Profs and Pints Metro Baltimore

Profs and Pints Baltimore presents: “The Search for Life Beyond Earth,” with Måns Holmberg, postdoctoral researcher at the Space Telescope Science Institute and part of a team of astronomers looking for chemical traces of life on distant exoplanets.

[Doors open at 5:30 and the talk starts at 6:30. Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/life-beyond-earth2 ]

Are we alone in the universe?

While many of us have pondered that question, astronomer Måns Holmberg of Baltimore’s Space Telescope Science Institute is seriously focused on answering it. Last year he was part of a Cambridge-led team of astronomers who generated worldwide headlines by announcing that they had discovered potential evidence of a gas produced almost exclusively by life in the James Webb Space Telescope’s data from the atmosphere of a distant world.

Learn about the search for life elsewhere by coming to Baltimore’s SOS Pickleball, which has a bar and deli and will be reserved solely for this event, with no sounds of play.

Dr. Holmberg will talk about how the search for life elsewhere is being conducted and what strides are being made on that front. He’ll describe what it would take to confirm signs of life on such a world, what challenges remain, and how the next wave of observations could ultimately tip the scales.

Dr. Holmberg also will look at the role being played by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), how it uses infrared light to decode the chemical composition of strange atmospheres, and how it has left us closer than ever to answering the question of whether life exists elsewhere.

He’ll discuss astronomers’ growing interest in a new class of exoplanets known as “Hycean worlds”—ocean-covered planets with hydrogen-rich atmospheres that could be surprisingly hospitable to life. We’ll visit K2-18 b, a distant world around twice the size of Earth that orbits in the habitable zone of a cool red-dwarf star 120 light-years away, and discuss why it has become one of the most interesting exoplanets in the search for life.

Recent observations from JWST have revealed something extraordinary: the atmosphere of planet K2-18 b contains carbon-based molecules like methane and carbon dioxide and possibly even dimethyl sulfide (DMS), a gas that, on Earth, is almost exclusively produced by life. Dr. Holmberg will discuss what makes DMS a compelling (though not yet definitive) biosignature candidate.

You’ll emerge from the talk with a much richer appreciation of the immense possibilities out there among the stars. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID.)

Image: An illustration showing what the exoplanet K2-18 b might look like. Source: NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI) / Wikimedia Commons

Profs and Pints Baltimore presents: “The Way of Cosplay,” on the evolution, norms and debates of a worldwide subculture, with Luxx Mishou, cultural historian, former instructor at the U.S. Naval Academy and area community colleges, and author of Cosplayers: Gender and Identity.

[Doors open at 3. The talk starts at 4:30. The room is open seating. Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/baltimore-cosplay ]

Cosplay, which involves wearing costumes to mimic fictional figures, has grown to be a very real cultural phenomenon, with millions of enthusiasts worldwide estimated to spend at least $5 billion on it each year.

Outsiders, puzzled by the sight of grown adults dressed as Wolverine, Princess Leia, or various Japanese anime characters despite Halloween being months away, might find themselves asking: Who are cosplayers? What are they doing? Why?

Even those deeply immersed in cosplay have questions: What is the future of this? Where’s the divide between my costume and my identity? Is this a political act? Should it be one?

Coming to Baltimore’s Guilford Hall to provide answers is Dr. Luxx Mishou, a scholar of—and participant in—cosplay whose book Cosplayers explores the role of nostalgia, gender, and sexualized fantasy in that scene.

For the uninitiated she’ll offer a crash course on what cosplay is about, and she’ll describe its history from the first science fiction convention to the cosplay-related industries of today. She’ll discuss how it’s an international artform with roots in masquerade, fashion, carnival, theatre, and fandom in which participants use costuming or costume performance inspired by existing fictional characters regarded as international property. Its name a portmanteau of “costume” and “play,” cosplay generally is a social activity, a hobby, and a means of individual expression. It also can be an active identity and a profession.

Dr. Mishou will examine the complicated relationships between the lives of cosplayers and the cosplays they create, challenging other cosplay scholars who equate cosplay with fandom or dress with gender. She’ll share some of the often-unspoken secrets of cosplayers, including real accounts of euphoria and harassment. You’ll learn how cosplay convention rules help determine what cosplays will be found in event halls.

Finally, she’ll show how and why cosplay has become an important vehicle for personal and political expression outside the convention hall. She’ll offer a critical eye to the Batman’s appearance at a Black Lives Matter protest, Wonder Woman at an anti-abortion rally, and frog costumes at anti-ICE demonstrations.

You’ll emerge from the talk with a sense that cosplay represents a lot more than spandex bodysuits and chainmail bikinis. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID.)

Image: The cosplayer Yukari depicts Aria H. Kanzaki from the Japanese light novel series Aria the Scarlet Ammo. (Photo by DPS Photography Studio / Creative Commons.)

Profs and Pints Baltimore presents: “The Baltimore Woman Who Fought Napoleon,” on the independent and unconventional life of Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte and what it tells us about gender expectations and power in the early American Republic, with Derek Van De Walle, adjunct professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law and scholar of local history.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/baltimore-bonaparte .]

Move over Meghan Markle as well as maybe even Wallis Simpson. When it comes to being the focus of international celebrity and controversy, it’s hard to fill the fashionable French shoes of the Baltimore socialite Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte, one of the most fascinating women in early American history.

Learn in depth about her with Derek Van De Walle, a lawyer and historian widely praised for lectures that bring historical figures to life.

You’ll learn how Elizabeth Patterson, daughter of one of Baltimore’s wealthiest families, acquired her famous last name by marrying Jérôme Bonaparte, youngest brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, the future French emperor. Their marriage brought her into one of the most powerful dynasties in the world and caused an international scandal, drawing the attention of both European courts and American society.

Napoleon ultimately annulled the marriage, but Elizabeth refused to fade quietly into the background. In an era when women were expected to live within strict social boundaries, she traveled Europe on her own terms, managed her own finances, became extraordinarily wealthy, and carefully shaped her legacy. She passed on her name and wealth to her child and grandchildren, who fought for a claim to the Bonaparte dynasty long after Napoleon's death.

Her life, which has inspired books and movies, intersected with themes of ambition, celebrity, gender expectations, and transatlantic politics in the early republic. You’ll be glad you got to know her. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Bar doors open at 5 pm. The talk starts at 6:30.)

Image: From an 1804 “triple portrait” of Elizabeth Patterson by Gilbert Stuart (Metropolitan Museum of Art / Wikimedia Commons).

Profs and Pints Baltimore presents: “Dune and Messiahs,” on word of saviors in religion and science fiction, with Peter Herman, former lecturer in theology and religious studies at Marymount University and scholar of religious and social themes in sci fi.

[Doors open at 3. The talk starts at 4:30. The room is open seating. Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/baltimore-dune-messiahs ]

Dune: Part Three is scheduled for release in December, and trailers for the epic space opera film have fans of the Dune franchise longing for it like visitors to its desert planet Arrakis long for water. Based on the second volume of renowned science fiction novelist Frank Herbert's Dune saga, the movie depicts the internal and external conflicts of protagonist Paul Atreides, an emperor treated by others as a messiah while being depicted as an antihero.

The film will raise intriguing questions related to the presence of redeeming figures, or messiahs, throughout both science fiction and religious texts. Among them: What exactly do we mean by the term “messiah”? Why have many religious traditions looked for a redeemer to emerge? What happens if the messiah gets it all wrong?

Explore such questions—and prepare yourself to enjoy the upcoming Dune film at a much deeper level—with Dr. Peter Herman, who has given several excellent, thought-provoking Profs and Pints talks on the Dune franchise.

To center Dune in the discussion, we’ll look at the character of Paul Atriedes as a ruler who has launched a jihad across known space to reconquer it. His prescient visions show him that although the spread of religious war is not optimal, neither is it the worst potential future for humanity, and he allows excess and violence to continue in his name out of a conviction that it’s for the greater good. Throughout the book on which the upcoming film is based, Atriedes struggles with his followers' desire to view him as a divine figure.

Dr. Herman, a trained theologian, will set such themes in the broader context of religious studies by discussing messianic figures across various religious traditions. Among them, Christianity names Jesus of Nazareth as the messiah, but he is hardly the first person in the canonical Bible given that title. Mainstream Judaism does not anticipate any similar, deified figure descending from heaven, but messianic strains of Judaism have looked for the arrival of a political liberator. Islam, from which Frank Herbert borrowed terms applied to Paul Atriedes, contains reference to someone serving not as a redeemer but as a heavenly guide. All branches of Buddhism situate within each new age of their cyclical cosmology a Buddha-yet-to-come.

We’ll look at the human tendency in confusing times to seek out direct, uncomplicated answers and to embrace messianism as part of apocalypticism, which foretells a straightforward sorting process in which believers, as good people, see reward while their enemies, as bad people, see punishment.

Dune fans will feel rewarded for coming to this talk. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image by Canva.