Profs and Pints Baltimore

Profs and Pints Baltimore presents: “The Big Lebowski Lecture,” an exploration of the classic Coen Brothers’ film and its relation to Westerns, detective fiction, and the gritty history of Los Angeles, with Anthony Dyer Hoefer, associate professor of English at George Mason University and scholar of literature and culture.

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

Profs and Pints is bringing fans of The Big Lebowski something better than a White Russian: A deep look at the beloved 1998 movie in the broader context of film and literature.

Professor Anthony Hoefer, who has written extensively about the big-screen tale of the Dude, will tackle enduring questions asked by film scholars and historians, cinephiles, and league bowlers. He might even offer insights on what Sam Elliott was doing portraying The Stranger in the film.

To get the bowling ball rolling, we’ll discuss how The Big Lebowski represents a wholly original reading of Raymond Chandler’s most famous novel, The Big Sleep. Then we’ll look at how this has implications for any consideration of the connections between two of twentieth century American literature and film’s most enduring popular genres, the Western and the hardboiled detective story.

On our investigative journey we’ll cross paths with famous shamuses such as the dogged Jack Gittes memorably portrayed by Jack Nicholson in Chinatown and Easy Rawlins from Walter Mosley’s neo-noir novels and the film Devil in a Blue Dress. Roger Rabbit will pop up as well.

Looming large will be the setting of such tales, Los Angeles. We’ll try to solve the mysteries related to how the City of Angels was built – in terms of infrastructure and in the imagination – on top of a Wild West frontier dream.

It will be more fun than a night rolling on the lanes. The Dude abides, and Profs and Pints provides. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Doors open at 5. The talk begins at 6:30.)

Image: Jeff Bridges at Lebowski Fest 2011. Photo by Joe Polletta / Creative Commons.

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: “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: “Ancient Sea Monsters,” an encounter with creatures that were dreaded by Greek and Roman sailors and still dwell in imaginations, with Georgia Irby, professor of Classical Studies at William and Mary.

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

While we associate monsters with horror movies, to the people of ancient Greece and Rome they seemed very real—and often were thought to be lurking just offshore.

Join Professor Georgia Irby, a scholar of the history of Greek and Roman Science, for a fascinating and richly illustrated look at the imagined horrors that aroused dread in ancient Mediterranean sailors and continue to be feared lurking beneath the waves.

To set the stage, Dr. Irby will discuss how the watery setting is by its very physics and optics one of change and mystery. The sea changes color as light shifts, with its appearance affected by fluctuating winds and currents and light refraction distorting what we see beneath the waves. Lacking the tools that we take for granted in studying marine creatures, Greek and Roman thinkers had to go by what they could observe with their eyes.

Hearing tales of ship-wrecking whales, sailor-strangling octopods, and human-eating sharks prompted ancient Greek and Roman imaginations to create fanciful and frightening sea-beasts whose anatomy and nature were as mysterious as the cryptic environment in which they were believed to dwell. They told of Scylla and other marine foes battled by their fearless heroes. They typically thought of marine fauna as either endearing, as was the case with dolphins or seahorses, generally unpleasant, as was the case with noisome seals, or terrifying—a reaction to most other marine animals.

These imagined horrors help give the seafaring denizens of the Mediterranean an ambiguous attitude toward the sea—a bias that left its mark on later writers such as Jonathan Swift, Herman Melville, and Jules Verne. Professor Irby will pay her respects to Moby Dick, Nessie, and the dinosaurs before sending her audience out into the night to consider what might lurk beneath dark waves. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: A sea monster depicted on a Greek vase from about 530 B.C. (Stavros S. Niarchos Collection)