What we’re about
Profs and Pints brings professors and other college instructors into bars, cafes, and other venues to give fascinating talks or to conduct instructive workshops. They cover a wide range of subjects, including history, politics, popular culture, horticulture, literature, creative writing, and personal finance. Anyone interested in learning and in meeting people with similar interests should join. Lectures are structured to allow at least a half hour for questions and an additional hour for audience members to meet each other. Admission to Profs and Pints events requires the purchase of tickets, either in advance (through the link provided in event descriptions) or at the door to the venue. Many events sell out in advance.
Although Profs and Pints has a social mission--expanding access to higher learning while offering college instructors a new income source--it is NOT a 501c3. It was established as a for-profit company in hopes that, by developing a profitable business model, it would be able to spread to other communities much more quickly than a nonprofit dependent on philanthropic support. That said, it is welcoming partners and collaborators as it seeks to build up audiences and spread to new cities. For more information email profsandpints@hotmail.com.
Thank you for your interest in Profs and Pints.
Regards,
Peter Schmidt, Founder, Profs and Pints
Upcoming events (4+)
See all- Profs & Pints Northern Virginia: Raccoons UnmaskedCrooked Run Fermentation, Sterling, VA
Profs and Pints Northern Virginia presents: “Raccoons Unmasked,” with John Hadidian, urban wildlife expert and instructor in natural resources for Virginia Tech.
[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://profsandpints.ticketleap.com/rocky/ ]
Biologist John Hadidian spent more than 10 years hot on the trail of mischievous raccoons. Using radio transmitters and tracking collars, he followed the animals around Washington D.C. throughout the night to study their habits. His research helped make him a leading national expert on them, with federal agencies and National Geographic turning to him as a consultant on the critters.
Come to Crooked Run Fermentation in Sterling, Va., for a fascinating interactive talk by Dr. Hadidian on what he has learned. He'll discuss raccoons' social interactions and social organization, their space use and shelter requirements, and how they forage throughout the hours when most of us are in bed. He'll also take us through their life cycle and yearly pattern, which includes mating, bearing and raising young, and fattening up in fall for lean times in winter.
Urban environments, it turns out, represent a near-perfect habitat for these wildlife generalists, which are as happy to sleep in your attic and nosh on your discarded pizza crusts as they are to munch on berries and dwell in a tree. Dr. Hadidian is full of great tales about these rascally raiders, their antics in the night, and the chaos that can ensue when raccoons and humans come face to face.
He'll be taking your questions and donating his proceeds from his talk to City Wildlife, a Washington D.C. organization devoted to helping wildlife that has been injured or orphaned. ( Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)
Image from Pixabay
- Profs & Pints DC: The Year Civilization CollapsedPenn Social, Washington, DC
Profs and Pints DC presents: “The Year Civilization Collapsed,” on widespread disaster and upheaval at the end of the Bronze Age, with Eric H. Cline, professor of classics and anthropology at George Washington University.
[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://profsandpints.ticketleap.com/seapeople/ ]
Could a globalized, complex, international world system collapse suddenly, without previous warning?
Many are worried that it could happen. Few realize that it already occurred before.
Such an apocalyptic disaster struck the civilized and international world of the Mediterranean regions in 1177 BC, just a little more than three thousand years ago. In a vast area stretching from Greece and Italy in the west to Egypt, Canaan, and Mesopotamia in the east, large empires and small kingdoms collapsed rapidly after having taken centuries to evolve. Egyptians, Mycenaeans, Minoans, Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Cypriots, and Canaanites all either disappeared entirely or had to transform rapidly to survive.
Come hear a discussion of why the Bronze Age came to a terrible end from Professor Eric Cline, author of 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed, a book that was considered for a 2015 Pulitzer Prize, has been translated into sixteen languages, and has now been updated, with a revised edition appearing in 2021.
In an encore of a fantastic talk last given before the pandemic, Dr, Cline will discuss how blame for the end of the Late Bronze Age is usually laid squarely at the feet of invading Sea Peoples, a mysterious population known to us mainly from Egyptian records. As he’ll make clear, however, the collapse may not have been the result of a single invasion, but rather of multiple causes, with potential culprits including earthquakes, storms, climate change, droughts, famine, rebellions, and systems collapse.
The world's first recorded Dark Ages followed. It was not until centuries later that a new cultural renaissance emerged in Greece and the other affected areas, setting the stage for the evolution of Western society as we know it today.
Among the questions Dr. Cline will tackle: Might the collapse of those ancient civilizations hold some warnings for our current society? Since it has happened before, could it happen again? (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)
Image: "The Course of Empire: Destruction," an 1836 painting by Thomas Cole.
- Profs & Pints DC: Life at Earth's PolesPenn Social, Washington, DC
Profs and Pints DC presents: “Life at Earth’s Poles,” a chance to become more familiar with whales, penguins, polar bears, and other denizens of our planet’s coldest climates, with Chris Parsons, whale and dolphin researcher and associate professor in the Centre for Ecology and Conservation at Exeter University.
[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://profsandpints.ticketleap.com/narwhal/ ]
At a time of year when many children eagerly await a visitor from the North Pole, Profs and Pints invites you to learn about both the northern and southern extremes of the earth from a marine mammal biologist who has spent time with their furry and flippered residents.
Chris Parsons, a marine mammal biologist with more than 30 years of field experience, is deeply familiar with the creatures that live as far north and south as humans can possibly venture. He has explored Antarctica and written a textbook on marine mammal biology and conservation, and he’s a member of the scientific committee of the International Whaling Commission. His past Profs and Pints talks have been spellbinding, with plenty of tales of encounters with animals big enough to teach hard lessons those who don’t show them enough respect.
Dr. Parsons will set the stage by discussing how the North and South Poles and their surrounding regions are unique environments in several ways. Their cold waters are rich in nutrients that nurture life, but winter temperatures that drop down to minus 128-degrees Fahrenheit pose a serious challenge to survival. Days annually swing from 24 hours of sunlight to 24 hours of darkness, causing booms and crashes in the phytoplankton populations at the bottom of the food chain and making long migrations a necessity.
Despite such extreme conditions, these regions contain a wealth of wildlife: fluffy white seals and polar bears, miles-wide schools of krill, vast colonies of penguins, and many species of the great whales.
Why do so many species live in these harsh conditions instead of chilling on tropical beaches? How have they evolved to survive the frigid temperatures? He’ll answer such questions by discussing the specialized biology that has enabled them to adapt. He’ll also discuss the threats posed to polar habitats by climate change, pollution, and other human activities, and what the future holds for the residents of these regions. (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)
Image: Narwhals surface through a hole in the ice. Photo by Glenn Williams (NIST / Public domain)
- Profs & Pints Northern Virginia: How America Ate—a HistoryCrooked Run Fermentation, Sterling, VA
Profs and Pints Northern Virginia presents: “How America Ate—a History,” a feast of fascinating insights on how and why our nation's cuisine and eating habits have changed over time, with Allen Pietrobon, assistant professor of history at Trinity Washington University.
[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://profsandpints.ticketleap.com/plate/ .]
Come to Sterling's Crooked Run Fermentation for a journey through time to explore the culinary history of the United States. You'll learn from award-winning Professor Allen Pietrobon how what Americans ate over the centuries reflected the influence of immigration, economic trends, political influences, religion, gender, race, culture, government policy, and debates over national identity. We’ll tackle the puzzle of how the United States went from being revered for having one of the best food cultures in the world to today being (however unfairly) the subject of international ridicule for a food culture dominated by junk foods, fast foods, and processed frozen meals.
We’ll start back in the 1600s, focusing on the European settler's understanding (or lack thereof) of Native American food systems. From there we’ll examine how the mass immigration in the 1800s changed American cuisine despite anti-immigrant opposition to spaghetti and other dishes now common on our plates.
We’ll book a table at one of the world-famous American restaurants of the 1890s, to see what was on the table and deemed so delicious that for the next decade or so wealthy Europeans would board ships to our nation for vacations focused entirely on enjoying its splendid food offerings. Next up, will be a look at American eating habits in the 1920s, and how increased urbanization and the advent of widespread electricity changed how Americans cooked.
We’ll learn how World War II forever changed American food preparation and consumption and push a wonky-wheeled shopping cart through the 1950s, regarded as the “dark ages” of American cuisine, when cavernous supermarkets peddled frozen TV dinners and Jell-o salads. From there, we'll examine how the 1970s saw the country flooded with far more fast food and junk foods as the unintended consequence of government policies responding to the racial reckoning of the 1960s and inflation of the 1970s.
We’ll sample the buffet of all these issues and turning points in American food history to see how the United States ended up with the food culture in which we all live today. You’ll savor every bit of this talk. ( Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)
Image: Thanksgiving dinner at the house of Earle Landis of Neffsville, Pennsylvania, in 1942. Photo by Marjory Collins. (Library of Congress / Wikimedia Commons.)
