Profs and Pints Metro Baltimore

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).

Profs and Pints Baltimore presents: “The Victorians' Sexual Underworld,” on sex workers and queer communities in nineteenth century cities, with Andrew Israel Ross, associate professor and chair of history at Loyola University Maryland and author or editor of several books and articles on the history of prostitution, homosexuality, and policing in nineteenth century Paris.

[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-victorians-sexual-underworld .]

We are living through a moral panic about the presence of sexual and gender diversity in our society, as evidenced by attacks on Pride month, calls to ban drag queen story hours, and governmental efforts to redefine sex and gender. Underlying such actions is a sense that the increasing prominence of queer and trans people in American society represents something new and unexpected, a deviation from a clear history of heterosexual and gender stability.

The reality, however, is that queer life—and sexual life broadly—used to be much more central to social life than it is today, especially in growing cities during the Industrial Revolution.

Come to Baltimore’s Guilford Hall to gain an eye-opening understanding of the history of sexual communities often seen as marginal in history–female sex workers, gay men and lesbians, and transgender people.

Dr. Andrew Ross, a historian of sexuality, will explain why public sex was so important to nineteenth century urban culture and how Victorians wrestled with evidence of sexual and gender diversity. Drawing from his intensive study of the history of Paris but also from research on London, Berlin, and New York during the Industrial Age, he’ll discuss the sexual ideology of the Victorians and how it gave substantial opportunities to people who faced a great deal of discrimination then and continue to face it now.

You’ll learn about the practice “regulationism,” which sought to manage the business of sex work so that heterosexual men could always have access to sex.

Then we’ll look at the queer male world – one that often intersected with that of female prostitutes – and the spaces where men found one another quite publicly. Dr. Ross will discuss the emergence of the first gay bars, which were opened (perhaps surprisingly) by women, and talk about how people who did not identify as either men or women navigated this world.

What happened to these cultures? The talk will conclude by focusing on a period between the World Wars characterized by incredible experimentation with sexual identity, community building and politics.
We’ll look at how it came to an end with the rise of the Nazis in Europe and the Red Scare in the United States. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID.)

Image: Thomas Ernest Boulton and Frederick William Park, a gay couple in Victorian England who cross-dressed as Fanny and Stella, in an 1869 photo by Frederick Spalding (Wikimedia Commons).