Details + RSVP Here!
We attended a Profs & Pints event last month and it was fascinating!
Can't wait to hear what we learn this time!
TICKETS:
If you're interested in attending, I suggest you get your ticket now!
I've already purchased mine.
Advance tickets: $14.77 total. Available at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profsandpints/free-speech ]
ABOUT Profs & Pints:
Do you love to learn? Would you enjoy hearing scholars discuss fascinating topics in a setting where you can ask questions and be around people who share your interests? Profs and Pints is here for you!
Profs and Pints brings college faculty members into bars, cafés, company offices, and other off-campus venues to share their knowledge. They speak on subjects of broad interest, including local history, their region’s environment, emerging trends in business or politics, and the ideas and innovations transforming our society and culture. In addition, Profs and Pints instructors offer practical instruction that improves lives. They can teach skills such as how to write persuasively, plant a garden, tend to mind and body, or plan for retirement. Profs and Pints offers you all of this without asking that
you apply for admission, pay steep tuition, or worry about quizzes or grades. At most, you might need to buy a modestly priced ticket to get in the door. Depending on where the event is staged, you may be able to order tasty beers, delicious meals, or hot espresso to go with all of
that knowledge you’ll take in. You won’t earn college credits but you’ll leave knowing more. Learning with Profs and Pints: It’s a bright idea.
ABOUT the talk:
Doors open at 6 pm. Talk starts at 7.
Profs and Pints Nashville presents: “It’s a Conspiracy!” an exploration of how conspiracy theories came to pervade what we see and hear, with Robert Spinelli, Archivist for Special Collections at Middle Tennessee State University, professor at American Baptist College, and author of the new book The Lizard People Don't Want You to Read This: Essays on Conspiracy Theory in Popular Culture.
Whether in text, in films, or on the internet, conspiratorial ideologies have become nearly unavoidable, with many social media influencers, celebrities, and powerful political figures alleging that dark forces are at work.
How did it come to be this way? Having poked around for an answer, Mr. Spinelli believes the responsibility lies in a vast web of figures that includes Mulder and Scully of The X Files and may lead all the way to Superman.
On June 11th he’ll blow the whistle on how potentially dangerous conspiracy theories came to be normalized in American popular culture to the point when it was only a matter of time before they infiltrated serious public debate.
He’ll discuss how conspiracy theories attract wide audiences by mirroring the narrative structures found throughout literature and mythology. We’ll look at how popular culture typically portrays conspiracy theorists as characters to be laughed at and dismissed, or as antiheroes, or as anti-establishment figures with authority stemming from their status as challengers to the norm.
Mr. Spinelli will revisit how The X-Files portrayed conspiracy theorists as truth seekers and holders of secret knowledge and how old Superman comics took on the Ku Klux Klan. He’ll explore how novels such as The Da Vinci Code tap into the cultural fascination with the shadowy plots, secret cabals, complex symbolism, and narrative revelations that historically underly American conspiracism.
We’ll discuss how and where to draw the line between conspiracy theories that are harmless entertainment and conspiracy theories that are potentially dangerous political lies. You’ll learn how media literacy efforts can possibly contend with the multitude of formats in which conspiratorial ideas are dispersed.