Cara Judea Alhadeff
Dr. Cara Judea Alhadeff, Professor of Transdisciplinary Ecological Leadership, has published dozens of interdisciplinary books and articles on critical philosophy, climate justice, art, epigenetics, gender, sexuality, and ethnic studies, including the critically-acclaimed Zazu Dreams: Between the Scarab and the Dung Beetle, A Cautionary Fable for the Anthropocene Era and Viscous Expectations: Justice, Vulnerability, The Ob-scene. Alhadeff’s theoretical and visual work is the subject of documentaries for international films and public television. She has been interviewed by The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Pacifica Radio, NPR, and the New Art Examiner. Alongside Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Vandana Shiva, Alhadeff received the Random Kindness Community Resilience Leadership Award, 2020. Her work has been endorsed by Noam Chomsky, Bill McKibben, James E. Hansen, Eve Ensler, Avital Ronell, David Orr, Alphonso Lingus, Lucy Lippard, SHKG Humpty Hump, Henry Giroux, Paul Hawken, among other activists, scholars, and artists. In 2022, Alhadeff was nominated for a MacArthur Fellowship.
Alhadeff’s photographs/performance-videos have been defended by Freedom-of-Speech organizations (Electronic Freedom Foundation, artsave/People for the AmericanWay, and the ACLU), and are in private and public collections including and San Francisco MoMA, MoMA Salzburg, Austria, the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and reproduction, and include collaborations with international choreographers, composers, poets, sculptors, architects, scientists. Her art-based and pedagogical practices, parenting, and commitment to solidarity economics and lived social-ecological ethics are intimately bound. Former professor of Philosophy, Performance, and Pedagogy at UC Santa Cruz and Program Director for Jews Of The Earth, Alhadeff and her family live in their eco-art installation repurposed schoolbus where they perform and teach creative-zero-waste living, social permaculture, and cultural diversity. She is always eager to collaborate with other activists, scholars, and artists from other disciplines.
861: Cara Judea Alhadeff, part 1: Actually acting, the joys we feel, and the friction we face
A mutual friend introduced Cara and me. He knew we both were doing our best to live by our values in avoiding hurting others through pollution and depletion.
On the face of it, our living situations look different. Her family converted a bus into a home. I disconnected my apartment from the electric grid. We share plenty more in the conversation.
Our motivations are similar, which it didn’t take us long to bond over. We also face similar misunderstanding and friction from society, especially people who purport to share our values of not hurting people (or wildlife) without consent. Also, people confuse themselves into thinking that because we do what we do, we don’t do anything else.
More importantly, we also discovered similar joys, rewards, and ways to keep acting.
In this conversation, we talk about the joys and challenges of living by our values in a culture that claims to share those values but often rewards behavior that violates them. I don’t get to talk to many people with similar situations so it was very refreshing. Feeling understood feels great. I hope you pick up on it.
I hope you’ll join us too.