Hey Baltimore Nerds! Welcome to our Nerd Nite # 23! Come out February 12th, grab a beer and settle in for the best 2 hours you’ll spend on a Wednesday! Scroll down to see talk descriptions….
Nerd Nite Baltimore (NNB) is part of an international community of Nerd Nites in over 90 cities around the world! This event combines imbibing and learning.
Join us for a night of educational drinking!
Talks at Nerd Nite are 15- 20 minutes with a rollicking Q&A afterward. The barkeeps at De Kleine Duivel will keep your glasses full of delightful Belgian beer and spirits.
Doors open at 6:30…event starts at 7:00pm. We accept cash or card at the door. Tickets are $5 online and $6 at the door.
We have a great line up for this month!
Tickets available here: (https://www.eventbrite.com/e/90874037693)
Talk #1: Speaker: Rebecca A. Adelman on “If her loose lips sink ships, what can her other parts do?: Policing women’s talk in wartime”
Summary: During World War II, the “loose lips” blamed for “sinking ships” frequently belonged to women, and posters reminded amorous GIs not to share sensitive information in attempts to impress the ladies. Today, OPSEC (Operational Security) materials for military families warn wives to scrub their social media and keep their husbands’ deployments secret. While men telling women to be quiet is hardly novel, it is noteworthy that in these cases, talkative women are portrayed as not just irritating but lethally dangerous. These chatterboxes will be our guides through a history of the U.S. military’s approach to the problems of its men liking women, and those women liking to have contact with the outside world.
Bio: Rebecca A. Adelman is herself a talkative woman and an Associate Professor of Media and Communication Studies at UMBC, where she teaches and writes about things like visual culture, militarized violence, surveillance, and media theory. Her newest book is Figuring Violence: Affective Investments in Perpetual War.
Talk #2: Speaker Dr. Ernesto Chanona on “Board games make your life awesome”
Summary: When I say “board games” most people think of Monopoly, Sorry or the game of Life, which were popular in decades past. But there’s an exciting new world of board games out there. My talk will reveal new classes of games, what they’re like and the benefits of this experience in the context of our screen-dependent, digital age.
Bio: I’m an avid board game player and board game designer. I founded my design studio, the Ministry of Dice in 2017. I’m currently working on a choose-your-own-adventure style game with a friend of mine. In my day job, I’m an economic developer for the biotech industry in Maryland.
Talk #3: Speaker Dr. Marie van Staveren on “Teaching and learning in higher education: a pedagogy nerd shares some thoughts”
Summary: K-12 teachers are required to take significant coursework in the area of teaching and learning, and there is a robust research literature about how college students learn best. However, most college professors receive little or no training in pedagogy. As a result, college classes can be rather dull and ineffective, and subpar pedagogy tends to reinforce existing societal inequalities. I’m gonna share with y’all several of my favorite teaching techniques and theories, namedrop several Serious People in Pedagogy who I love, and generally try to convince you that learning should be both more fun and more easy than it usually is in college.
Bio: Marie van Staveren is a Lecturer of Chemistry at UMBC, where she teaches advanced lab courses in blowing things up, shooting lasers at stuff, and how to be awesome. She spends her professional energy reading All of the Books About Teaching and endlessly revamping her courses to be better.