Lectures on Tap- Brainrot: Literary History & Antidotes for the Digital Age

📍 Location: Exact address given in confirmation email

🧠 Lecture: "Brainrot: Literary History & Antidotes for the Digital Age"

🎤 Speaker: Writer, Prof. Marek Makowski

As many of us scroll away our spare hours on TikTok, Instagram reels, and memes, we’ve reached for the word “brainrot” to describe the feeling of being digitally numbed. Is there a way out—and can literature be our cure?

In this Lecture on Tap, Prof. Marek Makowski traces a literary history of brainrot, reaching back to Thoreau’s Walden and forward to today’s online culture. He will examine brainrot as both a linguistic and narrative crisis, tracking how our reading habits intersect with the compulsions of the digital age.

We’ll explore contemporary novels, essays, and memoirs from around the world that act as antidotes to brainrot: challenging, invigorating books that experiment with form, test our patience as readers, and push us toward deeper presence and attention. Along the way, we’ll consider how writers respond to internet trends and how we might practice a kind of reading and writing that makes us more connected, not less.

Dr. Makowski’s work has appeared in The New Republic, Public Books, Hyperallergic, World Literature Today, The Chicago Tribune, and The Millions.

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.

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