The Denman Island Readers and Writers Festival invites you to a special guest one evening event with Edward Slingerland, in the lead-up to the main Festival. Edward is author of the book, Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization.

Learn more at denmanislandwritersfestival.com/.

Seminar: Beer and the Origins of Civilization

Drawing on evidence from archaeology, history, cognitive neuroscience, psychopharmacology, social psychology, literature, and genetics, this talk will argue that our taste for chemical intoxicants is not an evolutionary mistake, as we are so often told. In fact, intoxication helps solve a number of distinctively human challenges: enhancing creativity, alleviating stress, building trust, and pulling off the miracle of getting fiercely tribal primates to cooperate with strangers. Our desire to get drunk, along with the individual and social benefits provided by drunkenness, played a crucial role in sparking the rise of the first large-scale societies. We would not have civilization without intoxication. Beer, as the oldest documented intoxicant, the most widespread and safest form of alcoholic beverage, plays a particularly central role in this story.

Learn more at craftbrewersconference.com.

Drunk SuperSalon: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization, with author Edward Slingerland

In this exciting online discussion, please join professor of philosophy and writer Edward Slingerland and Interintellect host Bryan Kam to discuss Edward’s book Drunk, a deep dive into the alcohol-soaked origins of civilization and the evolutionary roots of humanity’s appetite for intoxication.

Learn more at interintellect.com.

London IRL: Drunk — How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization, with author Edward Slingerland

In this exciting and exclusive live discussion, please join professor of philosophy and writer Edward Slingerland and Interintellect host Bryan Kam to discuss Edward’s book Drunk, a deep dive into the alcohol-soaked origins of civilization and the evolutionary roots of humanity’s appetite for intoxication. The event, which is free for those who register, will take place in a classic Victorian pub in Central London.

The exact location of the discussion will be shared via email with those who signed up, as well as in the London channel in the Interintellect community forum.

Learn more at interintellect.com.

A Conversation at The Interval

Edward Slingerland’s latest research is a deep dive into the alcohol-soaked origins of civilization — and the evolutionary roots of humanity’s appetite for intoxication.

Tickets usually go on sale 2 weeks before the talk.

Learn more at longnow.org.

While plenty of entertaining books have been written about the history of alcohol and other intoxicants, none have offered a comprehensive, convincing answer to the basic question of why humans want to get high in the first place. Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization elegantly cuts through the tangle of urban legends and anecdotal impressions that surround our notions of intoxication to provide the first rigorous, scientifically-grounded explanation for our love of alcohol. Drawing on evidence from archaeology, history, cognitive neuroscience, psychopharmacology, social psychology, literature, and genetics, Slingerland shows that our taste for chemical intoxicants is not an evolutionary mistake, as we are so often told. In fact, intoxication helps solve a number of distinctively human challenges: enhancing creativity, alleviating stress, building trust, and pulling off the miracle of getting fiercely tribal primates to cooperate with strangers. Our desire to get drunk, along with the individual and social benefits provided by drunkenness, played a crucial role in sparking the rise of the first large-scale societies. We would not have civilization without intoxication.

From marauding Vikings and bacchanalian orgies to sex-starved fruit flies, blind cave fish, and problem-solving crows, Drunk is packed with fascinating case studies and engaging science, as well as practical takeaways for individuals and communities. The result is a captivating and long overdue investigation into humanity’s oldest indulgence—one that explains not only why we want to get drunk, but also how it might actually be good for us to tie one on now and then.

Author Edward Slingerland is joined by Tomas Nenortas, the Hartford-based historian, author and the mastermind behind the world’s first hydro-powered distillery, Moxi on the Rocks.

Organized by the Mark Twain House and Museum. Register for free at crowdcast.io

Now here’s a book worth toasting: Drunk. Join us for an afternoon at Cape Cod Winery in East Falmouth for an entertaining and enlightening deep dive into humanity’s oldest indulgence: drinking. While plenty of books have been written about the history of alcohol and other intoxicants, none have offered a comprehensive, convincing answer to one basic question: Why do humans want to get high in the first place? What’s more, author Edward Slingerland claims we simply would not have civilization without intoxication. Enjoy a glass of wine (and live music after the talk) as your host serves up fascinating case studies and engaging science—everything from marauding Vikings and bacchanalian orgies to sex-starved fruit flies, blind cave fish, and problem-solving crows. He’ll not only explain why we want to get drunk, but also why it might actually be good for us to tie one on now and then.

Learn more at museumonthegreen.org.

Register through Eventbrite.

Coffee Time Talks on Chinese Thought

The claim that the notion of psychological interiority is completely lacking from the Analects of Confucius, and the related claim that psychological interiority itself is a particularly Western concept, is still frequently heard. It is also commonly claimed that mind-body dualism is entirely foreign to early China—or ‘the East’ more generally. This talk will explore how engaging with the cognitive sciences and digital humanities undermines claims such as this, and more broadly can help us to do our work as scholars of comparative philosophy.

Zoom ID 984 9500 6071

https://slu.zoom.us/j/98495006071

This week on History Happy Hour: What better topic for our hoist-a-glass history show than the role of intoxication in the rise of civilization? Turns out getting hammered, tanked, wasted, plastered have played a major role in getting where we are today. Drinks in hand, host Historians Chris Anderson and Rick Beyer welcome Edward Slingerland, author of "Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization." Find out how evidence from archaeology, history, neuroscience, and genetics suggests our taste for chemical intoxicants isn’t a flaw – it has helped solve a number of distinctively human challenges. The historical impact of humanity’s appetite for getting juiced up. Sunday at 4PM ET on History Happy Hour, the spot where history is always on tap.

Watch it on Youtube.

Edward Slingerland Explores Human Impulse to Get ‘Drunk’ — and Why It’s Not Always A Bad Idea

“It should puzzle us more than it does that one of the greatest foci of human ingenuity and concentrated effort over the past millennia has been the problem of how to get drunk,” writes Edward Slingerland in his new book “Drunk.” Alcohol might not only enable personal creativity and social ease — it may have aided the cohesion and innovation necessary to create civilizations themselves. Slingerland does not dismiss the gravity of addiction and its endangering behaviors, but in appealing to history, neuroscience and art, he makes the case that drinking, socially and in moderation, can advance social goods.

For more details, visit KQED.org.

Why do people like to get intoxicated? Edward Slingerland, professor of philosophy at the University of British Columbia, tried to answer the question in his latest book, “Drunk,” which looks at the evolutionary purpose and history of intoxication.

For more details and broadcasting information, visit cspan.org.

A pint after work now and then might be more than a comforting habit — it could be evolution. Edward Slingerland is distinguished university scholar and professor of Asian studies at the University of British Columbia, as well as co-director of the Centre for the Study of Human Evolution, Cognition and Culture. He joins host Krys Boyd to discuss why many organisms — human and otherwise — like to tie one on now and again and the effect that has had on our societies. His book is called “Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization.”

For more information, visit https://think.kera.org/, or listen to the interview as a podcast.

I’m Edward Slingerland, and I just wrote a book about how getting DRUNK has shaped civilization. I’m here to talk about the evolutionary roots of humanity’s appetite for intoxication. AMA!

Join the conversation at reddit.com.