The author of seven books on contemporary social issues, Barry Glassner is Professor of Sociology at the University of Southern California. His book, The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things, is a national best seller that was named “Best Book of the Year” by the Los Angeles Times Book Review, calling it an “important book…a gutsy expose of one of the most widespread delusions of our time: misplaced fear.”
Glassner and his book are featured prominently in Michael Moore’s Academy Award winning documentary, “Bowling for Columbine.” He also appeared on numerous television programs, including “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” “The Today Show,” “Good Morning America,” “Hardball,” “The O’Reilly Factor,” “Nightline,” and various news programs on CNN, CNBC, and MSNBC, and on radio shows including National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition,” “All Things Considered,” “Fresh Air,” and “Marketplace” and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s “Ideas” program.
Glassner’s 2007 book The Gospel of Food, argues “everything you think you know about food is wrong.” In praise for the book, Ed Levine of the New York Times declares, “Page by page, chapter by chapter, Glassner provocatively examines everything all of us have held near and dear about the food we eat. It is by turns surprising, gutsy and fun.”
At the podium, Barry Glassner discusses the issues he addresses in The Gospel of Food and points out that almost everything we think we know about food is wrong. Poking fun at self-righteous nutrition reformers, pompous food critics, and other self-serving “experts” who glorify certain foods and demonize many others, Glassner shows that if we get over those presumptions, we’ll be happier and healthier. Only by recognizing the myths, half truths, and guilt trips about what and where we eat can we begin to liberate ourselves for greater joy and realism at the table.
In speaking on The Culture of Fear, Glassner discusses why Americans have become afraid of things that shouldn’t frighten them. He discusses how America’s news, marketing strategists and politicians have fostered many of society’s misperceptions and false fears. His presentation will inform as well as entertain audiences, explaining that we have much less to fear than we think.
Formerly a journalist and an editor for ABC radio news, Glassner went on to receive his doctorate from Washington University in St. Louis and to become chair of the sociology departments at Syracuse University, the University of Connecticut, and the University of Southern California. Glassner’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, and The Chronicle of Higher Education and in The American Sociological Review and American Journal of Psychiatry. He is the recipient of several honors, including an “outstanding book of the year” award from Choice magazine and a visiting fellowship at Oxford University.
