Carleton University’s Benjamin Woo, assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Communication, will discuss the real people in comic book shops, game stores and conventions behind the mass phenomenon of geek culture at an upcoming Author Meets Readers event.
Woo is the author of the recently published book Getting a Life: The Social Worlds of Geek Culture.
When: Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019 from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Where: Irene’s Pub, 885 Bank Street, Ottawa
Info: This event is free and open to the public.
Media are invited to attend the event.
Woo is the director of the Comic Cons Research Project and an expert on contemporary “geek” or “nerd” subculture. Getting a Life is his third book. Woo will be joined by Neil Gerlach, associate professor in the Department of Sociology and program director for the Bachelor of Global and International Studies at Carleton, and Kim Hoang, a Montreal-based cartoonist, game designer and facilitator.
Getting a Life: The Social Worlds of Geek Culture considers the real people who have invested time and resources to make geek culture what it is. Drawing on fieldwork in comic book shops, game stores and conventions, and interviews with participants in these subcultures, Woo shows how geek culture is a set of interconnected social practices associated with popular media. He argues that depictions of mass-mediated entertainment as something that isolates its audiences are flawed because they do not account for the conversations, relationships, communities, and identities that are created.
About Author Meets Readers
Author Meets Readers invites Carleton students, faculty and the community to join an informal discussion on new books published by members of the Faculty of Public Affairs.
The schedule of Author Meets Readers events for the Winter 2019 term is available online.
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Thursday, January 17, 2019 in Media Advisories
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