As everyone now knows, since 2021, Republican legislators in several dozen states have banned or attempted to ban consideration of so-called “divisive concepts” regarding race and gender within public university classrooms. Foes of what Pen America rightly labels...
War. Genocide. Pandemics. Heat. Famine. Racism. Misogyny. Hunger. Violence. There are so many ways for mortal beings to die, especially the most vulnerable, and too often these deaths are state sponsored, sped by capitalism, and/or preventable. We — humans and...
I started writing this the day “Barbie” was opening in the theatres. I had not seen it yet, because I am writing less about the film and more about the cultural and political moment we inhabit as it opens. I went as soon as I finished an early draft, exactly one week...
Stalking is a social and public health emergency. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court’s ruling in Counterman v. Colorado makes things easier for abusers and harder for victims. A form of gender-based violence, stalking affects more than 13 million people annually in the...
This Is a Catastrophe. I am finishing the writing of this piece shortly after the July 4 holiday. This is significant — to wonder who this country is now, and before. I began writing it while riding the bus into NYC from Ithaca, NY, on Friday, June 30, while the last...
These days, most of us are torn between eco-terror of the future and a persistent hope that what seems inevitable can somehow be redirected (earlier eras have often seen the world coming to an end). It’s hardly surprising that inventive filmmakers are finding new ways...
The Pandemic is Not Over Four days before the 2022 State of the Union address, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (the CDC) made a change to the risk-prevention pandemic map of the United States that changed the color of the map from red to green....
I was punched in the gut. It hurt. I thought this would be the seminar session to bring all the theories and histories of documentary across analog and digital together with a big political and epistemological impact. But I should have summoned my semiotic training to...
The Andy Warhol Foundation has lost its suit against photographer Lynn Goldsmith. The Supreme Court’s May 18, 2023, ruling positioned the decision as a defense of lesser known artists against famous ones. The majority argued that Fair Use was not applicable when...
Natalia Almada’s documentary essay film “Users” (2021) questions a mother’s deep ambivalence about technology. But the film’s aesthetics makes clear that she has already chosen technology. The film is the binational Mexican American director’s first shot in the United...
