Tune in to hear Amanda Montell discuss her new book Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism with an amazing line up of panelists! Register in advance here
The author of the widely praised Wordslut analyzes the social science of cult influence: how cultish groups from Jonestown and Scientology to SoulCycle and social media gurus use language as the ultimate form of power.
What makes “cults” so intriguing and frightening? What makes them powerful? The reason why so many of us binge Manson documentaries by the dozen and fall down rabbit holes researching suburban moms gone QAnon is because we’re looking for a satisfying explanation for what causes people to join—and more importantly, stay in—extreme groups. We secretly want to know: could it happen to me? Amanda Montell’s argument is that, on some level, it already has . . .
Our culture tends to provide pretty lame answers to questions of cult influence, mostly having to do with vague talk of “brainwashing.” But the true answer has nothing to do with freaky mind-control wizardry or Kool-Aid. In Cultish, Montell argues that the key to manufacturing intense ideology, community, and us/them attitudes all comes down to language. In both positive ways and shadowy ones, cultish language is something we hear—and are influenced by—every single day.
Through juicy storytelling and cutting original research, Montell exposes the verbal elements that make a wide spectrum of communities “cultish,” revealing how they affect followers of groups as notorious as Heaven’s Gate, but also how they pervade our modern start-ups, Peloton leaderboards, and Instagram feeds. Incisive and darkly funny, this enrapturing take on the curious social science of power and belief will make you hear the fanatical language of “cultish” everywhere.
About the Author:
Amanda Montell is a writer and language scholar from Baltimore, Maryland. She is the author of the critically acclaimed Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language, which she is developing for television with FX. Her writing has appeared in Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Nylon, Glamour, The Rumpus, Byrdie, and Who What Wear, where she formerly served as the Features & Beauty editor. Amanda holds a degree in linguistics from NYU and lives in Los Angeles’s Silver Lake neighborhood with her partner, plants, and pets.
About the Panelists:
Alex Marzano-Lesnevich is the author of THE FACT OF A BODY: A Murder and a Memoir, which received a Lambda Literary Award, the Chautauqua Prize, the Grand Prix des Lectrices ELLE, the Prix des libraires du Quebec, and the Prix France Inter-JDD, an award for one book of any genre in the world. It has been translated into eleven languages and is in development with HBO. Their next book, BOTH AND NEITHER, is a transgender and trans-genre look at life beyond the binary. Excerpted in THE BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS 2020, it is forthcoming from Doubleday.
Chelsea Bieker is the author of the novel GODSHOT which was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award and longlisted for The Center For Fiction’s First Novel Prize. Her story collection, HEARTBROKE, will be published in April 2022. Her writing has appeared in The Paris Review, Granta, The Cut, McSweeney’s, Lit Hub, Electric Literature, and others. She is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Writers’ Award and a MacDowell Colony fellowship. Originally from California’s Central Valley, she now lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and two children.
Alexis Henderson is a speculative fiction writer with a penchant for dark fantasy, witchcraft, and cosmic horror. She grew up in one of America’s most haunted cities, Savannah, Georgia, which instilled in her a life-long love of ghost stories. When she doesn’t have her nose buried in a book, you can find her painting or watching horror movies with her feline familiar.
Tori Telfer is the author of Lady Killers: Deadly Women Throughout History and Confident Women: Swindlers, Grifters, and Shapeshifters of the Feminine Persuasion, as well as the host of the podcast Criminal Broads. She lives in New York City with her husband and son.
Steph Cha is the author of Your House Will Pay, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the California Book Award, and the Juniper Song crime trilogy. She’s a critic whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, where she served as noir editor, and is the current series editor of the Best American Mystery & Suspense anthology. A native of the San Fernando Valley, she lives in Los Angeles with her family.