Faith Bennett

“Good” Teeth: American Dental Care and Classism

I used to hide my own teeth. It started in fourth grade during spring photos. When my big adult teeth were just coming in, I gave a toothy smile as I leaned on a white picnic table fragment in front of a backdrop of someone else’s nice country porch. My classmates snickered. My teeth were… Read more →

The Opioid Epidemic as Metaphor

I watched a lot of drug movies in high school. Maybe it was the clothes, the pulsing soundtracks, or how much I loved a voiceover. It also could have been the incredibly pretty people in these movies. Maybe it was because the Drug Movie as a format involves a type of fantastical world-building absent from… Read more →

Femininity and Legitimacy: Policing Women and “Witches” in Post-Apartheid South Africa

One night in the late spring of 2008, in the South African town of Mondlo, an assembly of neighbors brought 72-year-old Ntombikayise Zulu to tribal court. The neighbors suspected she wanted to kill them after they had killed her “familiar” — a squirrel who hunted chickens. Zulu, who tearfully claimed that she never practiced witchcraft,… Read more →