Profs and Pints Baltimore

Profs and Pints Baltimore 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.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profsandpints/baltimore-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 earned rave reviews wherever he has given it.

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. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Doors open at 5. The talk begins at 6:30.)

Image: An Airbus A340 jet emits contrails, the subject of conspiracy beliefs. (Photo by Adrian Pingstone / Wikimedia.)

Profs and Pints Baltimore presents: “America’s Advocates of Theocracy,” a look at past and current religious challenges to our nation’s separation of church and state, with Jerome Copulsky, scholar of religion and political theory, former senior advisor at the State Department’s Office of Religion and Global Affairs and author of the acclaimed book American Heretics: Religious Adversaries of Liberal Order.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profsandpints/advocates-of-theocracy .]

President Trump has on a number of occasions promised to elevate the place of religion in our nation’s governance and public life. Among his actions to further that goal, he has issued an executive order to eradicate anti-Christian bias in the federal government, established a Religious Liberty Commission, and installed televangelist Paula White-Cain as head of a newly created White House Faith Office. Many of his supporters hope that he will go further.

Such a pushback against the separation of church and state is nothing new. Throughout out nation’s history there have always been those who contested the country’s liberal foundations, constitutional settlement, and failure to properly acknowledge divine authority, even while most Americans support the separation of church and state and the freedom of religion that they enjoy.

Gain a deep historical perspective of these tensions and today’s religious movements and landscape with Jerome Copulsky, a research fellow at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World affairs and former assistant professor at Virginia Tech.

We’ll begin by looking at how the American Revolution marked a break not only with the monarchy but from the English conception of the relationship of church and state, thus ushering in a new way of thinking about religion and political life.

Then we’ll look at how this new settlement was contested throughout American history. Among its detractors: Southern pro-slavery theologians complained that the Declaration of Independence’s assertion of human equality was an affront to biblical teaching. The Religious Amendment movement sought to rewrite the Constitution to make America a properly Christian state.

You’ll learn about the arguments for even more radical solutions from Catholic Integralists who believe that the temporal realm should be guided by their social teachings and religious values, Seven Mountains Mandate enthusiasts who want to utilize spiritual warfare conquer all the heights of human endeavor, and Reformed Protestants who long for a theocratic republic under biblical law.

All regarded religion as a concern of the state and politics as fundamentally theological, and all held that the United States needs a religious refounding.

Among the big questions the talk will tackle: What is the relationship between religious ideas and political regimes? Is Christianity compatible with liberal democracy or in tension with it? Does the United States remain a religious country because of its separation or church and state—or despite it? (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Talk begins at 4:30. Attendees may arrive any time after 3 pm.)

Image by Canva.

Profs and Pints Baltimore presents: “Medieval Sex,” a look at the reality of medieval sex and sexuality through the lens of comic literature, satire, and obscenity, with Larissa “Kat” Tracy, professor of medieval literature and author of several books on the Middle Ages.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profsandpints/perch-medieval-sex .]

Profs and Pints is about to bring some “bawd” to Baltimore.
In its quest to provide scholars new audiences of people who love to learn, Profs and Pints is debuting at The Perch in Federal Hill with a fascinating, rollicking discussion of how medieval people navigated sex in their time.

The speaker, Professor Kat Tracy, has appeared on Wondrium’s series Sex in the Middle Ages and the History Channel’s Dark Marvels. She has earned a big following among Profs and Pints fans in Baltimore and other cities by giving excellent talks in other venues on medieval torture, the pagan origins of late winter holidays, monster beliefs, and the Green Knight legend.

This time out, Professor Tracy will tackle the question of whether medieval society truly was more prudish than our own.
She’ll discuss how the sex lives of medieval people were framed by religious edicts and secular laws, how they skirted those restrictions, and how they found outlets in sexual humor and displays.

Medieval discussions of sex were most common in humorous literature that used satire, double entendres, obscenity, and dirty jokes, often to engage in political commentary or draw attention to bigger social issues. We’ll look at how great writers of that time found ways to discuss sex while escaping censure from the Catholic Church.
It will be about as much fun as you can have outside the bedroom. ( Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: An illustration by Giovannino de' Grassi from the late 1300s.

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.

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

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. In April 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.

You don’t need to journey any farther than Baltimore’s Guilford Hall to learn from Dr. Holmberg how the search for life elsewhere is being conducted and what strides are being made on that front. We’ll explore 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 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 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. Doors open at 5. The talk begins at 6:30.)

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