What we’re about
Profs and Pints brings professors and other college instructors into bars, cafes, and other venues to give fascinating talks or to conduct instructive workshops. They cover a wide range of subjects, including history, politics, popular culture, horticulture, literature, creative writing, and personal finance. Anyone interested in learning and in meeting people with similar interests should join. Lectures are structured to allow at least a half hour for questions and an additional hour for audience members to meet each other. Admission to Profs and Pints events requires the purchase of tickets, either in advance (through the link provided in event descriptions) or at the door to the venue. Many events sell out in advance.
Although Profs and Pints has a social mission--expanding access to higher learning while offering college instructors a new income source--it is NOT a 501c3. It was established as a for-profit company in hopes that, by developing a profitable business model, it would be able to spread to other communities much more quickly than a nonprofit dependent on philanthropic support. That said, it is welcoming partners and collaborators as it seeks to build up audiences and spread to new cities. For more information email profsandpints@hotmail.com.
Thank you for your interest in Profs and Pints.
Regards,
Peter Schmidt, Founder, Profs and Pints
Upcoming events (2)
See all- Profs & Pints Napa: Hunker in Bunkers, Escape to SpaceNapa Yard, Napa, CA
Profs and Pints Napa presents: “Hunker in Bunkers, Escape to Space,” on the history and status of Americans’ responses to existential threats, with Emily Ray, associate professor of political science at Sonoma State University and co-author of Prepared: Doomsday Prepping in the United States.
[Tickets available only online. Available at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profsandpints/napa-bunkers .]
Back in the middle of the 20th century, when we first became a nuclear world, the federal government encouraged American citizens to respond to threats of atomic annihilation by taking up doomsday preparation and bunker acquisition.
Today most regard doomsday prepping as a fringe activity, albeit one gaining in popularity. But Professor Emily Ray of Sonoma State University argues that doomsday preparation remains foundational to U.S. politics and culture and is a key driver of the new space race.
Gain insight into how much our lives, politics and culture are shaped by existential threats and survivalist fantasies by coming to Napa Yard, the new Napa Valley home of events offered by Profs and Pints, a social enterprise that democratizes access to higher learning.
Professor Ray will discuss the history of doomsday prepping in the US, from calls to grow war gardens to federal recommendations for surviving atomic bombs to today’s quest to find ways to inhabit other planets. She’ll discuss how figures like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk have plans to colonize Mars partly to save humanity from worsening conditions on Earth, and how investment in the new space race is tied to climate change and political instability.
A scholar of environmental political theory and politics focused on the intersections of technology, outer-space policy, climate change, and social theory, Dr. Ray joined Prepared co-author Robert Kirsch of Arizona State University in developing the novel theory of “bunkerization” to explain our responses to collective existential threats. That theory and her upcoming talk deal with a profound question: How do we hope to address collective problems together when the solutions offered are focused on individual needs?
Her talk might leave you rethinking how you prepare for the worst. (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Doors open at 5:30 and the talk begins at 6:30.)
Image: A drawing by famed architect Paul László of a bomb shelter designed for a wealthy businessman (public domain).
- Profs & Pints Alameda: What Therapy WorksFaction Brewing, Alameda, CA
Profs and Pints Alameda presents: “What Therapy Works,” a guide to finding effective treatment and sifting out fads, charlatans and snake oil, with Trevor M. Ahrendt, licensed clinical psychologist, former lecturer in psychology and new clinician trainer at the Wright Institute, and co-founder of the San Francisco Therapy Group and board member of the San Francisco Psychotherapy Research Group.
[Tickets available only online, at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profsandpints/alameda-therapy .]
The world of psychotherapy has a problem: While we’re quite sure it works, we don’t know exactly how. Moreover, diagnoses don’t necessarily point to the most effective treatment—five people with depression might each need a different cure—and no brand of therapy necessarily predicts successful outcomes.
Meanwhile, there are more than 600 types of therapy out there now, many associated with gurus who persuasively champion their brands. Simply identifying what they are can mean sorting through an alphabet soup of acronyms such as IFS, CBT, DBT, or ACT. Meanwhile, therapists who are practicing the exact same brands often approach clients in very different ways. Complicating matters are claims being made about the therapeutic potential of psychedelics such as Ketamine, Psilocybin, and MDMA.
Come to Faction Brewing in Alameda for a talk that will help you separate fact from fiction and fad from genuine advancement in the field when it comes to finding the right therapist for you.
The speaker, Trevor Ahrendt, will draw from the findings of the San Francisco Psychotherapy Research Group (SFPRG), a nonprofit organization founded more than 50 years ago to conduct evidence-based studies of how psychotherapy works and why some therapeutic approaches help some people but not others.
Dr. Ahrendt, a member of research organization’s board, will offer you a foundational new way of understanding therapy, one that guides treatment more effectively than diagnoses can.
He’ll talk about how researchers associated with the SFPRG synthesized the findings of neuroscience, evolutionary theory, and traditional therapy to develop an overarching model for understanding why therapy works across approaches, how therapy succeeds or fails, and why certain therapists succeed more often.
If you’re curious about therapy or have wondered why therapy worked (or didn’t) for you, you’ll benefit from learning about this research and how it can be applied directly to your life. (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 by Canva.
