Start the new year with a pairing of two of Baltimore’s best-known attractions: higher learning and beer!
Guilford Hall Brewery’s “Profs and Pints” events drew big crowds last fall, and in January the brewery is offering talks by two speakers on topics sure to entertain and enlighten. Sea shanty expert Jessica Floyd will speak on Jan. 18 in “The Tale of Sea Shanties,” and humanities professor and cosmology scholar William Egginton will appear on Jan. 25 to deliver “A Tour of the Multiverse.”
Floyd, associate professor of English at the Community College of Baltimore County, will grant audience members a peek into the world of sailors on the high seas in the sixteenth century and beyond in “The Tale of Sea Shanties.” Expounding on the Great Age of Sail, she will give the audience insight into shanties’ function as work songs of the sea, quite different from drinking songs and pirate songs. “[S]hanties were sung in connection with specific tasks. They were complex and, often, provocative,” according to the event’s website.
Floyd has extensively researched sea shanties, primarily throughout the years 1500 to 1860. She will discuss their history and what they reveal about the relationships about the people onboard these sailing ships as they spent many months toiling away from home and loved ones.
These songs regained popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic, and you’ll learn why. “You’ll hear the lyrics of ‘Barnacle Bill’ or the phrase ‘Yo, ho, ho and a bottle of rum’ in an entirely new light,” promises the event site.
Egginton is a professor of humanities at Johns Hopkins University. If the movie “Everything Everywhere All at Once” confounded you with its portrayal of simultaneous versions of characters existing in parallel universes as part of an overall multiverse concept, Egginton is here to help.
“You’ll learn the crucial difference between multiverse theory and the ‘many worlds’ interpretation of quantum mechanics, along with the paradoxes and problems each of the two is designed to solve. We’ll explore some of the ways in which literature and movies have exploited—and often misrepresented—these theories,” reads the event description.
Egginton will guide audience members through a closer look at the movie, including both its celebration of the multiverse and a subtle, hidden critique.
Both events run from 6 to 8:30 p.m. Listed time is for doors; talk time begins 30 minutes later.
Advance tickets are $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. At the door, tickets are $17, or $15 with a student ID.
To purchase tickets for Profs and Pints Baltimore: A Tale of Sea Shanties, on Thursday, Jan. 18, click this link.
To purchase tickets for Profs and Pints Baltimore: A Tour of the Multiverse, on Thursday, Jan. 25, click this link.
Guilford Hall Brewery is located at 1611 Guilford Ave., Baltimore, MD.
