Profs and Pints San Francisco Bay Area

Profs and Pints Alameda presents: “Trump, Trade Wars, and Globalization’s Future,” with Christopher M. Meissner, professor of economics at the University of California Davis and author of One from the Many: The Global Economy since 1850.

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

President Donald Trump’s recent declarations of stiff trade tariffs have many observers ready to proclaim the end of globalization. At least in the United States, free trade and open borders seem to be becoming relics of the past.

Gain perspective and insights on such developments and what they mean for our nation and the world with Christopher Meissner, an authority in comparative economic history and an expert on international financial crises, exchange rate policy, and international trade and finance.

Professor Meissner will explore today’s turn to tariffs in historical context, examining whether evidence supports President Trump’s assertion that past impositions of tariffs enabled our nation to grow rich. He’ll discuss the impact of past tariffs in terms of trade tensions, geopolitical rivalries, financial turmoil, and economic trends.

We’ll tackle the question of whether our nation’s latest tariffs—the highest imposed by the United States since World War II—are likely to lead to re-industrialization and prosperity or will come at regrettably high costs in terms of efficiency and prices paid by consumers. Dr. Meissner will present evidence showing that tariffs can prove effective in generating jobs in targeted sectors, but it takes a lot more than them to build a world-class, globally competitive economy.

Finally, we’ll look at the question of whether globalization has much of a future without the United States. Dr. Meissner will make the argument that globalization is unlikely to be permanently over, despite facing challenging times ahead. That said, America’s economic relationships with the world are almost certainly on a downward trajectory in the immediate foreseeable future. (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: A Chinese freighter loaded with cargo containers. (Photo by kees torn / Creative Commons.)

Profs and Pints Alameda presents: “How Music Affects Our Brains,” with Petr Janata, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of California Davis who has spent more than three decades studying the psychology and neuroscience of music.

[Tickets available only online. Advance tickets: $13.50 plus processing fees. Available at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/brain-music .]

Get ready to listen to something truly amazing: A talk on pioneering research on music’s impact on what’s between our ears and how and why it plays with our emotions, sparks memories, and gets stuck in our minds.

Petr Janata, a psychology professor at UC Davis’s Center for Mind and Brain, will discuss the results of research using brain-imaging experiments to study how we perceive and imagine musical sequences and how music interacts with our memories.

We’ll start by examining how our brains follow the dynamic melodic and harmonic structure of music and how and why we perceive “wrong” notes. Surprisingly, research reveals that our memories of musical sequences are embedded in regions of the brain far beyond those parts of the temporal lobe that are associated with processing auditory information. Our brains not only support our imagining of music—our ability to sing a song in our own heads—but also allow music to intertwine with our brain’s representations of self and others, thus laying the foundation for music-evoked remembering.

We’ll look at what goes on in our heads when music plays repeatedly in our minds or a piece of music triggers a vivid memory. You’ll learn about recent studies suggest that “earworms” serve as a mechanism for replaying and storing information absorbed, as well as events experienced, alongside the music. You’ll gain a better understanding of why people with Alzheimer’s disease remain so responsive to music from their past.

Whether you are a musician, music teacher, music therapist, or simply a music fan, you’ll be fascinated by what you hear. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

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Profs and Pints San Francisco presents: “Understanding Anxiety,” a look at how our minds process perceived threats, with Andrew Fox, associate professor of psychology at the University of California Davis and director of a research lab focused on anxiety’s biological underpinnings.

[Tickets available only online. Advance tickets: $13.50 plus processing fees. Available at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profsandpints/anxiety .]

“Somebody's watching me, it's my anxiety,” laments the chart-topping song by Doechii that has struck a chord with listeners worldwide. For some people feelings of anxiety can be debilitating, and most of us regard such feelings as at least unpleasant and as something we’d rather feel less frequently.

Here’s the thing, though. Evolution shaped our brains to be afraid for a reason. If our ancestors had not felt enough anxiety to be wary of whatever lurked around them, we might not be around today to feel anything at all.

Gain a deep understanding of the root causes of anxiety and the treatment of anxiety disorders with Professor Andrew Fox, an expert on neuroscience related to anxiety and emotion, an editor of The Nature of Emotion, and the teacher of courses on biological psychology and the psychology of emotion.

He’ll talk about how our brain our organized to emote, having adapted over evolutionary history to express emotion and make emotion-relevant choices. As a result, our emotions are largely adaptive – until they’re not. This line of thinking has strong implications for our understanding of both day-to-day anxiety and anxiety treated in clinical settings.

You’ll learn about cutting-edge research—both in Dr. Fox’s lab and elsewhere—into the neurobiology of threat processing. Dr. Fox will provide a sobering discussion of what the findings of such research means for our understanding of the anxiety-related mental health disorders that affect millions of people worldwide.

Leveraging insights from basic science, Dr. Fox will discuss why existing treatments are only partially effective and how we can work toward the development of brain-inspired treatments for those whose anxiety is debilitating. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: A lion peers through tall grass in Tanzania. Photo by Susan Jane Golding / Creative Commons.