Location: Tinkham Veale University Center Ballroom A, 10038 Bellflower Road, Cleveland, OH 44106
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THIS EVENT IS CANCELLED DUE TO CONCERNS ABOUT THE CORONAVIRUS AND COVID-19.
This event is part of the 2020 Cleveland Humanities Festival: TRUTH.
In this time of “fake news” and “bad blood,” how might we still believe? In this talk, award-winning poet and critic Kevin Young tours us through a rogue’s gallery of hoaxers, plagiarists, forgers, and fakers, from P.T. Barnum to the present. Young traces the history of the hoax as a peculiarly American phenomenon, examining what motivates hucksters and makes the rest of us so gullible. Finding that fakery is woven from stereotype and suspicion—race being the most insidious American hoax of—Young ultimately reveals the dangers of disbelief and the enduring power of art.
Registration requested.