USC Orange County Speaker Series Begins Jan. 26

"Think of Entertainment Differently"

featuring

Professor Martin Kaplan
Norman Lear Chair in Entertainment, Media & Society
USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism

Wednesday, January 26, 2011 -- 7:00 p.m.
USC ORANGE COUNTY CENTER
2300 Michelson Drive, Room C, in Irvine
Tickets $15
Light refreshments will be served

Professor Martin Kaplan, founding director of the Norman Lear Center, wants us to think of entertainment not just as a leisure activity, but as the way messages grab and hold our attention. Not just as a sector of the economy, but as a driving force -- maybe the driving force -- of daily life. News, politics, education, religion, commerce, the arts -- today there is scarcely a domain of human existence unaffected by the battle for eyeballs, the imperative to amuse, the need to stimulate and titillate, to tell us stories, to play with us. The stakes for society are enormous. This is the terrain that the Lear Center is mapping.

Professor Kaplan, who recently spoke in Barcelona and Berlin, will talk about how entertainment has transformed journalism, and what that means for democracy; how entertainment can promote public health and save lives; and how USC research in all fields could accelerate if you imagine the university as a creative industry.

Get more information on our series and purchase tickets here.
Learn more about the Normal Lear Center here.

And join us for our upcoming Speakers Series presentations:

February 23, 2011
"Health Care Reform: What Have We Done...And Where To Now?"
A panel discussion featuring the deans of the USC School of Pharmacy and the USC School of Policy,
Planning, and Development as well as faculty members from the Leonard D. Schaeffer Center.

March 30, 2011
"The Library as Invention and Reinvention"
Catherine Quinlan, dean of the USC Libraries

April 27, 2011
"Engineering Empowering Society"
Yannis C. Yortsos, dean of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering

Purchase tickets here.

FIGHT ON!