On Alpha Gods and Monkey Presidents

This speaker participated in our 2019 Conference. Learn more about our 2023 conference speakers here.

Rice University

Friday, June 7, 2019
1:30pm-2:00pm

Politics can elicit powerful, sometimes volatile emotions. It is precisely these passions that the usual political discourse fails to explain. Through the lens of evolutionary science, Dr. Garcia will explore what political partisanship really is, where it comes from, and why our political ideas are so often in conflict–how half a nation can be repelled by the words of a president, and the other half inspired. Moreover, Garcia’s talk will reveal how our evolved political psychology is used to manipulate and divide us, and explore solutions for rising above our ancestral past.

Dr. Hector A. Garcia

Hector A. Garcia, Psy.D., is the author of Alpha God: The Psychology of Religious Violence and Oppression. He is an assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, and a clinical psychologist specializing in the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder in combat veterans. He has published extensively on evolutionary psychology, war and masculine identity, and the interplay between psychopathology and religion. His latest book is Sex, Power, and Partisanship: How Evolutionary Science Makes Sense of Our Political Divide published this February by Prometheus Books.

Email: garciah3@uthscsa.edu
Website: hector-garcia.com
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