On November 19, 2014, Rolling Stone magazine dropped a bombshell called “A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA.” Written by Sabrina Rubin Erdely, the article alleged that a UVA student named Jackie was gang raped at a party by members of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity in 2012, and […]
High spirits: A scientist and inventor perfects the art and craft of distilling
Robin Felder sees connections. For instance, when he installed the 250-gallon solid copper still at his and his wife Mary’s hilltop home near North Garden, he knew that the high-tech machine would need a considerable water source to cool and condense the evaporated alcohol into the final, drinkable product. The swimming pool, sunk subtly into […]
Pushing for play: The local mom behind an effort to bring a playground to Walker Elementary
By Alexis Gravely Christa Bennett is no stranger to community advocacy. After earning a master’s degree from King’s College London in international relations with a focus on human rights, she directed an organization focused on ending the genocide in Sudan. She’s worked on community development projects in Rwanda and lobbied the British Parliament. Since moving […]
Training ground: Maria Varela captures a life of activism in ‘Time to Get Ready: fotografía social’ at The Fralin
By Ramona Martinez In “Time to Get Ready: fotografía social,” a National Museum of Mexican Art exhibit on view at The Fralin Museum of Art, you will find all the classic elements one expects in a “good” photography show. Maria Varela’s photographs are compositionally sophisticated and emotionally intimate. They are candids, yet they look like […]
Changing the game: Esports come to middle school
Amy Brudin has always been a gamer. She grew up playing games like Myst and Doom, back when computers were “way less cool than they are now.” And today, she loves playing games on her phone. So when Brudin, director of educational technology at the Peabody School, first learned about esports—the world of team-based competitive […]
Literary guidance: Musician Chris Campanelli communes with poetic greats in new song cycle
While rehearsing songs for this Saturday’s show at New Dominion Bookshop, Chris Campanelli’s been thinking about his audience. But he says he hasn’t envisioned playing for the people who might fill the seats, or the passersby who may wander in from the December evening chill. He’s been thinking instead about performing for the books, for […]
Scattered history: The city’s 74 historic properties piece together our past
The city of Charlottesville wasn’t incorporated until 1888, but people are recorded as living in the region as far back as 1612, when English explorer John Smith encountered a Monacan village and documented it on the very first map of Virginia. The Native Americans gradually left as European immigrants moved in, relying on the Three […]