Name: Monthly Program - The Dark Arts of Persuasion
Start: 2025-11-23T16:00:00-07:00
End: 2025-11-23T18:00:00-07:00
Location: Jefferson Unitarian Church

Join Jefferson Humanists for our monthly program where we will enjoy Heather Fester's presentation, **The Dark Arts of Persuasion: A Critical Look at Extreme Rhetoric, Manipulation, and Control.**

**Get ready for an intellectual deep dive that puts your critical thinking skills to the ultimate test.**

In this explosive talk, Colorado School of Mines professor Dr. Heather Fester will dissect the most intense and consequential forms of rhetoric and how it persuades, manipulates, and controls belief systems.

Heather will take us back to Ancient Greece, for an intense debate on the ethical power of language, then she'll fast-forward to the present day, with chilling examples of high-control groups and ways that language is leveraged for destructive ends. You'll access tools to analyze manipulation and mind control in cults, extremist groups, MLMs, and authoritarian regimes.

Heather will share powerful models from rhetoric studies, philosophy, and social psychology to help us answer a critical question: When does persuasive messaging cross the line? We'll dissect real-world examples, empowering us to recognize and resist the subtlest forms of manipulation. Join us as we confront the dark side of rhetoric and sharpen our defenses!

**Speaker Bio:**

**Heather Fester, Ph.D.**, is a Teaching Associate Professor of the Humanities and Director of the Nature and Human Values Program at Colorado School of Mines, where she regularly teaches classes in rhetoric, ethics, composition, and creative writing. Her combined background in Rhetoric & Writing (Ph.D., 2009) and Creative Writing (MFA, Allen Ginsberg Fellow at Naropa University, 2015-17) prepares her with a unique perspective that she enjoys offering her students. She has also administered various types of writing programs on the university level over the past 20 years. Her professional interests include the rhetoric of ideologies, technology and rhetoric, creative nonfiction, documentary poetics, and alternative discourses. Heather enjoys running, hiking, yoga, supporting cultural events along the front range, meeting with her writing groups, and pampering her ginger cat named Perry.

This program is hosted by Jefferson Humanists, a chapter of the American Humanist Association.

To ensure we set up enough seats, please RSVP on this Meetup or by email to RSVP@bhfs.com.
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SCHEDULE

We will serve appetizers from 4:00 to 4:30, then start the program. A small donation is suggested for the food, and wine will be served for a $3 donation.

We hope to see you at 4:00 pm, on Sunday, September 28th, at Jefferson Unitarian Church! It is an in-person-only event.
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"Speech is a powerful lord that with the smallest and most invisible body accomplished most godlike works. It can banish fear and remove grief and instill pleasure and enhance pity." - Gorgias

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Monthly Program - The Dark Arts of Persuasion

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