Profs and Pints Meetup-Metro DC

Profs and Pints DC presents: “Our Bodies, Our Minds,” an exploration of the relationship between our biology and our thought processes, with Justin Brooks, M.D., associate professor of computer science and electrical engineering at University of Maryland, Baltimore County and scholar of computational psychophysiology.

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

For millennia, humans have wondered how mind and body are connected. Are our thoughts just the electrical murmurs of nerve cells, or is there something more? Are they the result of millions of years of evolution?

Explore the mind-body problem through the lens of measurable physiology with Dr. Justin Brooks, a physician-scientist whose research focuses on using mobile and wearable technologies to understand, predict, and influence human behavior and health.

He’ll describe how millions of years of evolution shaped the way our minds and bodies speak to each other, with our nervous system being the product of countless adaptations that shape how we react, think, and survive. Reflexes hidden in our physiology, attention, and mental effort reveal a “biotype,” a stable but adaptable signature of how we process the world.

The problem is that reflexes honed by a prehistoric world of predators and scarcity now must navigate the strange demands of a modern society. Rather than mirroring who we truly are, our reflexes often are just echoes of ancient survival needs. As a result, many of us live slightly out of sync with our own biology. We think faster than we feel, ignore our body’s quiet warnings, and misread the signals from our bodies that guide balance and well-being. Breakdowns in the conversation between mind and body cause stress to accumulate, performance to falters, and health to erode.

In a talk that blends neuroscience, physiology, and philosophy, Dr. Brooks will discuss how our specific biotypes might hold clues for realigning our ancient wiring with the pace of contemporary life to avoid the pitfalls of burnout, chronic stress, and mental fatigue. He’ll explore how measuring the body can illuminate the mind and how both can be brought back into harmony for the world we live in now. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: Part of an illustration of the brain in Traité complet de l'anatomie de l'homme, a textbook completed by anatomist Jean-Baptiste Marc Bourgery and artist Nicolas Henri Jacob in 1854.

Profs and Pints DC presents: “The Folklore of Love Spells,” on the use of magic to influence romantic destinies, with Cory Thomas Hutcheson, folklorist, lecturer at Middle Tennessee State University, and author of New World Witchery: A Trove of North American Folk Magic.

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

Looking for a distinct follow-up to Valentine’s Day? Come to the Washington D.C.’s Hill Center for a rich, ribald, and riotous exploration of the use of romantic enchantments in history and folklore.

You’ll feel spellbound as you listen to folklorist Cory Thomas Hutcheson, who has earned a big following of loyal fans in giving Profs and Pints talks in Nashville. On his visit to the nation’s capital he’ll discuss a delicious assortment of methods—alluring and occasionally appalling—that people historically have used to find, catch, or hold others to them.

Dr. Hutcheson will present talismans, potions, charms, and more from the pages of history, exploring the principles at work in each. You'll hear about how counting stars can lead to dreams of future lovers, why some women in the Ozarks once nailed turkey wishbones above their doors, and how a meal of fish, cheese, or chocolate might lead to seduction—or the hospital. His talk will cover everything from fortune-telling charms designed to predict the future of a relationship to secretive formulae intended to drive a couple apart.

Look Cupid in the eye and ask him "Why?" as we explore this raucous mixture of magic, belief, folklore, and story. If nothing else, you’ll end up loving this learning experience. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image from Gratis Graphics (Pixexid / Creative Commons).

Profs and Pints Northern Virginia presents: “The Hidden Cleopatra,” an excavation through myth and slander to uncover the real Egyptian queen, with Jacquelyn Williamson, an Egyptologist and associate professor of archaeology and ancient art at George Mason University.

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

Depictions of Cleopatra are abundant in popular culture. A long list of painters have depicted her, Marilyn Monroe and Kim Kardashian have posed as her, and Vivien Leigh and Elizabeth Taylor famously portrayed her in Hollywood films.

At the end of the day, however, what most of us think we know about Cleopatra is wrong, the product of the ancient Rome’s “fake news” and anti-Egypt propaganda.

Learn about the real Cleopatra—and how our understanding of her came to be so distorted—with Professor Jacquelyn Williamson, scholar of women and power in ancient Egypt, teacher of courses on ancient Egyptian art and archaeology, and author of Nefertiti’s Sun Temple: A New Cult Complex at Tell el-Amarna.

Dr. Williamson will walk us through how the first Roman emperor, Octavian, created the distorted image of Cleopatra as seductress that we know today as part of his political scheming to defeat his rival Antony and end the Roman Republic once and for all.

Cleopatra has been the subject of debate and controversy ever since. William Shakespeare later relied on ancient Roman sources such as Horace and Plutarch in writing Antony and Cleopatra, and his play helped give rise to countless other works offering a distorted picture of her.

Professor Williamson argues that “Cleopatra was a human being, like you and I,” and “deserves the dignity of being represented as accurately as possible.” Her efforts to set the record straight have met frustration, however—after being extensively interviewed for the recent Netflix historical docuseries Queen Cleopatra, she concluded that it, too, had missed the mark.

You’ll gain a much deeper appreciation of the challenges of researching and accurately depicting the ancient past from Dr. Williamson, who also has taught at Harvard, Brandeis, and the University of California at Berkeley and is involved with an ongoing archaeological investigation of Queen Nefertiti’s sun temple. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: Layla Taj portrays Cleopatra VII as part of an Egyptian Cultural Performing Arts Society production. (Photo by Amos Gvili / Wikimedia Commons.)

Profs and Pints Northern Virginia presents: “The Everyday Supernatural,” a discussion of how folklorists and anthropologists view our belief in uneasily explained beings, forces, and experiences, with Benjamin Gatling, folklorist, scholar of belief and everyday religion, and associate professor of English at George Mason University.

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

Profs and Pints debuts at Highline RxR bar in Arlington’s Crystal City with a talk that will both teach you and leave you thinking about your relationship with the unknown.

Have you ever wondered why people believe in the supernatural? Or where do such beliefs come from and what purposes do they serve?

On hand to offer answers will be Benjamin Gatling, who teaches a course on folklore and the supernatural, studies various cultures’ oral traditions, and serves as editor of Folklorica: the Journal of the Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Folklore Association.

You’ll gain an understanding of how the supernatural isn’t something strange or extraordinary. It’s part of the everyday lives of most people around the world, and it’s fundamental to virtually all cultural traditions. Here in the United States, three out of four people believe in some aspect of the supernatural such as astrology, telepathy, clairvoyance, or communication with the dead. About half attest to having personally had a mystical experience.

In discussing the nature of supernatural beliefs, Dr. Gatling will talk about how our experiences are inexact and ambiguous and how we operate on incomplete information. In many ways belief in the supernatural represents an affirmation that human understanding extends beyond empirical observation and that we live in an imprecise, infinite, irrational, and mysterious world.

The goal of folklorists and anthropologists studying such beliefs is not to prove or disprove them, but rather to understand various peoples’ lived experiences and gain insight on how individuals make sense of the uncanny around them. Dr. Gatling will talk about such researchers’ findings in terms of how such beliefs are expressed in dream interpretation or the stories people tell about encounters with ghosts or their relationship with the dead.

He’ll talk about visits to haunted places and touch upon subjects such as UFO sightings, encounters with the divine, and magic in our everyday lives. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: A deck of 22 Tarot cards. (Photo by Roberto Viesi / Wikimedia Commons.)