What we’re about
Profs and Pints brings professors and other college instructors into bars, cafes, and other venues to give fascinating talks or to conduct instructive workshops. They cover a wide range of subjects, including history, politics, popular culture, horticulture, literature, creative writing, and personal finance. Anyone interested in learning and in meeting people with similar interests should join. Lectures are structured to allow at least a half hour for questions and an additional hour for audience members to meet each other. Admission to Profs and Pints events requires the purchase of tickets, either in advance (through the link provided in event descriptions) or at the door to the venue. Many events sell out in advance.
Although Profs and Pints has a social mission--expanding access to higher learning while offering college instructors a new income source--it is NOT a 501c3. It was established as a for-profit company in hopes that, by developing a profitable business model, it would be able to spread to other communities much more quickly than a nonprofit dependent on philanthropic support. That said, it is welcoming partners and collaborators as it seeks to build up audiences and spread to new cities. For more information email profsandpints@hotmail.com.
Thank you for your interest in Profs and Pints.
Regards,
Peter Schmidt, Founder, Profs and Pints
Upcoming events (2)
See all- SOLD OUT-Profs & Pints Charlottesville: The Psychology of Conspiracy TheoriesGraduate Charlottesville, Charlottesville, VA
This talk has completely sold out in advance and no door tickets will be available.
Profs and Pints Charlottesville presents: “The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories,” with Brian A. Sharpless, licensed clinical psychologist, former faculty member at Penn State University and Washington State University, and author of Psychodynamic Therapy Techniques: A Guide to Expressive and Supportive Interventions.
[All tickets must be purchased online with sales tax and processing fees added. Available at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profsandpints/charlottesville-conspiracy .]
What exactly is a conspiracy theory? Are people who believe in conspiracies fundamentally different from those who do not? Are there any ways to protect yourself from buying into false theories? How often do conspiracy theories actually turn out to be true?
These are just a few of the fascinating questions that will be tackled by Brian Sharpless, a favorite of Profs and Pints fans, in a talk that has earned rave reviews from sold-out audiences in other cities.
Dr. Sharpless will discuss conspiratorial thinking throughout history, define what "conspiracy theory” means to psychologists and psychiatrists, and summarize what the field knows about the people who buy into conspiracy beliefs.
You may be surprised to learn that there are ways to predict who will believe in conspiracy theories, with some very common “cognitive biases” leaving people more accepting of them. Conspiracy theories also can provide short-term psychological benefits to the believer. Furthermore, a number of psychological traits and disorders – both common and rare – have been associated with conspiratorial thinking.
Perhaps most surprising, there are relatively few big differences between those who are predisposed to believe in conspiracy theories and those who aren't. It's small differences that sometimes have a huge impact in worldview.
The good news is that there are ways to evaluate – and even “inoculate” yourself against – conspiracy theories, and Dr. Sharpless will offer you practical tips on this front. You may walk out with a different perspective on what you read in the news and on the internet, with new knowledge that may help you maintain a more realistic and accurate worldview. (Advance tickets: $13.50. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Doors open to talk attendees at 4:30 pm and the talk starts at 6 pm.)
Image: An Airbus A340 jet emits contrails, the subject of conspiracy beliefs. (Photo by Adrian Pingstone / Wikimedia.)
Not open - Profs & Pints Charlottesville: Peering into VolcanoesGraduate Charlottesville, Charlottesville, VA
Profs and Pints Charlottesville presents: “Peering into Volcanoes,” an exploration of one of nature’s most dramatic and unpredictable forces, with David Kitchen, associate professor of geology at the University of Richmond and expert on volcanoes, earthquakes, and natural disasters.
[All tickets must be purchased online with sales tax and processing fees added. Available at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profsandpints/charlottesville-volcanoes .]
The destruction of ancient Pompeii by Mount Vesuvius, the legendary 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, and the silent threat of Yellowstone’s deep magma reservoirs all serve as reminders that tremendous power lurks beneath our feet.
Gain an understanding of volcanoes, the risks they pose, and scientists’ efforts to understand them with David Kitchen, a researcher of volcanoes and volcanic processes who has visited and studied active and ancient volcanoes across the world. His talk promises to blend cutting-edge science with real-world risk analysis and depictions of awe-inspiring natural beauty.
Dr. Kitchen will discuss how the restless movement of Earth’s plates gives rise to towering mountains of fire, explosive eruptions, and vast fields of molten rock. We’ll explore how volcanoes form, why they erupt, how magma rises from the mantle, and how different types of volcanoes grow.
You’ll learn what makes some eruptions far more dangerous than others and how modern science is working to predict and mitigate the devastating hazards volcanoes pose — including ash falls, lava flows, violent mud and debris flows, and lateral blasts. We’ll look at vivid case studies from America’s own active volcanic regions—the Cascades, Long Valley, Yellowstone, the Great Basin, and Alaska.
Come and discover the story of the fire beneath our feet and why it matters to us all. (Advance tickets: $13.50. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Doors open for talk attendees at 4:30 pm and the talk starts at 6 pm.)
Image: The January 2018 eruption of the Mount Mayon volcano in the Philippines. Photo by Darkimages08 / Wikimedia Commons.
