She is Nonfiction Editor at Chicago Review, and a PhD Student in English and Theater & Performance Studies at the University of Chicago.
She has written about BoJack Horseman, the social history of social distancing, the concept of quality of life, the German far-right's appropriation of an Orientalist painting, embodiment in Super Mario 64, a sulfur pile in Calumet, doorbells and memory, the Bauhaus, and other topics for publications including Cabinet, Avidly, Harvard Review, Jacket2, and Post45 Contemporaries.
One time she was interviewed by TIME magazine, which considers her "an expert."
Besides text, she works mostly in video, performance, and installation and sometimes in painting and printmaking. Her work has been featured at the Smart Museum of Art, the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, and VIDEO*FOREVER. She once designed a cover for the architecture magazine Bauwelt.
She is currently a Neubauer Distinguished Doctoral fellow, and previously graduated from Harvard University with highest honors in literature and studio art. Before Chicago, she lived in Berlin, where she researched hacktivism.
She can be reached at lily.scherlis [at] gmail.com.
"Beasts of No Nation: On the Poetics of Invasion and Marwa Helal" in Jacket2 (review essay about Helal's book of poems, Invasive Species)
"Home Alone With the NYT" at Avidly (on "At Home," the NYT's pandemic lifestyle advice section)
Review of Patricia Lockwood's No One Is Talking About This in Harvard Review
"Good, Likeable People Who Love Each Other" at Post45 Contemporaries (for a cluster on BoJack Horseman edited by Pamela Thurschwell and Jack Belloli)
"Distantiated Communities: A Social History of Social Distancing" in Cabinet Magazine kiosk
Review of Mika Rottenberg's Easypieces in Chicago Review
"Remedial Art History for the German Far-Right" in Cabinet Magazine kiosk (on Orientalist campaign aesthetics)
"Ringing in Your Ears" in Cabinet Magazine kiosk (on a Holocaust memorial made of doorbells)