Who's Afraid Of Kathy Acker?

A multi-layered work featuring animation, archival footage and interviews with William S Burroughs, Carolee Schneemann and Richard Hell, Who's Afraid of Kathy Acker is a thoughtful and creative film biography/essay on the late outlaw writer and punk icon, whose inventive novels, published from the 70s through the mid-90s challenged assumptions about gender roles, sexuality and the literary canon. Judith Butler and a friend stroll through San Francisco's Mission District questioning our culture's fixation on individualism. And driving through Manhattan, Cornel West compares philosophy to jazz and blues, reminding us how intense and invigorating a life of the mind can be.