ThinkOlio Fridays: Inside the Entertainment-Industrial Complex
Each Friday Think Olio presents an in-depth discussion on a topic of current socio-political significance here at Strand. On January 20, 2017 we explored Inside the Entertainment-Industrial Complex: How Guilty Pleasures Take the Edge Off Reality with Dr. J Ward Regan. Keep your mind engaged with this study guide including reading materials and video from this one of many classes.
About the Class
Eisenhower cautioned us against the military one; if only Orson Welles had warned us about the vastly more insidious assemblage, the Entertainment-Industrial Complex. Reality has become much less real (and less important) in contemporary American society. America is a country that came of age with Industrialization and was accompanied by the creation of a mass media public sphere. More often than is desirable, people’s favorite binge show is more important to them than what goes on in the real world. How does this retreat into a fantasy world evidence itself in our real world politics today? Let’s talk about how fantasy has bled into reality and try to understand what it means for the future of our country.
Dr. J. Ward Regan has a Ph.D. in Labor and Cultural History from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He teaches history and philosophy at New York University Liberal Studies and Global Liberal Studies Program. He wrote and widely performed his own show, A Paranoid’s Guide to History.
Reading List
The Information Bomb, Paul Virilio
Manufacturing Consent, Edward Herman, Noam Chomsky
The Society of the Spectacle, Guy Debord
The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, Gustave Lebon
Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman
Simulacra and Simulation, Jean Baudrillard
Watch the lecture here and don’t miss the next class! ThinkOlio will take over the Strand Rare Book Room every Friday! Go here to see a full list of upcoming topics.
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