Profs and Pints Meetup-Metro DC

Profs and Pints Northern Virginia presents: “Early American Witch Hunts,” a look at the colonial hysteria that led to the tragedy of Salem, with Richard Bell, professor of history at the University of Maryland.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profsandpints/nv-salem .]

Salem, 1692: Two young girls living in the household of one of the town’s ministers are acting strangely and having fits. A doctor is summoned and tells the minister that his girls are suffering from the action of the Devil’s ‘Evil Hand’ upon them. News of the doctor’s diagnosis quickly spreads and confirms what many in town are already whispering: These girls are the victims of witchcraft. They have been cursed by witches living somewhere in Salem.

The notorious Salem witch hunts that resulted were hardly isolated incidents. Instead, they marked the culmination of anti-witch hysteria that had crossed the Atlantic with early colonists, inspiring laws banning witchcraft and the execution of accused witches elsewhere.

Learn in depth about witch hunts in the colonies from Dr. Richard Bell, a University of Maryland historian who has given terrific talks about the history underlying the Hamilton musical, Benjamin Franklin, the “reverse underground railroad,” and other subjects.

We’ll begin at the beginning, looking at what people in colonial America believed about witchcraft and how they carried out witch hunts to fight it. You’ll learn about the hallmarks of an American witch hunt and where else they had taken place.

Why is the 1662 outbreak of witch-hunting in Salem, a sleepy port town in Massachusetts, so well-known today? We’ll examine that infamous episode in depth, probing its most troubling corners and why that tragic episode claimed so many innocent lives. Among the questions Professor Bell will tackle: Did anyone face justice for their role in perpetrating this outrage? How have historians tried to explain the peculiar dynamics, impact, and legacy of what happened in Salem? (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: From the 1869 painting “Witch Hill (The Salem Martyr)” by Thomas Satterwhite Noble. (New York Historical Society Museum and Library / Wikimedia Commons).

Profs and Pints DC presents: “Early American Witch Hunts,” a look at the colonial hysteria that led to the tragedy of Salem, with Richard Bell, professor of history at the University of Maryland.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profsandpints/dc-american-witch-hunts .]

Salem, 1692: Two young girls living in the household of one of the town’s ministers are acting strangely and having fits. A doctor is summoned and tells the minister that his girls are suffering from the action of the Devil’s ‘Evil Hand’ upon them. News of the doctor’s diagnosis quickly spreads and confirms what many in town are already whispering: These girls are the victims of witchcraft. They have been cursed by witches living somewhere in Salem.

The notorious Salem witch hunts that resulted were hardly isolated incidents. Instead, they marked the culmination of anti-witch hysteria that had crossed the Atlantic with early colonists, inspiring laws banning witchcraft and the execution of accused witches elsewhere.

Learn in depth about witch hunts in the colonies from Dr. Richard Bell, a University of Maryland historian who has given terrific talks about the history underlying the Hamilton musical, Benjamin Franklin, the “reverse underground railroad,” and other subjects.

We’ll begin at the beginning, looking at what people in colonial America believed about witchcraft and how they carried out witch hunts to fight it. You’ll learn about the hallmarks of an American witch hunt and where else they had taken place.

Why is the 1662 outbreak of witch-hunting in Salem, a sleepy port town in Massachusetts, so well-known today? We’ll examine that infamous episode in depth, probing its most troubling corners and why that tragic episode claimed so many innocent lives. Among the questions Professor Bell will tackle: Did anyone face justice for their role in perpetrating this outrage? How have historians tried to explain the peculiar dynamics, impact, and legacy of what happened in Salem? (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: From the 1869 painting “Witch Hill (The Salem Martyr)” by Thomas Satterwhite Noble. (New York Historical Society Museum and Library / Wikimedia Commons).

Profs and Pints DC presents: “Ancient Terrors of the Night,” an introduction to what terrified the Greeks and Romans of antiquity, with Barbette Stanley Spaeth, professor emerita of classical studies at William and Mary and scholar of magic and the supernatural in the ancient world.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/dc-ancient-terrors .]

Literature, papyrus scrolls used for magic, and archaeological finds show that ancient Greeks and Romans believed in demons, ghosts, vampiric beings, reanimated dead, shape‑shifters, and night‑hags.

Gear up for Halloween by getting to know what might have spooked Nero or Sophocles with the help of Barbette Stanley Spaeth, who has spent 25 years researching, teaching, and publishing on the supernatural of antiquity.

Dr. Spaeth, who previously has given several excellent Profs and Pints talks, will make clear that ancient Greek and Roman tales of the “terror that comes in the night” were not relegated to folklore but woven into religion, law, medicine, and the sincere practice of magic. These stories explained the unexplained, enforced social norms, and supplied tools for protection or attack such as amulets, curse tablets, exorcisms, and other various spells.

You’ll learn how belief in daimones (demons) went from regarding them as ambiguous, semi‑divine beings to assigning them a malign character and making them the targets of exorcism. People thought the dead returned as incorporeal spirits or ghosts as a result of improper burials or in response to unresolved business with the living remained, and that they also could be exorcised with the proper rituals. Necromancy typically summoned such shades to ask them for information, yet texts also describe how animated corpses were harnessed to harm others, becoming ancient analogues of vampiric or zombie threats.

We’ll discuss how witches and magicians were believed to shape-shift into a variety of creatures—including wolves, owls, and weasels—to carry out their dark deeds.

The most frightful of all, however, may have been the night hags, who were blamed for sleep assaults, drained vitality, sexual violence, and the kidnapping and torture of children to derive ingredients for magic.

You’ll emerge from the talk with an understanding of how our modern terrors of the night are drawn from a long, complex classical heritage as refracted through centuries of reinterpretation as well as various local traditions. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: An 1898 painting by Adolf Hirémy-Hirschl depicts souls on the banks of the Acheron, a river, associated with Hades, where necromancy was practiced.

Profs and Pints DC presents: “Tales from Netherworlds,” an evening with Baba Yaga and other dark denizens of the imagination, with folklorist Philippa Rappoport of George Washington University.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profsandpints/dc-netherworlds .]

The traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain—now known as Halloween—marked the opening of a door between our world and the world of deities and the dead. In honor of that day’s approach, Philippa Rappoport returns to tell Slavic folktales about journeys to a strange netherworld beneath us.

The ticket to taking such a trip is being in possession of a magic doll. A mysterious element of folktales in East Slavic nations, they’ll open doors in the earth for you. Beware, though. Although you might escape danger on one side, you’re likely to face it on the other.

Professor Rappoport will tell the tale of one heroine, Vasilisa the Beautiful, whose doll-aided plunge into a netherworld leads her to confront the witch Baba Yaga and a host of ooglie booglie spirits. She’ll take us on a journey of our own, exploring what such folktales tell us about beliefs about women, witches, fairy godmothers, and magical helpers. We’ll tour netherworlds as places where we can find both terror and refuge. You’ll be surprised by how relevant much of what you’ll encounter is to spiritual beliefs and practices all around us today.

Professor Rappoport has also wowed Profs and Pints audiences with talks about East Slavic nations' house spirits and treacherous mermaids. Her latest effort will change how you think about Halloween. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: Vasilisa the Beautiful at the hut of Baba Yaga. (Illustration by Ivan Bilibin.)