Husband-and-wife team Ty and Felecia Freely came up with the Lectures on Tap concept in 2024. They had recently moved from Washington, D.C. to New York so Ty could attend a psychology undergraduate program at Columbia University. Not knowing anyone in their new city, they developed the idea as a way to make like-minded friends.
Felecia, an engineer-turned-content creator, and Ty, who has a background in operations, combined their skills to create a space for “lifelong learners,” like themselves, to engage with new topics and gain knowledge.
Their first event took place in June 2024 and featured a lecture by a Columbia neuroscience professor at a bar in Brooklyn. They covered how the brain reacts to watching movies; about 60 people attended after the couple had promoted the event online.
As they hosted more events, videos from the lectures gained traction on social media — Lectures on Tap has more than 400k followers on Instagram and 168k followers on TikTok, at the time of reporting; an explainer video of the concept has more than 1.6 million views. The viral response to the events excited the Freelys and inspired them to grow the series.
“There are so many more nerds out there than we could have ever imagined,” Felecia said. “So, this past year has been about us trying to scratch that itch for as many people as possible.”
@lecturesontap 🍻 Lectures on Tap is an event series where professors, experts, and storytellers give thought-provoking lectures inside of bars all over New York City. Join us in person sometime by getting tickets at LecturesOnTap.com. 🧠Lecture: “Evolutionary Psychology: Past Meets Present” 🎤 Speaker: Professor Alec Goldstein 📅 Date: Tuesday, Nov 12th, 2024 4 🗽 Location: Williamsburg, Brooklyn @Velvet Brooklyn Watch full lectures at home on our YouTube. #nyc #thingtodoinnyc #nycvlog #nyclife #lecturesontap
Lectures on Tap has since expanded to host events in five cities — including San Francisco, Chicago, and now Boston — producing around 30 lectures collectively each month. The events are ticketed, and each can host anywhere from 60 to 250 attendees, depending on bar space, according to the Freelys. The lectures are typically 40-45 minutes with a 15-minute Q&A period.
Boston’s first two lectures took place on Aug. 20 and 21, covering 19th-century madams and the Gilded Age, respectively; the inaugural event was at Lamplighter Brewing Co. in Cambridge. Both lectures had sold out within 30 minutes on Eventbrite, according to the Freelys, who said details for September’s Boston lectures will be released on Aug. 24 through their social media accounts.
Thursday’s event featured Edward T. O’Donnell, a historian and professor at the College of the Holy Cross, who presented on the Gilded Age in America.
Taylor Teich, 23, of South Boston works in tech sales and is a self-proclaimed “history nerd.” She attended with a friend to relax after work and meet new people.
“It’s funny, I remember dreading studying in college, but now, I want to come to this event,” Teich said.
O’Donnell’s lecture incorporated visuals — a PowerPoint featuring pictures and political cartoons — stopping every so often to joke about the content and engage his attentive audience.
When O’Donnell asked if a photo of railroad magnate Jay Gould reminded them of anyone, one audience member shouted out, “Shia LaBeouf!”
The correct answer, according to O’Donnell, was Morgan Spector’s character, George Russell, in HBO’s “The Gilded Age.” But the comparison still garnered laughter from the audience.
The release of the new season of “The Gilded Age‚” made the night’s topic especially interesting to participants like Lauren Rude, a 33-year-old from Revere who works in commercial and industrial lending. She said she was excited to attend the lecture after finishing the latest season, wanting to “continue learning about the time period.”
O’Donnell went on to transcend history when he asked his pupils whether they thought the U.S. is currently in another Gilded Age, based on what they had learned during the lecture. He presented the primary challenges of the then-era — growing income inequality, challenges to birthright citizenship, and extreme political polarization — in comparison to our current climate.
“It’s hard not to see the parallels,” Rude said after the talk. But, she said, O’Donnell’s lecture reminded her that “we’ve overcome this before, and we can again.”
To conclude, O’Donnell quoted Mark Twain: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” (He also acknowledged the quote’s origin has been debated — but whether or not it was Twain’s words is besides the point, O’Donnell said, because “it’s a great quote.”)
Lectures on Tap comes at a pivotal and uncertain moment in higher education. However, at a time when some faculty members feel it necessary to leave academia, the Freelys have noticed an uptick in scholars’ interest in presenting, as well as a greater demand for future events from attendees. (Interested academics can submit their lecture ideas for consideration through the group’s website.)
“I think it’s because of the pressure on academia that both audiences and these professors and experts are really hungry to keep it alive and to fight for it,” Felecia said.
The series offers the public a window into new subjects they might not have otherwise explored, and it also allows professors to spread knowledge on topics that are under particular scrutiny in a way that is not explicitly politically charged, O’Donnell said.
“The administration is waging war against the truthful, accurate telling of American history,” O’Donnell said. “These events are fun… but they are also reminding people how important these things are.”
Isabella Bernstein can be reached at isabella.bernstein@globe.com.
