Lectures on Tap - "Before the Avengers there was Seven Samurai"

📍 Location: Exact address given in confirmation email

🧠 Lecture: "Before the Avengers there was Seven Samurai"

🎤 Speaker: Dr. Jason Abbott

Every team-up blockbuster—from The Avengers to Guardians of the Galaxy—owes a debt to Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai: assemble a mismatched group of warriors, give them an impossible mission, and watch them become a team. But Kurosawa did something superhero movies still struggle to do, even when they K*ll off their heroes: he imagined a victory that made those heroes unnecessary.

As Avengers: Doomsday brings another enormous cast of characters together, this talk asks whether Marvel can finally follow Kurosawa all the way to the ending—and what that would mean for how we think about heroes, sacrifice, and community.

In his day job, Dr. Jason Abbott is a Professor of Political Science at Montclair State University, where he teaches and writes about politics and international relations in East Asia. Outside the classroom, he gives talks on the politics, history, and ideas hiding inside pop culture, from Godzilla to Studio Ghibli to the film that taught Hollywood how to assemble a team seventy years before the Avengers did.

Get a drink, connect, and learn at Lectures on Tap! 🙌

Agenda

6:30 PM – Doors open: find a seat (open seating!), order food & drinks, and expect a bar line—arriving early is key.

6:55 PM – Host introduction

7:00 PM – Lecture begins

7:45 PM – Audience Q&A

8:00 PM – Have 1:1 time with the speaker, mingle with fellow guests, and order another round

8:30 PM – Wrap up.