If you’ve ever snuck a flask into a college lecture, this may be the event for you.
For tonight’s first annual Raising The Bar, Columbia and NYU professors will be stationed at 50 bars around Manhattan and Brooklyn, delivering free lectures on topics ranging from “Understanding How North Koreans Think” to “The Rise of Geek Culture.” Seats are still available at the following nine talks; click here to view the full line-up and RSVP.
East Village
- A Very Present Past: World War II, 70 Years Later, at 7 p.m. (Prof. Carol Gluck, Ciao for Now, 523 E. 12th St.)
- Africa in the Americas: Haiti in the ‘Western’ Imagination, at 7 p.m. (Prof. Kaiama L. Glover, Tarallucci e Vino, 163 1st Ave.)
- How Safe is the Prescription Drug You Take?, at 8:30 p.m. (Prof. David Madigan, Idle Hands Bar, 25 Ave. B)
- Riding Surfing’s Economic Wave, at 8:30 p.m. (Prof. Paige West, Pouring Ribbons, 225 Ave. B)
Lower East Side
- The Uncanny Valley: Adventures in Motion Capture, at 8:30 p.m. (Prof. Chris Bregler, Experimental Cocktail Club, 191 Chrystie St.)
- Who is Guilty of Poisoning America’s Children?, at 8:30 p.m. (Prof. David Rosner, Pianos, 158 Ludlow St.)
Williamsburg
- Bring up the Bodies: The Archaeology of Dissection and Autopsy, at 7 p.m. (Prof. Zoe Crossland, Wythe Hotel, 80 Wythe Ave.)
- Ruin Porn, at 7 p.m. (Prof. Severin Fowles, Kinfolk, 90 Wythe Ave.)
- True Romance: Luxury & Digital, at 7 p.m. (Prof. Scott Galloway, Fabbrica, 40 N. 6th St.)
Next year, Raising The Bar will go global, with speaking series’ occurring simultaneously in New York, San Francisco, Boston, London, Berlin and Singapore, according to production director Fran Mayo.