
Lady Bird and the Buffered Self
“Do I look like I’m from Sacramento?” “You are from Sacramento.” Greta Gerwig’s 2018 film Lady Bird explores the relationship between identity, freedom, and givenness with painstaking attention to mundane details. An homage to her hometown of Sacramento, California, the...

J. Cole’s “For Your Eyez Only” Gives Hope for Change Beyond Elections
In my lessons on Christianity and social justice, I always feature clips from J. Cole’s 2017 HBO documentary For Your Eyez Only. The film, directed by Cole and Scott Lazer, features interviews with residents of small black cities throughout the...

Getting Back to Our Bodies: Feminism, Ontology, and Metaphysics
The onslaught of comments following J.K. Rowling’s critique of gender theory demonstrates an ever-growing confusion toward sexual difference and the concept of personhood more generally. “If sex isn’t real,” she tweeted, “the lived reality of women globally is erased. I...