The Bellwether Syndicate

Name: Profs & Pints: What Creates a Terrorist?
Start: 2021-9-27T18-18-00-00
End: 2021-9-27T20-20-30-00
Location: Bier Baron Tavern

BYT Interview: The Foreign Resort

BYT at largeMarch 6, 2014

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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.

[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.]

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.

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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.

(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.)

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.

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03oct6:00 pm8:30 pmProfs & Pints: How We Lost Afghanistan6:00 pm - 8:30 pm Bier Baron Tavern

Event Details

Profs and Pints presents: “How We Lost Afghanistan,” with Christine Fair, professor in Georgetown University’s Securities Studies Program, former political officer for the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, and author of several books on political and military affairs in South Asia.

The recent U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan—and the chaos associated with it and the rapid return of the Taliban to power—has raised a host of troubling questions about how our nation handled its dealings with that nation. Had we truly fulfilled our mission there? How could we have so badly misjudged how quickly the Afghan security forces we had trained and equipped would fall? Why did things there go so badly in the end? Are we truly done with Afghanistan? Or will need to go back—and run the risk of repeating the same mistakes?

Come hear such questions tackled by Christine Fair, a professor in Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service who has been on the ground in Afghanistan as a U.N. officer and has written several books on the political and military affairs in South Asia, a region she has studied for 30 years.

Dr. Fair will argue that the United States basically “lost Afghanistan on the installment plan.” It and its partners never understood the fundamental drivers of their eventual defeat, much less developed policy measures that would make this loss less likely.

She’ll discuss how the seeds of failure were planted in the earliest weeks of the conflict, when the United States entered Afghanistan under the aegis of “Operation Enduring Freedom.” On October 7, 2002, a small group of special operators went into Afghanistan from Tajikistan with the goal of shoring up the Northern Alliance. Its leader, a murderous warlord known as Ahmad Shah Massoud, had been grievously injured in a suicide attack the month before.

The Americans had not expected that the Taliban would fall quickly, but it did. Nor were the Americans able to deter the Northern Alliance from storming Kabul, which they did. And, in these fateful weeks, the United States ensured its eventual defeat in a war that would stretch out for nearly twenty years, and which would become the longest war in America’s history.

The speaker plans to donate her proceeds from the talk to a program of the Lutheran Social Services of the National Capital Area devoted to resettling Afghan refugees who are coming into our region on special immigrant visas. (Advance tickets: $12. Door: $15, or $13 with a student ID.)

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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05oct5:00 pm8:00 pmSUNSET SOCIAL AT WILD DAYS DC5:00 pm - 8:00 pm WILD DAYS at Eaton Rooftop

05oct6:00 pm8:30 pmProfs & Pints: Spirits Around the Place6:00 pm - 8:30 pm Church Hall

Event Details

Profs and Pints presents: “Spirits Around the Place,” a look at Russia’s beliefs in supernatural creatures and haunted spaces, with folklorist Philippa Rappoport of George Washington University.

Traditional Russian beliefs hold that we’re seldom alone, even if no people are around. Instead, we’re nearly always surrounded by mythological beings. They can make our lives complicated and sometimes even injure or murder us, sometimes because we’ve annoyed them or, in other cases, just because that’s what they like to do.

Prepare to return to the days when you wondered what’s under your bed with this spook-filled talk by Philippa Rappoport, an expert on Slavic folklore and rituals. She’ll describe how Russian culture long ago gave rise to beliefs in such mythological beings, known as “nature” or “place” spirits, who exert their influence on farmsteads, bathhouses, threshing barns, woods, water, and, yes, our own homes. Their presence was felt daily in the Russian peasant’s world, and it still can be seen today in the ways in which Russians relate to home, space, and boundaries.

The real frightening fun will come when Dr. Rappoport introduces us to these supernatural beings, discussing their characteristics and the beliefs and traditions surrounding them.

We’ll learn about the sprits of the home and homestead, such as the domovoi, a cranky spiritual master and protector of the home and hearth, and his counterpart of the yard, the dvorovoi. We’ll talk about the bannik, the bathhouse spirit who presides over bathing and births but also sees saunas as a great place to strangle folks who don’t show him enough respect.

A little farther from home, we’ll meet the spirits of the forests, waters, and fields. They include the leshii, master of the forest and its inhabitants, who might appear like a peasant, devil, or beast. Another spirit, the vodianoi, or “water devil,” is a bloated, shaggy, slimy water spirit that you’ll want to avoid at all costs.

We’ll examine how these supernatural creatures are related to perceptions of space, boundaries, danger, and people who are categorized as “others” and shunned for it. We’ll gain insights on how people express fear of the unknown, and how such fear connects to xenophobia and some of the worst human behavior imaginable, deeds which render their perpetrators as monsters in their own right. It’s a talk that will give you an entirely new vantage point for viewing Russian history and culture, and help you better understand the 19th- and 20-century Russian propensity to close borders or punish by exile and gulag. (Advance tickets: $12 plus sales tax and service charge. Door: $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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12oct5:00 pm8:00 pmSUNSET SOCIAL AT WILD DAYS DC5:00 pm - 8:00 pm WILD DAYS at Eaton Rooftop

19oct5:00 pm8:00 pmSUNSET SOCIAL AT WILD DAYS DC5:00 pm - 8:00 pm WILD DAYS at Eaton Rooftop

26oct5:00 pm8:00 pmSUNSET SOCIAL AT WILD DAYS DC5:00 pm - 8:00 pm WILD DAYS at Eaton Rooftop