Lectures on Tap - The Psychological Allure of Cults: Fear, Fantasy, Desire

Join us for an engaging evening where professors, experts, and storytellers bring their thought-provoking lectures to your favorite bar in Downtown Berkeley!

Hosted by the Lectures on Tap team.

📍 Location: Exact address found in the confirmation email

📚 Lecture: “The Psychological Allure of Cults: Fear, Fantasy, Desire”

🎤 Speaker: Professor Poulomi Saha

We live in cult-captivated times, with pop culture flooded by documentaries about the rise and fall of intentional communities and charismatic leaders.

Join us for a thought-provoking evening as Professor Poulomi Saha delves into why cults have infiltrated our discussions and imaginations. We often find ourselves questioning whether we would be a cult leader or follower as a humorous test of compatibility, while simultaneously pondering how the inevitable collapse of these groups could have been avoided.

What draws us to such dark fantasies, and what do they reveal about our own unmet desires and fears? This exploration will shed light on the social and personal psychological experiments we are collectively engaging in.

Professor Poulomi Saha teaches in the Department of English at UC Berkeley and directs the Program in Critical Theory.

Don’t miss this opportunity to explore the psychological allure of cults with Professor Poulomi Saha!

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.