Jane McGonigal, Ph.D.
Director of Game Research and Development at the Institute for the Future and two-time New York Times bestselling author
Curtis Sittenfeld
New York Times bestselling author
Imaginable: How to See the Future Coming and Feel Ready for Anything
BONUS AFTER-HOURS EVENT: Attendees who purchase a copy of Imaginable from FAN’s partner bookseller The Book Stall are invited to attend an AFTER-HOURS event hosted by McGonigal that will start immediately after the webinar. Details on the webinar registration page.
What if we could imagine the future and even plan for it? What if there was a way to feel secure while still bracing for the next “unthinkable” event? What if we could still feel hope for the future while squarely facing its challenges? Jane McGonigal, Ph.D., a future forecaster and world-renowned designer of alternate reality games that are designed to improve real lives and solve real problems, not only believes we can imagine the “unimaginable” but wants to teach us all the skills necessary to face the future with what she calls “urgent optimism.”
Why is she so confident? In 2008 and 2010, McGonigal and her team ran simulations that predicted human behavior in the face of a 2020 global respiratory pandemic in precise detail, from social distancing to masking to wildfires and even the spread of disinformation, conspiracy theories, and the unbridgeable political divide. Cut to 2020/2021, and not only were McGonigal’s predictions proven correct, but her findings have also shown that the participants in the simulation found themselves less shell-shocked when COVID-19 hit, as they had already prepared for specific outcomes and were able to act and adapt faster to change.
In her new book Imaginable, McGonigal, the director of Game Research and Development at the Institute for the Future, uses games, scenarios, and simulations designed specifically for the book to help us build our collective imagination, dive into the future before we live it, and envision, in surprising detail, what our lives will look like ten years from now. She currently teaches the course “How to Think Like a Futurist” at Stanford University and is the lead instructor for the Institute for the Future’s series on the Coursera platform. Her previous books Reality is Broken and SuperBetter were both New York Times bestsellers, and her TED talks are among the all-time most popular and have more than 15 million views.
McGonigal will be in conversation with Curtis Sittenfeld, the New York Times bestselling author of the novels Prep, The Man of My Dreams, American Wife, Sisterland, Eligible, and Rodham, and the story collection You Think It, I’ll Say It, which have been translated into thirty languages.
This event suitable for youth 12+. It will be recorded and available on our website and YouTube channel.
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Upcoming Events
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Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw
Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles, the Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, and the cofounder and Executive Director of the African American Policy Forum
Beth E. Richie, Ph.D.
Distinguished Professor of Criminology, Law, and Justice and Black Studies and the Inaugural Chair in Social Sciences and the Humanities at The University of Illinois at Chicago
Evanston Township High School Auditorium
Note: Event start time is Central Time (CT).
NO REGISTRATION REQUIRED.
America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation’s Anniversaries
Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., Ph.D.
James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of African American Studies, Princeton University
Imani Perry, JD, Ph.D.
Henry A. Morss, Jr. and Elisabeth W. Morss Professor of Studies of Women, Gender and Sexuality and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University and the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute
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