Social Studies: How to Be a Citizen in an Age of Despair
Professors, experts, and storytellers giving thought-provoking lectures in unexpected places around Waco.
📅 Date: September 24
📚 Lecture: How to Be a Citizen in an Age of Despair
🎤 Speaker: Dr. Andy Hogue
📍 Location: Pignetti's Waco
It’s pretty easy to look around right now and think: What the heck happened?
We’re more divided. We trust our institutions less. We talk past each other. And when the problems facing us feel impossibly big, it can be tempting to either tune out or throw ourselves into the fight.
Dr. Andy Hogue calls this the “Era of Seductive Despair.”
Not because everyone is hopeless, but because hopelessness has become strangely appealing. If nothing can really change, why bother trying?
Hogue has a different idea: hope as a form of action.
In this practical, thought-provoking lecture, he’ll explore what it means to be a person of hope in a world that gives us plenty of reasons to be cynical. He’ll introduce the idea of becoming a “Generator”: someone who creates, contributes, and makes the world around them better instead of simply watching, calculating, complaining, or retreating.
This isn't a lecture about fixing Washington or solving every problem in the world.
It’s about something much closer to home: What does it look like to be a good citizen when the world feels broken?
Dr. Hogue is Associate Dean for Engaged Learning and a Master Teacher and Teaching Professor at Baylor University. His work focuses on citizenship, civic engagement, political thought, and the ways ordinary people can participate meaningfully in public life.
Come grab a drink, hear a great lecture, and leave with a few new ideas about what you can actually do when the world feels a little overwhelming.
Get a drink, connect, and learn at Social Studies. 🙌
Agenda
6:15 PM – Doors open. Grab a seat and a drink, meet others who are attending.
6:55 PM – Host welcome
7:00 PM – Lecture begins
7:45 PM – Audience Q&A
8:00 PM – Meet Dr. Hogue, continue the conversation, and enjoy another round.
8:30 PM – Wrap up
If the event is canceled entirely, all tickets will be refunded.
Come for the lecture, stay for the conversation. Grab a drink, meet interesting people, and leave with something to think about at Social Studies with The Waco Buzz. 🙌