Lectures on Tap - "The Bright and Dark Side of Jealousy and Envy"

📍 Location: Exact address given in confirmation email

🧠 Lecture: "The Bright and Dark Side of Jealousy and Envy"

🎤 Speaker: Dr. Megan Dowd

Jealousy and envy get a bad reputation—but what if they’re not the villains we think they are? In this talk, Dr. Megan Dowd unpacks the “green-eyed monsters” that haunt our closest relationships, exploring how these emotions can both protect and poison our connections.

Drawing from research on the dark side of close relationships, she’ll examine why jealousy can signal commitment, how envy reshapes identity and desire, and when these forces spiral into control, suspicion, and conflict. If you’ve ever compared, worried, checked, or spiraled—this one’s for you.

Dr. Megan Dowd is a communication scholar who studies how people manage relationships through communication. She earned her PhD in Communication Studies and spent over a decade as a college professor teaching Interpersonal Communication, The Dark Side of Communication, and Family Communication at Hamilton College, the University of Rhode Island, and Ohio University. Her research focuses on secrecy, deception, jealousy, and infidelity, and how everyday interaction shapes close relationships. Megan now works as a business strategist and loves translating communication research for curious audiences outside of the classroom.

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.