Name: In-Person: TC Book Talk - Second Life by Amanda Hess
Start: 2025-11-06T17:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-11-06T18:00:00-05:00
Location: Teachers College, Columbia University

In-Person: TC Book Talk - Second Life by Amanda Hess

Join us to speak with Amanda Hess about her book on the transition to motherhood in the digital age.
About this Event

Fall Book Talk Series - Second Life by Amanda Hess

We are excited to continue the Fall Book Talk Series on Reproductive Identity & Matrescence!

On Thursday, November 6th, 2025 (5:00–6:00 pm ET), KHORA: Maternal & Reproductive Psychology Lab and Gottesman Libraries are delighted to welcome Amanda Hess for a discussion of her book Second Life (2025).

In Second Life, Hess documents her escalating relationship with the digital world, she identifies how technologies act as portals to troubling ideologies, ethical conflicts, and existential questions, and she illuminates how the American traditions of eugenics, surveillance, and hyper-individualism are recycled through these shiny products for a new generation of parents and their children.

Dr. Aurelie Athan will moderate the conversation.

More About The Author:

More about the author - Amanda Hess is a critic at large for The New York Times. She writes about Internet and pop culture for the Arts section and contributes regularly to The New York Times Magazine. Hess has worked as an Internet columnist for Slate magazine, an editor at Good magazine, and an arts and nightlife columnist at the Washington City Paper. She has also written for such publications as ESPN The Magazine, Wired, and Pacific Standard, where her feature on the online harassment of women won a National Magazine Award for Public Interest.