So they aimed for a gathering that would feel something like the Decatur Book Festival, but more wide-ranging than just books. It would aspire to the big-tent events like South by Southwest, TED Talks or the Aspen Ideas Festival, but without the high admission prices and choking crowds of those more famous communities.

The Ideas Festival Emory, debuting Sept. 20-22, will be free to attend at Emory’s Oxford campus near Covington, about 37 miles due east of the main Atlanta Emory campus on I-20.

Attendees can hear from hip-hop impresario Jermaine Dupri, Oscar-winning documentarian Barbara Kopple (“Harlan County USA”), Stuckey’s chair Stephanie Stuckey and a variety of authors, artists, performers, journalists and scientists. Topics will include artificial intelligence, Southern food and music, climate science, civil rights, the future of journalism, aging, civility and much more.

“At events like this there often turns out to be this kind of incredible cross-pollination, where people come to listen to a science talk, but then maybe they walk into a talk about writing books for kids or about culinary arts in 19th century America,” said Atlanta author (“Big Chicken”) and journalist Maryn McKenna, who served on the advisory committee that helped curate the lineup and has presented at TED Talks and South by Southwest.

“And it sparks for them connections between those topics that would never have occurred to them if they hadn’t come to the festival,” she added.

The fest was set up by Emory’s Center for Public Scholarship and Engagement, a new initiative based at Emory’s Oxford College. The CPSE was launched to help improve communications between academics and the public and to fight disinformation; the festival is part of that mission, explained Ken Carter, CPSE founding director.

“We wanted to create (a festival) that really showcased big ideas, whether or not they’re from Emory faculty or other people,” said Carter, an Emory psychology professor. “We wanted to create one that was accessible intellectually but also accessible financially. So we’ve got this free event that has over 40 different sessions over two-and-a-half days.”

When Carter envisioned the fest, he knew he needed help to run it, so he hired Wang (pronounced “Wong”), a former public radio producer who founded the Decatur Book Festival in 2006. Wang oversaw the DBF for 11 years as it became one of the largest book festivals in the United States, then stepped away in 2017 to let other people move it forward. (After a hiatus last year, DBF returns Oct. 4-5 in Decatur.)

Now a team, Carter and Wang scaled up by recruiting a programming committee that would advise them in all the areas they wanted to cover, telling them who was doing interesting work and was also a good communicator.

“It was a who’s who of creative minds around Atlanta, all of whom I consider my friends,” Wang said, “And it gave me an excuse to call them up and start thinking about fun and creative things.”

One programming committee volunteer was Atlanta author Jessica Handler (“The Magnetic Girl”).

“I’m a big believer in literary citizenship, and I’ve been involved with the Decatur Book Festival,” she said. “And it sounded like fun and a good idea.”

She suggested a panel on aging, which became “Are You Getting Older or Is the World Getting Younger?” with Handler talking to Sari Botton, editor of Oldster Magazine and author of the essay collection “And You May Find Yourself … Confessions of a Late-Blooming Gen-X Weirdo.”

McKenna, also part of the programming committee, suggested Jacquelyn Gill, a climate scientist and podcaster, who will join McKenna (a former staff writer for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution) in the presentation “Against Doom-ism: Ice Age Lessons for a Warming World.”

The festival’s biggest name, Dupri — an Atlanta native and the founder of So So Def Recordings — will be the keynote speaker Sept. 20. Dupri will share the stage with Georgia Tech culture scholar Joycelyn Wilson for a deep dive on how Atlanta grew to become a global cultural mecca. Their conversation will be recorded for the Sing For Science podcast and moderated by the podcast’s host, Matt Whyte.

Carter said the plan was always to stage Ideas Festival Emory on and around the quadrangle at Emory’s Oxford campus, which has a leafy, small-college vibe reminiscent of Decatur’s Agnes Scott College.

Wang compares the campus not only to Agnes Scott but also calls it “Atlanta’s own little hidden Hogwarts.”

“It’s gorgeous out there,” he said. “Why wouldn’t you want to have a festival out there?”

“I think that location is going to be super conducive to just creating this bubble of delight on that campus for 36 hours,” McKenna said. “I expect it to be kind of magical.”

Emory is committed to making the fest annual; planning for next year has already started.

“Good festivals like this, and this is going to be a great one, create for themselves an ongoing community,” McKenna said. “People go back to South by Southwest year after year. People await the announcements of who’s coming to TED Talks. And they stay in touch with each other in between.

“So festivals like this don’t just share knowledge with whatever community they happen to be established in,” she continued. “They also create communities of their own that feed back to them and create sort of like a fandom, in a way that’s just very, very fun to experience.”

FESTIVAL PREVIEW

Ideas Festival Emory. Sept. 20-22. Free; registration required. Oxford College of Emory University campus, 801 Emory St., Oxford. ideasfestival.emory.edu.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution will be represented in several discussions at the fest. Black Culture editor Mike Jordan and reporter Christopher Daniel will talk about “The Future of Media: Engaging Diverse Audiences in a Changing Landscape.” AJC contributors Virginia Willis and Bob Townsend will also be on hand. Townsend will speak with Alabama musician Lee Bains, who will also perform, and Willis will share recipes from the new edition of her classic cookbook, “Bon Appetit, Y’all.” Find the complete schedule at ideasfestival.emory.edu/schedule.