Harvard Science Book Talk: Athena Aktipis, "A Field Guide to the Apocalypse: A Mostly Serious Guide to Surviving Our Wild Times"

About A Field Guide to the Apocalypse:

Is this finally it? The end times? Because from COVID-19 to climate catastrophe to the looming AI revolution—not to mention the ever-growing background hum of rage, fear, and anxiety—it’s starting to feel like the party we call civilization is just about over. The good news? It’s always felt that way.

Drawing on evolutionary psychology, history, brain science, game theory, and more, cooperation theorist (and, coincidentally, zombie expert) Athena Aktipis reassuringly explains how we, as a species, are hardwired to survive big existential crises. And how we can do so again by leveraging our innate abilities to communicate and cooperate.

Pack a ukulele in your prep kit. Practice your risk-management skills. Enlist your crew into a survival team. And embrace the apocalypse. You might just enjoy it. Plus, it will help us build a better and more resilient future for all humankind.

Athena Aktipis is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Arizona State University. She is a cooperation theorist, evolutionary biologist, and cancer biologist who researches cooperation in humans, particularly in times of need, as well as other systems that are governed by fundamental tensions between cooperation and conflict. She is co-Director of The Human Generosity Project and The Cooperation Science Network. Aktipis is the President and co-Founder of the International Society for Evolution Ecology and Cancer and also the founder and President of Zombified Media. Aktipis is an avid science communicator, hosting the science podcast, Zombified, and producing events across the country and internationally at Universities, community spaces, and music festivals. Aktipis is passionate about building interdisciplinary teams to tackle tough questions, empowering students to learn about the topics they are most curious about, and leveraging cooperation theory to improve our universities and the broader communities in which we are all embedded. She is the author of The Cheating Cell: How evolution helps us understand and treat cancer (Princeton University Press, 2020), and is currently on tour for her second book, A Field Guide to the Apocalypse: A mostly serious guide to surviving our wild times (Workman, 2024). Aktipis also writes for Scientific American, Slate, Aeon, and other magazines.

Organization/Sponsor: Harvard Division of Science, Harvard Library, and Harvard Book Store
For more information and videos of Harvard Science Book Talks, see https://science.fas.harvard.edu/book-talks.

Contact Info: science_lectures@fas.harvard.edu