Profs and Pints Meetup-Metro DC

Profs and Pints Northern Virginia presents: “Popes and Politics,” on the history of clashes between pontiffs and world leaders, with Vanessa Corcoran, medieval historian at Georgetown University and scholar of the history of the Roman Catholic church.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/northern-virginia-popes-politics .]

President Trump recently shocked many by unleashing personal attacks on Pope Leo XIV, the first American-born pope, in a post on the Truth Social platform. Trump has been widely criticized by religious leaders for these remarks, made in response to the pontiff’s advocacy of peace with the U.S and Israel at war with Iran, and for his separate posts of AI-generated images depicting himself as a pope and as Jesus. For his part, Pope Leo has told journalists, “I am not afraid of the Trump administration,” and has found himself at the center of a heated debate over the proper role of any pope when it comes to commenting on global politics.

As unsettling as such developments might be to Roman Catholics, they’re hardly unprecedented. Disagreements between popes and world leaders go back to the Middle Ages, and have played a significant role in shaping the Church and its role in the world.

Explore the long history of popes’ conflicts with politicians with Vanessa Corcoran, a historian of the Roman Catholic Church who previously has given excellent talks on papal conclaves and the evolution of nativity scenes.

She’ll discuss fascinating developments such as the fourteenth century Avignon Papacy, when Philip IV of France got the upper hand in a feud with the Church by pressuring a papal conclave to select a French pope and then getting the church’s leadership relocated from Rome to Avignon for nearly 70 years.

In drawing parallels between recent events and medieval attacks on the Church’s authority she’ll describe how today’s anti-Church memes echo the anti-pope and anti-Catholic images that Martin Luther disseminated in large numbers with the help of woodcut printing.

We’ll look at tensions between past presidents and past popes over not just wars, but issues such as abortion, stem-cell research, and abortion access. The talk will leave you with a deeper appreciation of the inherent tensions between politics and matters of faith. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: From an 1866 Nicolò Barabino painting of the death of Pope Boniface VIII after he was kidnapped and held captive for three days at the behest of King Philip IV of France (Usher Gallery / Wikimedia Commons).

Profs and Pints Northern Virginia presents: “Artemis II and Beyond,” on how the recent space mission fits into long-term plans for the Moon, with Michael J. Neufeld, retired senior curator for the Space History Department of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/northern-virginia-artemis-ii-beyond .]

NASA’s recent, spectacular Artemis II mission is a sign that the United States is serious about sending humans to the Moon again.

Gain an understanding of how Artemis II fits in both past and planned lunar missions with historian Michael Neufeld, who was lead curator of the Smithsonian’s Destination Moon exhibit. He has taught at Johns Hopkins, Colgate, and other universities, and is the author or editor of nine books dealing with the history of technology.

He’ll start by looking at the aftermath of the Apollo program of a half century ago and why it ended only four years after its first lunar mission. He’ll consider why no lasting lunar programs emerged from major announcements by two presidents, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, that astronauts would be going back to the Moon and on to Mars.

His vividly illustrated lecture will then explore how Artemis is a product of a human spaceflight program that has changed dramatically over the past 50 years. We’ll look at how collaboration with Europe, Canada and Japan became integral to the shuttle and International Space Station programs, and how the rise of new commercial space companies such as SpaceX has enabled NASA to buy both space services and space craft.

Both international and commercial partners are involved in the latest Moon efforts, with SpaceX and Blue Origin expected to supply the landers to take astronauts down to a planned base on the Moon’s South Pole. How soon will any of this happen? Probably not as quickly as NASA says, but the specter of a Chinese landing on the Moon by 2030 is one obvious reason to keep things moving along.

We’ll look at the sustainability of the Artemis space program for at least the next decade or so. You’ll emerge from the talk with no doubt that exciting days are ahead for space fans. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: The Artemis II mission launch (NASA photo).

Profs and Pints DC presents: “Horror as Queer,” a look at the influence and depiction of queerness in horror films, with May Santiago, adjunct professor of film studies at George Mason University and producer of the podcast Horrorspiria.

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

Horror was queer long before both Brad and Janet succumbed to the charms of Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. In fact, one could make the argument that, for both better and worse, the history of horror films is the history of queers on film. Film scholar May Santiago will do just that, with plenty of vivid examples, in reprising a talk that has earned rave reviews.

You’ll learn how queer auteurs such as F.W. Murnau and James Whale were there at the very beginning. Murnau played a central role in the German expressionist movement that gave rise to films such as Nosferatu, while Whale left a body of work full of queer codes, including the films Frankenstein, The Old Dark House, and The Invisible Man.

From there, Santiago will discuss how the representational codes established by such queer filmmakers were appropriated throughout the celluloid century by non-queer authors who constructed cinematic horror language that used queerness as shorthand for the monstrous. The result was harmful stereotypes of queer people in films and society, with examples being the stoic psycho lesbian trope embodied by Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca, the transgender sex-obsessed serial murderer Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, and the villains of Dressed to Kill and Silence of the Lambs.

Yet, even with these negative portrayals of explicit or implicit queerness, horror cinema’s relationship with queerness and queer audiences has grown stronger with each passing decade, with queer authors and queer audiences reclaiming the monstrosity that created the basis of the horror genre. Santiago will look at how the evolution of horror films coincided with that of queer stereotypes and how queer authors embedded queerness in films that aren’t explicitly queer. Among the questions she’ll tackle: How did we come around to thinking that the Babadook was gay? ? (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: A frame from the 1920 silent German horror film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (tint added).

Profs and Pints DC presents: “Inside the World Cup,” a scholarly look at preparation for the upcoming soccer tournament and at the likely impact of major global sports events soon to be staged in the United States, with Matt Winkler, founder of American University’s online master’s program in sports analytics and management and former sports executive.

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

The FIFA World Cup 2026 will soon take place in several cities throughout the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Come to Profs and Pints to get an industry insider’s perspective on it and other global sports events being hosted by American cities, including the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles and the 2034 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

Learn about the preparation for these events, about their projected economic and cultural impact, and about remaining uncertainties surrounding them with Matt Winkler, a scholar and teacher of sports management and business with years of experience working with the World Cup, the Olympics, and various professional sports leagues.

He’ll discuss issues related to the FIFA World Cup’s governance, site preparation, security, fan management, and tourist visas, and he’ll weigh how the $13 billion dollars in revenue projected to be generated by the tournament compares to the costs of staging 104 games between 48 countries.

He’ll delve into how the tournament symbolizes a pivotal moment in the evolution of soccer in America, with global games broadcast all over American television channels and streaming services. You’ll learn how the 1994 World Cup in the United States significantly boosted soccer’s popularity—leading to increased youth participation and the establishment of Major League Soccer—and how the sport has continued to rapidly gain traction here in recent years.

We’ll consider how the World Cup marks the beginning of an unprecedented run of major global sports events in the U.S., including not just summer and winter Olympics but, in 2031, the U.S.-hosted FIFA Women’s World Cup and 2033 men’s and women’s rugby World Cups.

Among the questions Winkler will tackle: How will the U.S.-Israel attacks on Iran affect the World Cup? How will tickets sell, and at what price? (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: Soccer being played in New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, one of the venues hosting the 2026 FIFA World Cup.