MIT Graduate Program in Comparative Media Studies

Studying Media and Making Media

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Podcast and video: “An Evening with John Hodgman”

John Hodgman photo

Read the full write-up at medium.com/mit-communications-forum!

In 2005, a little-known author was invited on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to promote his book, an almanac chronicling fake histories ranging from the story behind Theodore Roosevelt’s fictional lobster canal to the disappearing 51st US state Hohoq. Since then, humorist John Hodgman has parlayed his wit into New York Times best-selling books, a Daily Show correspondent position, a Netflix stand-up special, and his own podcast. Hodgman brings his razor-sharp wit to MIT for a moderated discussion on his career and the state of comedy today.

Speakers

John Hodgman is host of the Judge John Hodgman podcast and a former resident expert for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Moderator: Seth Mnookin is associate director of MIT’s Graduate Program in Science Writing and author of The Panic Virus: The True Story Behind the Vaccine-Autism Controversy.

About Christina Couch

Christina Couch is a human interest and finance journalist who’s making the transition into science writing. Her writing credentials include work for Wired Magazine, Discover Magazine, The AV Club, Playboy.com, Time Out Chicago and Entrepreneur Magazine and she’s the author of a financial aid guidebook that came out in 2008, but what she’s most proud of is getting to gesture wildly and say “TODAY I INTERVIEWED THE MOST AMAZING PERSON ON EARTH!” to family and friends at least once a week. Christina has spent the last five years living as a permanent traveler and moving to a different city or country roughly every three months (thank you remote work technology). Aside from travel and space and robots (and traveling space robots), Christina’s interests include awkward dancing, indie videogames and the first three Die Hard movies.

Thesis: Life After Hate: Recovering From Racism