Profs and Pints - Richmond

Profs and Pints Richmond presents: “Encountering Cryptids,” on the cultural, historical and psychological significance of beings that may exist only in lore, with Joshua Barton, lecturer in English at Virginia Commonwealth University and scholar of horror.

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

Some started out as anecdotes shared by explorers. Others were created as cautionary tales, or literally were just developed as spooky stories for kids. Regardless of their origins, they’re now entrenched inhabitants of our nation’s landscapes, their lives perpetuated through tales told by communities that believe they’re real.

They’re cryptids with names like Sasquatch, Mothman, the Jersey Devil, Ogopogo, the Flatwoods Monster, and the Beast of Bray Road. And your single best chance to get to know them might be by coming to this talk by Joshua Barton, a scholar of horror who has earned a loyal following among Profs and Pints fans with incredibly entertaining past talks on folklore and horror.

He'll look at the genesis of the tales themselves and what they tell us about historic approaches to the unknown. He’ll discuss how tales of cryptids reflect societal fears, inspire local legends, and connect communities through shared myths, and he’ll examine the impact of cryptid tales on modern storytelling and local tourism.

Turning his attention to specific cryptids, Barton will describe how the Jersey Devil speaks to our nation’s puritan roots and our collective fear of evil. The chupacabra reflects anxieties over the blending of cultures, while Bigfoot and Mothman stand out as huge generators of tourism revenue.

You’ll learn how the study of such creatures—cryptozoology—exists at the intersection of oral folklore and modern belief, and you’ll probably emerge from the talk eager to tell cryptid tales of your own. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: An 1889 Garrick Mallery sketch of a painted rock encountered on the Tule River Reservation in California. Cryptozoologists have interpreted the three figures painted on it, generally regarded as Native American symbols for negation, as instead representing an entire Sasquatch family.

Profs and Pints Richmond presents: “Social Media to Social Reckoning,” a talk about how Big Tech social media platforms operate and affect our world, with Caddie Alford, leading digital rhetoric scholar, associate professor of rhetoric, and co-lead of the AI Futures Hub at Virginia Commonwealth University.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/richmond-social-reckoning .]

Learn what social media platforms attempt to get us to think and feel, and assess the impact that their algorithms are having on our social lives and democracy, with Caddie Alford, a scholar of persuasion vis-à-vis Big Tech’s power.

Applying the ancient art of rhetoric to social media platforms and what’s billed as “artificial intelligence,” she’ll offer insights on the beliefs held by AI company CEOs and on the changes that Elon Musk made to Twitter. She’ll discuss concepts like cyberlibertarianism, technofascism, and “data trauma,” and she’ll call attention to the relationship between how we talk about social media and how we use it. If you started out “surfing the web” but now find yourself “doomscrolling,” her talk will help you understand why.

Dr. Alford will shed light on the discrepancies between how Big Tech social media companies portray themselves and how they actually operate. No matter how much they characterize social media platforms as “ecosystems,” the platforms’ true purpose is harvesting our data for shareholder value.

We’ll look at how the story of AI is deeply intertwined with the story of the internet, and how the political agendas of Big Tech social media companies are actualized by the material realities of computing infrastructure, contingent labor, and other considerations.

We’ll close by discussing how social media users are pushing back at Big Tech and its justifications for its policies and agendas. ( Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image from Pixabay.