Lectures On Tap is a unique event series where professors, experts, and storytellers bring fascinating talks into the pub. Grab a drink and a bite and settle in for a thought provoking lecture in a relaxed, casual setting! Good talk, great company!

Debt Is a Fiction

If you're in debt, you are not alone: Canadian households owe record amounts. But not all debts are equal and not all debts need to be paid. This lecture will overturn how you think about debt and economics by revealing the link between the stories we tell about money and the financialization of everything. Why do stock market profits determine our moral bottom line? What do novels have to do with income inequality? Debt – or what we owe each other – has a surprising history in fiction and in reality. Come find out more about the first debt resistors, the invention of insurance, the fiction of credit ratings and discover a world of novels you should be reading.

About Professor Katherine Binhammer

Katherine Binhammer is a Professor in the Department of English, Film and Creative Writing at the University of Alberta where she researches eighteenth-century literature, narrative theory, and critical finance studies. Her most recent book is Downward Mobility: The Form of Capital in the Sentimental Novel (Johns Hopkins UP); here's a Q&A about it. When not reading novels or playing with a mortgage calculator, she enjoys protests, pubs and potlucks.