Ehren Tool is the ceramics studio manager in the Department of Art Practice at UC Berkeley and a veteran of the 1991 Gulf War. In his off-time, he makes brutal-looking clay cups to start conversations about war. Since 2001, he has made and given away more than 21,000 of them. Here he is — in his own words — talking about his cups.

Listen to the episode, read the transcript and see photos on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/11/10/cups-for-conversations-about-war/

This audio is from a video about Tool that was published with a feature story on UC Berkeley News in February 2020.

Photo by Brittany Hosea-Small

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In 2018, China enacted a policy that effectively banned the import of most plastics and other materials. "That really, I think, was the Chinese government drawing a line in the sand and saying, 'Look, we don’t want to be seen as the world’s garbage dump anymore,'" said Kate O'Neill, a professor in UC Berkeley's Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management and author of the 2019 book Waste. The United States, which had been shipping some 700,000 tons of recyclable waste to China each year, faced a crisis. Since then, communities across the U.S. have curtailed collections or put an end to their recycling programs altogether. Waste has been piling up, leaving many wondering: What now? At UC Berkeley, the Cal Zero Waste team has been hard at work answering this question. "We’re really talking about not just recycling, but reducing, reusing and composting," said Lin King, manager of Cal Zero Waste. "Really, it comes down to what you purchase and that mentality of how you get to zero waste."

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/10/29/waste/

NurPhoto photo by Mamunur Rashid via AP

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The labor economist and UC Berkeley professor of economics, who won the 2021 Nobel Prize in economics, talks about why his research on the economics of the minimum wage, immigration and education was so controversial — and how it continues to be today.

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/10/15/berkeley-voices-nobel-prize-economics-david-card

UC Berkeley photo by Keegan Houser

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In January 2015, 15-year-old Mariana Soto Sanchez woke up one Saturday morning at her home in Ontario, California, with weakness in her hand. Within minutes, the feeling had spread throughout her body. Her parents rushed her to the hospital. By the time they got there, she had total paralysis. Later that night, they found out she had a rare disorder called transverse myelitis. From that point on, Mariana had to adjust to an entirely new way of living. Six years later, Mariana has regained some mobility and will graduate from UC Berkeley this December with a degree in media studies and a minor in journalism. She says she continues to learn how to advocate for herself in a world that isn’t built for her. “I felt like I would place limitations on myself,” says Mariana. “But it’s really just limitations imposed by society that prevent me from achieving what I want to achieve.” And she has done things she never thought she could — including going to her first Cal football game, a dream she had since she first came to Berkeley in 2018.

Listen to the episode, read the transcript and see photos on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/10/01/berkeley-voices-podcast-mariana-soto-sanchez-disability

UC Berkeley photo by Neil Freese

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Growing up in a Mexican household in San Diego, California, Berkeley student Alexa Carrillo Espinoza says there was always dancing in her home. She'd always wanted to try ballet folklórico, a traditional Mexican dance, but never had the chance. So, when she saw Ballet Folklórico Reflejos de Mexico tabling on Sproul Plaza as a first-year student in 2019, she signed up right away. "As I dance, I have this overwhelming sense of pride," she says.

Listen to the episode, see photos and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/09/17/berkeley-voices-ballet-folklorico/

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Third-year UC Berkeley student Maryam Karimi was born in Afghanistan in September 2001. A month later, the United States invaded Afghanistan following the Sept. 11 attacks. The Taliban was ousted from power, but everyday violence remained. Her family applied for asylum and eventually settled in Fremont, California, when Maryam was 12. Now, she and her family watch as the Taliban once again takes control of their home country. But Maryam knows that Afghans — especially her generation — won't give up. “The fire of revolution and freedom is lit in their hearts. And with a little breeze, it's going to burn brighter than ever before," she said.

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/09/03/maryam-karimi-afghanistan/

Photo by Brittany Hosea-Small

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Berkeley News writer Kara Manke discusses a new report from UC Berkeley that shows how allowing lightning fires to burn in Yosemite’s Illilouette Creek Basin recreated a lost — and more resilient — forest ecosystem.

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/08/20/berkeley-voices-wildfire

Photo by Emily Gonthier

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In this interview, Savala Nolan, executive director of Berkeley's social justice center, talks about the "deeply corporeal nature" of her new memoir, Don't Let It Get You Down. "The body is where it all happens," she says. "It's where we experience life. It’s where we experience the world — the joys and the frictions. It’s where we experience the categories and the divisions in the world. They’re very often about our bodies and how other people see our bodies. And so, I think that our bodies become, over time, the site of so much knowledge and epiphany and humor and insight and also lies — we all probably believe lies about our bodies."

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/08/06/berkeley-voices-podcast-savala-nolan-new-book

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Over the summer, we have been revisiting some of our favorite episodes. In this episode, from 2018, then-Ph.D. candidate Sonia Travaglini talks about how we could use fungi, of which there are more than 5 million species, to mitigate a wide range of environmental and social crises — just by letting them eat our waste.

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/07/23/podcast-mushrooms-revisiting/

UC Berkeley photo by Elena Zhukova

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While Fiat Vox is on summer break, we have been revisiting some of our favorite episodes. Today’s episode, originally released in April 2019, is a conversation between UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ and Professor Emerita Carol Clover about what it was like for women in the academy 50 years ago and how it has changed. They also discuss what it takes to be a strong leader and offer advice to the next generation of Berkeley women.

See photos and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/07/09/podcast-carol-christ-on-women-in-the-academy-revisiting

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