Our Obsession with The Unexplained: Ghosts, Mythical Monsters and Alien Encounters, Oh My!

In a world where rational, scientific explanations are more available than ever, belief in the unprovable and irrational–in fringe–is on the rise: from Atlantis to aliens, from Flat Earth to the Loch Ness monster, the list goes on. It seems the more our maps of the known world get filled in, the more we crave mysterious locations full of strange creatures.

Enter Colin Dickey, Cultural Historian and Tour Guide of the Weird. With curiosity and insight, Colin discusses what all fringe beliefs have in common, explaining that today’s Illuminati is yesterday’s Flat Earth: the attempt to find meaning in a world stripped of wonder. He'll discuss his visits to the wacky sites of America’s wildest fringe beliefs investigating how these theories come about, why they take hold, and why as Americans we keep inventing and re-inventing them decade after decade.

Colin Dickey is a writer, speaker and academic and has made a career out of collecting unusual objects and hidden histories all over the country. He is a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Review of Books and The New Republic and is the co-editor of The Morbid Anatomy Anthology. He is also a member of the Order of Good Death, a collective of artists, writers and death industry professionals interested in improving the Western world's relationship with mortality. With a PhD in comparative literature from USC, he is a professor of creative writing at National University. He is the author of Ghostland, one of NPR's Great Reads of 2016, and The Unidentified.

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