Profs and Pints San Francisco Bay Area

Profs and Pints Alameda presents: “A History of American Hair,” on the meaning and evolution of coiffure in our country, with Sarah Gold McBride, historian and lecturer in American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of the new book Whiskerology: The Culture of Hair in Nineteenth-Century America.

[Tickets available only online. Available at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profsandpints/alameda-hair .]

Hair is always and everywhere freighted with meaning, and that meaning has changed dramatically over time. Join Sarah Gold McBride, a scholar of the connection between what has grown from our heads and what has gone on inside them, for a fascinating look at our nation’s history as inscribed in bangs, curls, and chops.

We’ll start with the colonial period, when hair was usually seen as bodily discharge and, even, as “excrement.” Then we’ll move on to see how in nineteenth-century America hair took on decisive new significance in a young nation wrestling with its identity. It came to be understood as an integral part of the body, capable of exposing truths about the individuals from whom it grew—even truths that they wanted to hide. It indexed belonging in some ways that may seem strange, as well as others that might seem all too familiar, to people alive today.

You’ll learn how as the United States diversified—intensifying divisions over race, class, citizenship status, and region—Americans sought to understand and classify one another through the revelatory power of hair. They considered its color, texture, length, and even the shape of a single strand in making judgments of others.

While hair styling had long offered clues about one's social status, the biological properties of hair itself gradually came to be seen as a scientific tell. It became viewed as a reliable indicator of whether a person was a man or a woman, Christian or heathen, healthy or diseased, or Black, White, Indigenous, or Asian. Hair was even thought to illuminate aspects of personality, such as whether someone one was courageous, ambitious, or perhaps even criminally inclined.

Dr. Gold McBride will discuss how hair helped many Americans fashion statements about political belonging, engage in racial or gender passing, and reinvent themselves in new cities.

Among the questions she’ll tackle: If hair was a teller of truths, could it also be turned to purposes of deception? (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: The sideburns on Union General Ambrose Everett Burnside were something to behold (Library of Congress photo).

Profs and Pints Alameda presents: “The Big Reboot—Tech for Good,” on the emergence of a human-focused technology sector as a rebellion against big tech’s evils, with Deb Donig, lecturer at the University of California-Berkeley, co-founder of the Cal Poly Ethical Technology Initiative, and host of the Technically Human podcast.

[Tickets available only online. Available at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profsandpints/alameda-tech-for-good .]

A profound shift occurred in how society views technology occurred In the wake of the 2016 election and the Cambridge Analytica scandal. What emerged wasn't just criticism of the tech industry, but the rise of an entirely new category of jobs dedicated to making technology serve human values.

Join Deb Donig, a scholar of the intersection of technology, ethics, and the culture of the Silicon Valley, for an eye-opening look at the “techlash” as one of the most significant but under-examined movements of our time.

She’ll discuss how the Silicon Valley’s utopian thinking has produced dystopian results, with many tech products envisioned as tools to "make the world a better place" ending up somehow making it worse. In exploring why this happened, she’ll argue that a “technological grotesque” emerges when our most sublime technological achievements simultaneously distort the human values they claim to serve.

We’ll look at how the Obama-era celebration of digital technology’s potential to serve our needs gave way to a sobering recognition of its technology's capacity for harm, leading to calls to somehow reconcile society’s need for democratic deliberation and ethical oversight with the Silicon Valley's “move fast and break things" mentality.

We'll explore why do so many tech products envisioned as tools to "make the world a better place" ended up making it somehow worse. Dr. Donig will argue that a “technological grotesque” emerges when our most sublime technological achievements simultaneously distort the human values they claim to serve.

Drawing from original research tracking thousands of jobs over five years, Dr. Donig will map the rise and evolution of a “techlash workforce.” She’ll discuss what “tech for good” really looks like, as well as how it can succeed, and what obstacles get in the way of workers who want better outcomes for tech products and users.

This talk isn't just about jobs. It’s about how society grapples with powerful innovations' unintended consequences. Examining the emergence of a “techlash” workforce offers crucial insights into whether we can build a future where technology truly serves human flourishing.

You’ll find this talk essential if you’re a tech worker, policymaker, student, or just a citizen trying to understand how we got here and where we're headed. (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: Photo by Paul Inkles / Creative Commons