Books

Save the Date: International Women’s Day @ NMWA

BYT at largeFebruary 24, 2020

Spend March 8 with us (and NMWA!)...

ArtBooksStuff To Do In DC 02 min read

Announcing! BYT PRESENTS: The Future Is Festival

BYT at largeFebruary 5, 2020

Spend a weekend with people that we can all agree on! March 26-29, 2020 - brought to you by BYT....

BooksFeaturedFilm & TVFunny StuffGiving BackLGBTQMiscMusicStuff To Do In DCUpcoming BYT Events 07 min read

Your Best February

BYT at largeFebruary 4, 2020

Make this February your best February...

BeerBooksChicagoCute StuffEat & DrinkFeaturedFilm & TVFunny StuffGuidesMusicNYCStaying InStuff To Do In DCTheatre & DanceTrue Crime 026 min read

BYT Interviews: Sarah Hurwitz

Jose Lopez-SanchezJanuary 23, 2020

A chat about religion with the former Head Speechwriter for Michelle Obama...

BooksStuff To Do In DC 018 min read

Wayside School is Twin Peaks for Children

Kaylee DuganJanuary 7, 2020

100% guaranteed to make your kid weirder...

BooksFilm & TV 03 min read

Your Best January

BYT at largeJanuary 3, 2020

Welcome to 2020...

BeerBooksChicagoCute StuffEat & DrinkFeaturedFilm & TVFunny StuffGuidesMusicNYCStaying InStuff To Do In DCTheatre & DanceTrue Crime 023 min read

Reading Recommendations From the BYT Winter Book Swap

Clarissa VillondoDecember 20, 2019

Great pictures of great books...

BooksPhotosUpcoming BYT Events 05 min read

Don’t Forget, This Exists: My Teenage Dream Ended

Matt ByrneDecember 18, 2019

In the pantheon of outsider art...

BooksFilm & TVMusic 02 min read

Books To Help You Make Sense of The End of This Year / Decade

Svetlana LegeticDecember 16, 2019

This decade was hard. This year was hard. Life, in general, is pretty hard. These books can help. DISCLAIMER: None of these books are self-help books....

BooksEvergreen GuidesFeaturedGuidesLGBTQ 020 min read

How to Run For Office with Kate Black

Jenn TisdaleDecember 11, 2019

"The reader who is picking up this book and thinking 'Do I have the qualifications?' The answer is yes."...

BooksInterviewsStuff To Do In DC 012 min read

You’re Invited to the BYT Winter Book Swap

BYT at largeDecember 3, 2019

We want to read what you read, we want you to read what we read ...

BooksFeaturedStuff To Do In DCTrue CrimeUpcoming BYT Events 02 min read

Your Best December

BYT at largeDecember 2, 2019

End the year with a perfect dose of non-bullshit nostalgia...

BeerBooksChicagoCute StuffEat & DrinkFeaturedFilm & TVFunny StuffGuidesMusicNYCStaying InStuff To Do In DCTheatre & DanceTrue Crime 025 min read

10 Best Romance Novels of the 10s

Trisha BrownNovember 21, 2019

As more different kinds of stories make their way from authors and publishers into the hands of readers, our expectations shift and change as well...

BooksEvergreen GuidesGuides 010 min read

Photos: True Crime Author Panel @ Politics & Prose

Clarissa VillondoNovember 8, 2019

It was a criminally good time...

BooksFeaturedPhotosTrue Crime 05 min read

Your Best November

BYT at largeNovember 1, 2019

A month of true crime shows, true crime television and true crime beer?...

ArtBeerBooksChicagoEat & DrinkFeaturedFilm & TVFunny StuffGuidesMiscMusicNYCSports(?) & FitnessStaying InStuff To Do In DCTheatre & DanceTrue Crime 130 min read

BYT Interviews: Roxane Gay

Alan ZilbermanOctober 16, 2019

"I think white men, especially heterosexual white men, are used to the world as their oyster, being able to say and do whatever they want without consequence."...

BooksFeaturedInterviews 014 min read

Filter Events

19sep6:00 pm8:30 pmProfs & Pints DC: A Nation of Drunkards6:00 pm - 8:30 pm Bier Baron Tavern

Event Details

Profs & Pints presents: “A Nation of Drunkards,” with Matthew R. Pembleton, adjunct professorial lecturer at American University and author of Containing Addiction: The Federal Bureau of Narcotics and the Origins of America’s Global Drug War.

[Under current District of Columbia regulations attendees will be required to wear a mask except while eating or drinking. The Bier Baron will be requiring proof of Covid-19 vaccination or a negative Covid-19 test from the previous 72 hours for entry. It also will be requiring ticketed event attendees to purchase a minimum of two items, which can be food or beverages, including soft drinks.]

The United States is sometimes described as a “nation of drunkards.” The (often excessive) consumption of alcohol is as American as apple pie, but so, too, are intense arguments about the harm and impact of drink on American life.

Drinking patterns and public attitudes toward alcohol and intoxication have changed dramatically over time, in ways that can teach us a lot about American culture and society. The same nation that once consumed an average of five to seven gallons of liquor per person per year also embarked on the hopeless quest of Prohibition and launched a War on Drugs.

How do we make sense of these contradictions in the American character? Let Profs and Pints show you American history through the saloon door and the bottom of a bottle, and learn about the rise, fall, and return of alcohol in America.

The talk will take you from the Whiskey Rebellion to the Craft Beer Revolution. You’ll revisit George Washington and the rise of the distilling industry, Johnny Appleseed and the ubiquity of hard cider, the Market Revolution and the Great Whiskey Binge, nativism and the Lager Beer Riots, Temperance and the women’s movement, Prohibition, and the renaissance of American brewing. (Advance tickets: $12. Doors: $15, save $2 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later. Please arrive in plenty of time to place any order and be seated and settled before the talk begins.)

Time

(Sunday) 6:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Location

Bier Baron Tavern

1523 22nd St NW Washington DC 20037

Cost

Advance tickets: $12. Doors: $15, save $2 with a student ID.

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20sep6:00 pm8:30 pmProfs & Pints: The Damage Done by Darwin6:00 pm - 8:30 pm Bier Baron Tavern

Event Details

Profs and Pints presents: “The Damage Done by Darwin,” a look at how the acclaimed naturalist’s racism and sexism undermined his work and haunts us to this day, with Rui Diogo, associate professor of anatomy at Howard University’s College of Medicine and resource faculty member at George Washington University’s Center for the Advanced Study of Hominid Paleobiology.

Charles Darwin has long been put on a pedestal and idolized as an objective, rational thinker who challenged the theist views of this day and changed how we see the world for the better. The truth, however, is a lot more complicated. Many of Darwin’s ideas were less original than widely believed and, in many cases, repackaged the false assumptions and prejudices of his era as the purported product of scientific observation. They helped buttress racist and sexist worldviews in ways that would do tremendous damage even to this day.

Join Rui Diogo, an evolutionary biologist who has extensively reviewed Darwin’s books, diaries, notebooks, and letters, for an unflinching examination of Darwin’s life, thinking, and impact.

Professor Diogo will look at how almost none of the grand ideas attributed to Darwin—including the theory of natural selection—truly originated with him. He’ll discuss how Darwin stated as “fact” inaccurate constructions based on Victorian biases and stereotypes. And he’ll explore how Darwin’s assertions, and their warm reception, were very much a reflection of a broader ideological war that had left England’s wealthy Victorian elite eager to find new justifications for their relative privilege in the face of feared revolution.

Many scientists involved in similar research during Darwin’s time were not nearly as racist or sexist in their thinking. But Darwin was more skilled than most in packaging his ideas in ways that made them accessible and appealing to the general public. As a result, his writings became easy ammunition for generations of colonialists, white supremacists, and others seeking to defend social hierarchies, discrimination, and oppression.

The point of this talk is not to “cancel” Darwin, who was in fact right about some important things. Instead, it seeks to offer a more complete, nuanced, and clear-eyed assessment of him that might leave us better equipped to reject prejudices and false assumptions and evolve in our own thinking. (Advance tickets: $12 plus sales tax and vendor fees. Doors: $15, or $13 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later. Please allow yourself time to place any orders and get seated and settled in.)

Time

(Monday) 6:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Location

Bier Baron Tavern

1523 22nd St NW Washington DC 20037

Cost

Advance tickets: $12. Doors: $15, save $2 with a student ID.

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21sep5:00 pm8:00 pmSUNSET SOCIAL AT WILD DAYS DC5:00 pm - 8:00 pm WILD DAYS at Eaton Rooftop

21sep6:00 pm8:30 pmProfs & Pints: The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories6:00 pm - 8:30 pm Church Hall

Event Details

Profs and Pints presents: “The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories,” with Brian A. Sharpless, licensed clinical psychologist, visiting research fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London, and editor of Unusual Psychological Disorders.

(Church Hall, where this event is being staged, follows all C.D.C. and Washington D.C. guidelines regarding public health, and D.C. currently requires anyone indoors at a restaurant or bar to wear a mask except while eating or drinking. The venue reserves the right to modify all rules to align with current and future regulations and best practices to maintain a safe and fun environment. In addition to bar service, it provides contactless ordering and hand sanitizer at all tables.)

What is a conspiracy theory? Are people who believe in conspiracies fundamentally different from those who do not? Are there any ways to protect yourself from buying into false theories? How often do conspiracy theories actually turn out to be true?

These are just a few of the fascinating questions that will tackled by Brian Sharpless, a regular on the Profs and Pints stage. He will discuss conspiratorial thinking throughout history, define what “conspiracy theory” means to psychologists and psychiatrists, and summarize what the field knows about the people who buy into such beliefs.

You may be surprised to learn that there are ways to predict who will believe in conspiracy theories, with some very common “cognitive biases” leaving people more accepting of them. Conspiracy theories also can also provide short-term psychological benefits to the believer. Furthermore, a number of psychological traits and disorders – both common and rare – have been associated with conspiratorial thinking.

Perhaps most surprising, that there are relatively few big differences between those who are predisposed to believe in conspiracy theories and those who aren’t. It’s small differences that sometimes have a huge impact in worldview.

The good news is that there are ways to evaluate – and even “inoculate” yourself against – conspiracy theories, and Dr. Sharpless will offer you practical tips on this front. You may walk out with a different perspective on what you read in the news and on the internet, with new knowledge that may help you maintain a more realistic and accurate worldview. (Advance tickets: $12 plus sales tax and vendor fees. Doors: $15, or $13 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later. Please allow yourself time to place any orders and get seated and settled in.)

Time

(Tuesday) 6:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Location

Church Hall

1070 Wisconsin Ave NW, Washington, DC 20007

Cost

Advance tickets: $12. Doors: $15, save $2 with a student ID.

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26sep3:00 pm8:00 pmElectric Rainbow: CAMPPresented by CO/OP3:00 pm - 8:00 pm Capo Backroom

26sep6:00 pm8:30 pmProfs & Pints: Understanding Racial Capitalism6:00 pm - 8:30 pm Bier Baron Tavern

Event Details

Profs and Pints presents: “Understanding Racial Capitalism,” with Olufemi Taiwo, assistant professor of philosophy at Georgetown University and scholar of Black political movements.

What does a properly intersectional movement against racism—and, for that matter, transphobia, patriarchy, and ableism—demand of us in terms of our relationship with our capitalist economic system? Do we have to be against capitalism to oppose racism? Is the struggle against racist police violence an anti-capitalist struggle? Are the struggles for universal healthcare, a jobs guarantee, or climate justice anti-racist ones?

Join Professor Taiwo as he offers answers to these questions based on a long line of neglected Black political thought. His talk will cite a host of prominent Black thinkers and span the disciplines, drawing from political science, sociology, Black Studies, and geography.

Spurred in part by the increasing prominence of these kinds of questions, the term “racial capitalism” is rising in use. Some take the term to mean that there is a fundamental, necessary relationship between racism and capitalism. Others take it as a description of how capitalism functions. Some are bitterly opposed to the use of the term “racial capitalism” entirely, viewing “racial” as an unhelpful, arbitrary, or misleading appendage to the term “capitalism.”

We’ll learn about the political theorist Cedric Robinson’s classic book Black Marxism, which is largely credited with introducing the term “racial capitalism” to describe the construction of a global political system that advantages whites and exploits Black people and other people of color. Also covered by the talk will be contemporary scholars like geographer and abolitionist Ruth Wilson Gilmore, who used the same way of thinking about the world to describe the incentive structures that built mass incarceration and helped incentivize racist and militarized policing.

Professor Taiwo’s provocative Profs and Pints talks always win applause for expanding minds and challenging how people think about the issues of our day, and this talk promises to do so as well. (Advance tickets: $12 plus sales tax and vendor fees. Doors: $15, or $13 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later. Please allow yourself time to place any orders and get seated and settled in.)

Time

(Sunday) 6:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Location

Bier Baron Tavern

1523 22nd St NW Washington DC 20037

Cost

Advance tickets: $12. Doors: $15, save $2 with a student ID.

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27sep6:00 pm8:30 pmProfs & Pints: What Creates a Terrorist?6:00 pm - 8:30 pm Bier Baron Tavern

Event Details

Profs and Pints presents: “What Creates a Terrorist?” with Dan Schneider, assistant professor at American University’s School of International Service and teacher of a course on al-Qaeda, ISIS and the War on Terror.

Twenty years after the 9/11 attacks, the United States continues to face terrorism on several fronts. The Taliban’s recent takeover of Afghanistan has given rise to fears of the reemergence of al-Qaeda and ISIS. On our own shores, rising right-wing extremism and associated violence remain a major concern. Some argue that the January 6th attack on the Capitol was itself an act of terrorism. If we hope to reduce the threat of political violence in our country and abroad, it is imperative that we understand how people can come to commit violent acts in pursuit of a political cause.

Why do people commit terrorist acts? Come hear that question tackled by Daniel Schneider, who teaches courses on terrorism and transnational crime for American University’s School of International Service.

Professor Schneider will discuss how research into the causes of terrorism, based partly on interviews with thousands of terrorists, has found that most terrorists are, in a psychological sense, normal and rational. They tend to be well educated, coming from middle or upper-middle-class backgrounds. Many have spouses and children who they care for deeply.

Looking into the life histories of selected individual terrorists, he’ll explore the insights that psychology, particularly group psychology, contributes to our understanding of how otherwise normal, well-educated people become killers of innocent people for ideological reasons. He’ll use excerpts from the great film, “The Battle of Algiers,” to illustrate how this transition occurs.

With a fuller and clearer explanation of what makes people become terrorists, we will explore ways to use such knowledge to develop better ways to reduce terrorism. The lessons we’ll learn might help us be safer in the long term. (Advance tickets: $12 plus sales tax and vendor fees. Doors: $15, or $13 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later. Please allow yourself time to place any orders and get seated and settled in.)

Time

(Monday) 6:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Location

Bier Baron Tavern

1523 22nd St NW Washington DC 20037

Cost

Advance tickets: $12. Doors: $15, save $2 with a student ID.

Learn More

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28sep5:00 pm8:00 pmSUNSET SOCIAL AT WILD DAYS DC5:00 pm - 8:00 pm WILD DAYS at Eaton Rooftop

28sep6:00 pm8:30 pmProfs & Pints: When Pirates Prowled the Chesapeake6:00 pm - 8:30 pm Church Hall

Event Details

Profs & Pints presents: “When Pirates Prowled the Chesapeake,” with Jamie L.H. Goodall, professor at history at Southern New Hampshire University, scholar of piracy in and around the Atlantic, and author of Pirates of the Chesapeake Bay.

The Chesapeake Bay is an area intimately tied to a fascinating history of intrigue, plunder, and illicit commerce. From its first pirate, William Claiborne, to the infamous Captain Kidd, commerce raiders influenced the ebb and flow of the bay’s economy. Some pirates attacked on the bay while others simply made it their base of operations for depredations in the West Indies.

Learn about these nefarious rogues from Professor Goodall, an expert on Atlantic World piracy and privateering, particular during its Golden Age from 1650 to 1730. She’ll discuss the findings of her extensive research on pirates’ exploits, lives, and trials for her well-received book Pirates of the Chesapeake Bay: From the Colonial Era to the Oyster Wars.

Her talk will focus heavily on individual stories based on men like Theophilus Turner, Blackbeard, John James, and Louis Guittar, who pillaged and plundered their way between Baltimore and Hampton Roads. She’ll discuss what types of people got involved in acts of piracy and what roles they took.

You’ll also learn about the types of ships pirates preferred, how some of them managed to evade capture, and the role of women in the realm of pirates within the confines of the Chesapeake Bay.

Among the questions Dr. Goodall will tackle: Why the Chesapeake? Which parts of it were more prone to piracy? What made pirates view this region as both a haven and a prime target? What brought it all to an end?

Whether you’re sitting down with rum, ale, or just a glass of soda or tap water, you’ll be glad you’d climbed aboard for this scholarly voyage. (Advance tickets: $12 plus sales tax and vendor fees. Doors: $15, or $13 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later. Please allow yourself time to place any orders and get seated and settled in.)

Time

(Tuesday) 6:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Location

Church Hall

1070 Wisconsin Ave NW, Washington, DC 20007

Cost

Advance tickets: $12. Doors: $15, save $2 with a student ID.

Learn More

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