Arts + Letters

Hear Her Roar: Ecofeminist Author Susan Griffin Isn’t Going Away

Feminism has come roaring back, from the recent popular vote to pussy hats and other forms of protest. And so have its opponents. Whether happenstance or part of the Zeitgeist, Counterpoint Press last fall reissued a feminist classic, Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her. Written by Susan Griffin and originally published in 1978, the book traces the fallout from Western culture’s artificial division between spirit and matter.

Posted on March 28, 2017 - 5:02pm

Shane Bauer Puts the Teeth Back Into Undercover Reporting

Seven hours before Shane Bauer was to start his 6 a.m. shift at the Winn Correctional Center in Winnfield, Louisiana, his wife shook him awake. “Something’s wrong,” she said. His colleague from the magazine Mother Jones, James West, hadn’t returned from shooting nighttime footage of the private prison where Bauer worked. Had officials there discovered that Bauer wasn’t just a regular guard, but an investigative reporter from San Francisco?

From the Spring 2017 Virtue and Vice issue of California.

Finding His Tribe: The Art of Charles Gatewood

I couldn’t decide what made me feel dirtier—looking at hundreds of pictures of naked girls, or rifling through the personal belongings of a man I’d never met. But I was doing both one evening in the Bancroft Library reading room, traversing the late photographer Charles Gatewood’s massive archive chronicling the kink, tattoo, and body modification subcultures of America and especially the West Coast.

From the Spring 2017 Virtue and Vice issue of California.

Lemony Snicket is Helping Cal Build the Audience of the Future

Last week Daniel Handler, better known as Lemony Snicket, author of the children’s novels A Series of Unfortunate Events, now a Netflix series that was largely written in Handler’s San Francisco dining room, lead an eclectic assortment of guests—singer/songwriter Thao Nguyen, record producer John Vanderslice, perfumer Yosh Han, poet Matthew Zapruder, and, in a powerful closing discussion, Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood—through an evening of music and conversation.

Posted on March 1, 2017 - 12:11pm

WATCH: Documenting Standing Rock

The deadline on Wednesday for activists protesting the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline to leave their encampment on the banks of the Missouri river follows months of contentiousness. Journalists covering the Standing Rock resistance—which at one point drew around 14,000 people—have faced myriad challenges.

Posted on February 22, 2017 - 4:00pm

Exploring the Quirky in Berkeley

For Tom Dalzell, a small scratch on the elbow in 2011 prompted a whirlwind of events, one that would take him on a sinuous journey through nearly every street of Berkeley.

The author and labor law activist found his life teetering in the balance after a minor wound became mortally septic. Days later, Dalzell exited the hospital with a reinvigoration for life itself. “I came out very determined to live life very differently,” he says. “One of things I chose to do, as a manifestation of my appreciation of Berkeley, was to walk every block of every street.”

Posted on February 9, 2017 - 3:29pm

“Separating Fact from Fantasy” Panel Takes on Fake News

Those gathered at UC Berkeley on a recent Thursday night for a panel on fake news were primarily concerned with debating the scope and responsibility of Silicon Valley’s tech giants for disseminating false information leading up to the presidential election. No one on the panel could have predicted the unprecedented shift the conversation would take around the issue of fake news just a few days later.

Posted on February 1, 2017 - 11:16am

Cal Alumni Get Oscar Noms

This morning, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released its list of 2017 Oscar nominees via video live stream, with Cal alumni dominating the documentary short category. Berkeley J-School lecturer Dan Krauss’s Extremis, which explores the ethically murky territory of end-of-life decision making, and alumna Daphne Matziaraki’s 4.1 Miles, about a captain suddenly charged with saving the lives of thousands of drowning refugees, are competing against one another; Krauss was once Matziaraki’s instructor and advisor.

Posted on January 24, 2017 - 1:56pm

The Oscar-Shortlisted Doc That Puts You on a Sinking Boat

In Daphne Matziaraki’s documentary short, 4.1 Miles, she several times breaks the fourth wall, as her arm stretches out in front of the camera’s view, to grasp an outstretched hand or a rope. These instances are not born simply out of artistic choice, but rather grave necessity, as life and death bob against the ocean currents surrounding the Greek island of Lesbos.

Posted on January 23, 2017 - 12:28pm

Through the Lens of Hope: Obama’s Videographer Debriefs

Most of the people who follow the President of the United States wherever he goes are there to protect his life. But Hope Hall has a different job: to document it.

For the last six years, she’s been Barack Obama’s presidential videographer (think of her as the national fly on the wall). She doesn’t shoot videos for the official record; that’s the job of the White House Communications Agency, which documents every public event in which the President participates. Her assignment is to film the President in his more informal moments.

Posted on January 18, 2017 - 12:56pm

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