Where: Baker Hall (CMU) – Room 136A (4933 Frew St., Pittsburgh, PA)
When: 4/1/2014
RSVP at: http://www.meetup.com/Steel-City-Skeptics/events/172959542/
Sponsored by the CMU Humanist League/
The Science of Fiction
Jonathan Gottschall, Distinguished Research Fellow, Washington & Jefferson College, and author of THE STORYTELLING ANIMAL: HOW STORIES MAKE US HUMAN, a New York Times Editors’ Choice selection and a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize.
Abstract: Humans are the storytelling animal. We thrill to an astonishing multitude of fictions on pages, on stages, and on screens: murder stories, sex stories, war stories, conspiracy stories, true stories and false. We are, as a species, addicted to story. But the addiction runs deeper than we think. We can walk away from our books and our screens, but not from story. We dream, fantasize, and socialize in stories. Story infiltrates every aspect of how we live and think. Did you know that fiction enhances our empathy? Did you know that stories have brought on wars, inspired atrocities, and driven massive social change? Did you know that we all boldly fictionalize the stories of our own lives? In this talk, Jonathan Gottschall leads a whirligig tour of a new science of stories—why we shape them, and how they shape us.
This is a “non-hosted” event, meaning that there are no plans to meet before the talk or to sit together.
Pittsburgh, PA – USA
Tuesday, April 1 at 5:00 PM
Details: http://www.meetup.com/Steel-City-Skeptics/events/172959542/
