture

Julian Lucas is a staff writer at The New Yorker, an editor at The Dial, and an editor-at-large at Cabinet. His writing focuses on literature and the arts, and particularly the representation of history across media. He was a contributing writer at the The New York Times Book Review, and his work has appeared in Harper’s, Vanity Fair, and The New York Review of Books, among other publications.

He is working on a book, “Death Drive,” about death and the digital, from the representation of mortality in video games to the rise of “grief tech” and the archival challenges posed by life online. It will combine criticism, reportage, and memoir.