Profs and Pints Metro Baltimore

Profs and Pints Metro Baltimore presents: “Maintain Your Brain,” a research-based guide to nurturing your brain and staying sharp as you age, with Dr. Majid Fotuhi, adjunct professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University’s Mind/Brain Institute and author of The Invincible Brain.

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

Most people assume memory loss is inevitable with age, but that’s not the case. Dramatic leaps forward in brain research over the past decade have produced a host of both surprising and actionable findings related to brain health and resilience.

If you are concerned about your brain’s long-term health or looking after aging parents, you won’t want to miss this upcoming Profs and Pints talk. The speaker, Dr. Majid Fotuhi, is a neurologist and neuroscientist who has spent four decades studying Alzheimer's disease, memory, and the science of brain resilience. He developed a 12-week clinical program that has helped hundreds of patients improve on objective cognitive tests and experience MRI-confirmed increases in the volume of their hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for memory and learning.

You’ll learn how the brain has a remarkable ability to grow new connections, increase in volume, and recover from years of neglect—a property called neuroplasticity. At the same time, even a single night of poor sleep causes a measurable buildup in the brain of amyloid, the protein linked to Alzheimer's.

Dr. Fotuhi will describe how our understanding of neuroplasticity has greatly increased since ten years ago, when the prevailing view in medicine was that the adult brain is essentially fixed, a finished product that could only decline with age. Thanks to subsequent clinical trial data we now know that what we eat, how we sleep, whether we exercise, how we manage stress, and how much cognitive stimulation we experience all directly reshape brain structure and function. Efforts to tend to these areas can improve memory scores and reverse early cognitive decline in people who were already showing Alzheimer’s symptoms.

These are not small effects seen in obscure journals. Many of these findings come from institutions like Harvard, the Mayo Clinic, and the National Institutes of Health, and they are reshaping how neurologists think about prevention and treatment.

Among the questions Dr. Fotuhi will tackle: Is Alzheimer's disease really preventable? Can you reverse early memory loss with lifestyle changes alone? Why does chronic stress quietly damage your brain even when you feel fine? (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image by Canva.

Profs and Pints Metro Baltimore presents: “Tolkien’s Fight Against Futurism,” a look at a beloved fantasy author as fundamentally engaged in a battle to preserve beauty, with Graham McAleer, professor of philosophy at Loyola University Maryland and teacher of a course on the morals and politics of Lord of the Rings.

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

As a young man in the early 20th century J.R.R. Tolkien watched an avant-garde art form known as Futurism become all the rage. Shaped by industrialization and by admiration for new machinery, Futurism celebrated speed, acceleration, and the whirl of technical innovation, earning it another name, Vorticism, in Tolkien’s England.

Although remembered mainly as a writer, Tolkien also was an accomplished pen-and-ink artist who kept abreast of the art movements of his time. He developed a distaste for Futurism and what it signified that only grew stronger as he experienced the horrors of modern warfare as a soldier at the 1916 Battle of the Somme. He regarded what Futurism celebrated as “the Machine,” representing fascist politics and apocalyptic war, and his opposition to it deeply influenced not just his art but his written works.

Gain insights into how Tolkien’s sensibilities as a visual artist shaped his worldview and writing with Graham McAleer, a scholar of philosophy who has closely studied Tolkien’s work.

Professor McAleer will look at how Tolkien’s lore can be seen as one long meditation on beauty and its problematic twin, vanity, with what separated them most in Tolkien’s mind being their respective approaches to time: Beauty is patient, vanity is not.

We’ll look at Tolkien’s argument that that impatience mars beauty and corrupts our standing in a cosmos, and we’ll consider his characterization of his own work as “cosmogonical drama” dealing with the universe’s origins. You’ll learn how his tales of Dark Lords squaring off against elven queens and genial Hobbits reflect his view that war is always a dispute about beauty.

You’ll come to see Tolkien as having grappled with a profound philosophical question that dates back to Plato, and you’ll emerge from the talk with a much deeper understanding and appreciation of Tolkien’s works. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: A bust of Tolkien at Oxford. From a photo by Julian Nyča / Wikimedia Commons.

Profs and Pints Baltimore presents: “Reflecting on Narcissists,” a look at the myth, reality, and treatment of clinical narcissism, with Brian A. Sharpless, licensed clinical psychologist, former faculty member at Penn State and Washington State universities and the American School of Professional Psychology, and author of Psychodynamic Therapy Techniques.

[Doors open at 5. The talk starts at 6:30. The room is open seating. Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/baltimore-reflecting-on-narcissists ]

Do narcissists really love themselves? Are they truly self-confident? Are celebrities more narcissistic than the rest of us? Does a person’s social media use—and the number of Facebook “friends” they have or selfies they post—tell us anything about their own levels of narcissism?

These are just a few of the fascinating questions that will be tackled by Brian Sharpless, a regular on the Profs and Pints stage. He will discuss the idea of narcissism, define what "narcissistic personality disorder" means to psychologists and psychiatrists, and summarize what the field knows about this condition and its treatment.

You may be particularly surprised to learn about the different ways that narcissism can manifest, some of which have little to do with the arrogant overconfidence that we associate with the narcissist stereotype. For example, many people with narcissism live their lives with chronic feelings of inadequacy. In order to avoid feeling humiliated, they closely observe others so that they can figure out how they should behave. In fact, some narcissists may actually look “depressed” to an untrained eye.

Finally, Dr. Sharpless will give some practical tips and techniques to help you deal with the narcissists in your own life. You'll walk out with a different perspective on yourself and other people, with new knowledge that may help you maintain healthier relationships. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID.)

Image: From "Echo and Narcissus," a 1903 oil painting by John William Waterhouse.

Profs and Pints Baltimore presents: “Understanding Honor Violence,” on recognizing and responding to harmful traditional practices that exert control over others, with Sasha K. Taylor, visiting lecturer at Ohio State University’s Global Fellowship Program and advisor and trainer in honor violence prevention.

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

People claiming to enforce traditional honor codes are responsible for a significant share of murders and other violent or abusive acts within immigrant and refugee communities. Honor-based violence and abuse often play a role in human trafficking, forced marriage, child marriage, visa-based coercion, and in the abandonment of families across international borders. Yet too often it is underreported, misunderstood, or overlooked by people and institutions with the power to help its victims.

Learn how to spot and deal with honor-based violence with Sasha K. Taylor, a former FBI Intelligence official who provides training to law enforcement, non-profit organizations, and private companies and also is extensively involved with regional organizations that combat human trafficking.

She’ll start by discussing how honor codes that have governed community life since the dawn of human civilization gave rise to the use of honor-related abuse, oppression, shame, and violence to exert control and perpetuate inequality. Although boys and men can be victims of honor-based violence, the perpetrators of it are predominantly male and the survivors predominantly female, lending support to the idea that honor violence is a form of gender-based violence. The forms that such violence can take include genital mutilation and honor killings.

She’ll discuss state and federal data related to the prevalence of various forms of honor violence and describe how complex forms of abuse are often underreported, misunderstood, or overlooked. You’ll learn about cultural and systemic barriers to disclosure, warning signs and risk factors, the intersection of immigration vulnerabilities and abuse, and the challenges that survivors face when seeking protection and services.

We’ll also look at policy responses to honor violence and how gaps within current federal immigration frameworks may unintentionally contribute to vulnerability and exploitation.

Her talk will be especially helpful for first responders, victim advocates, educators, healthcare professionals, social workers, and law enforcement personnel who are often the first point of contact during a crisis. She’ll emphasize trauma-informed engagement, emotional intelligence, cultural competency, and empathetic response strategies that treat survivors with dignity and sensitivity. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Bar doors open at 5 pm. The talk starts at 6:30.)

Image: The main illustration for “Rasminah The Last Victim,” a series on child marriage on the Indonesian podcast station KBR (Creative Commons).