Chris Stedman's book IRL: Finding Realness, Meaning, and Belonging in Our Digital Lives is a captivating exploration of identity in the digital age. Interrogating the conventional distinctions between real and fake, online and offline, Stedman asks whether virtual spaces might offer new sites of experimentation and play and satisfy our longing for meaning and community. He explores a similar set of questions in his recent podcast series "Unread" (named one of the best podcasts of 2021 by Vulture), which revisits a friend's death and the cryptic digital breadcrumb trail that emerged in the aftermath. Stedman will be in conversation with the writer Meghan O'Gieblyn (author of God, Human, Animal, Machine) to discuss what it means to be authentic at a moment of virtual immersion and how digital technologies are both changing and affirming longstanding ideas about what it means to be human. Join us in person for this event on October 15, 2022 at 7:00pm.
Watershed Reading IRL
Chris Stedman is a Minneapolis-based writer, speaker, and professor. He is the author of IRL (2020) and Faitheist (2012), and his narrative podcast Unread was released in June 2021. Chris has also written for publications including The Guardian, The Atlantic, BuzzFeed, Pitchfork, VICE, The LA Review of Books, The Rumpus, Catapult, LitHub, and The Washington Post. He currently teaches in the Department of Religion and Philosophy at Augsburg University, where he also serves as the inaugural Interreligious Resource Development Coordinator. Previously the founding director of the Yale Humanist Community and a fellow at Yale University, Chris also served as a humanist chaplain at Harvard University. In 2018 Augsburg selected him for their annual First Decade Award, which recognizes alumni "who... Read More
Meghan O'Gieblyn is the author, most recently, of "Will and Attention." Her other books include "God Human Animal Machine" and the essay collection "Interior States." She is the recipient of three Pushcart Prizes and the 2023 Benjamin H. Danks award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She writes for The New Yorker, Harper's, Wired, The New York Review of Books, and other magazines, and her essays have been anthologized in The Best American Essays and The Contemporary American Essay.
PLAN YOUR VISIT
Arts + Literature Laboratory is located at 111 S. Livingston Street #100, Madison, Wisconsin, 53703.
Our galleries are open Tuesday through Friday 10am-5pm and Saturday noon to 5pm, and other programs take place throughout the week. Please check the events calendar and education section for details.