In these strange, contentious times, McRaney takes us through how writing a book about the science of why it’s so hard to change people’s minds changed his own mind about how minds change. In this talk you will not only learn about what works when it comes to persuading people to accept new policies, new courses of action, and new ideas that challenge previous conventions, but why it is so hard to change people’s minds about how to change minds. Also, you’ll learn why some people saw that photo of a dress as black and blue and others as white and gold (and why that answers a whole lot of questions about how discourse can seem impossibly polarized). 

David McRaney is a science journalist fascinated with brains, minds, and culture. He created the podcast You Are Not So Smart based on his internationally bestselling book of the same name and its follow-up, You Are Now Less Dumb. Before that, he cut his teeth as a newspaper reporter in Mississippi covering Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast and in the Pine Belt region. Later, he covered things like who tests rockets for NASA, what it is like to run a halfway home for homeless people who are HIV-positive, and how a family sent their kids to college by making and selling knives. Since then, he has been an editor, photographer, voiceover artist, television host, journalism teacher, lecturer, and tornado survivor. Most recently, after finishing his latest book, he wrote, “I produced, and recorded a six-hour audio documentary exploring the history of the idea and the word genius,” which is the topic of his next book.

This event is a partnership with the University of Mississippi Department of Writing and Rhetoric and the Department of Philosophy and Religion.

SouthTalks is a series of events, including lectures, performances, film screenings and panel discussions, that explores the interdisciplinary nature of Southern Studies. This series is free and open to the public. Unless otherwise noted, events are set for Barnard Observatory’s Tupelo Room.