Profs and Pints - Richmond

Profs and Pints Richmond presents: “An Evening with Jack the Ripper,” your chance to become familiar with a mysterious killer, with Luxx Mishou, Victorianist, scholar of Jack the Ripper, and former instructor at the U.S. Naval Academy and area community colleges.

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

In 1888 England was gripped by an “Autumn of Terror” as a wave of shocking and brutal murders took place in Whitechapel, a district in London’s East End. In crowded streets, busy neighborhoods, and lodgings with thin walls, at least five women were ferociously—yet seemingly silently—attacked, their remains left in public spaces to be found by their neighbors. Bold headlines and gruesome illustrations covered the front pages of English newspapers, some of which received “gifts” and confessional letters from a culprit who was never caught or officially named.

For decades historians and Ripperologists have tried to pinpoint who this mysterious killer could have been. Among the curious is Luxx Mishou, a Victorian era and gender studies scholar, who has spent years scouring historical accounts and nineteenth-century newspapers that traced the movements of England’s most notorious, and mysteriously elusive, serial killer.

Join Dr. Mishou for a trip back in time to discuss the infamous Jack the Ripper case. She’ll talk about what really happened in Whitechapel, what Victorian journalists and newspapers knew, and whether the sensational press coverage surrounding the murders helped or actually hindered the search for a perpetrator.

She’ll also discuss what the London public thought of the monster lurking in their midst and why we’re still obsessed with this whodunit over 130 years later.

Finally, we’ll tackle the biggest question of all: Who was Jack the Ripper? Dr. Mishou believes her research has left her ready to point to the killer. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: A wanted poster published in connection with the Whitechapel murders.

Profs and Pints Richmond presents: “Ireland’s Fight for Freedom,” with Kevin Matthews, assistant professor of history at George Mason University and former London correspondent for Vatican Radio reporting on British and Irish news.

Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/richmond-ireland-freedom .]

After centuries of struggle, Irish men and women won their freedom from Great Britain after waging a war that set the pattern for all other independence struggles of the 20th century. But there was a price—the partition of their country, a split setting the stage for the Northern Ireland “Troubles” that didn’t end until 1998.

Gain a deeper understanding of Ireland and its history with Professor Kevin Matthews, a historian who served as a journalist covering the last stages of the Troubles in Ireland in the early and mid 1990s.

He’ll discuss in depth how the Irish won independence in a two-year war between 1919 and 1921, covering topics as the role women played in the conflict, the life and tactics of the revolutionary leader Michael Collins, and the Irish development of “urban guerilla warfare” using small, highly mobile armed units called “flying columns.”

Most important, this talk will examine how the conflict between Irish nationalists and Irish unionists led to Ireland’s division and later conflict. From the Easter Rising to the Good Friday Agreement, from Bloody Sunday to Brexit, this conflict has never quite gone away.

As the Irish poet, William Butler Yeats once wrote:

Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Professor Matthews will explore how the Irish fought to a standstill what was then the mightiest empire in the world and how, more than he could have known, Yeats’ prediction still rings true today. ( Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: Members of the Irish Republican Army’s West Connemara Flying Column in 1921. (Public Domain photo.)

Profs and Pints Richmond presents: “Cinderella’s Story,” on the origins and evolution of a fairytale heroine and cultural icon, with Kitty Maynard, former professor of French at Washington College, director of the Faculty Hub at the University of Richmond, and scholar of early modern France.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/richmond-cinderella2 .]

Cinderella is arguably the most famous fairy tale of our time, its elements feeling so familiar that they seem to express universal experiences and human values. But while Cinderella might seem timeless, the version of her known to us today has a very specific origin in seventeenth-century France and the political climate of that time. Moreover, she has changed dramatically over the centuries to appeal to new audiences.

Get to know the plucky young heroine whose tale has become part of our everyday culture and language by coming to Profs and Pints at Triple Crossing-Fulton, where lifelong learners have a ball.

Dr. Kitty Maynard will take us back to the court of Louis XIV, where courtier Charles Perrault wrote Cinderella in 1697 to offer real lessons to a real audience consisting of fellow courtiers rather than children. You’ll learn how French society at that time had a particular version of social mobility in which its aristocratic structure allowed the advancement of meritorious and industrious male members of the bourgeoisie but limited female agency to marriage.

We’ll look at how one of Perrault's contemporaries, Madame d'Aulnoy, came up with a very different take on a Cinderella story, in which Cinderella found her man and symbolically proposed to him. We’ll touch upon the Brothers Grimm's dark version of the tale and discuss how Cinderella has been pliable enough to stretch into other eras because basic tropes in her story appeal to our love of underdogs and sense of justice.

When Walt Disney brought Cinderella to the screen in 1950, he transformed Perrault’s version dramatically to reflect the ideals and expectations of a postwar American audience and the ethos of the American Dream. You’ll get to know the Disneyfied version of her, as well as those in Dina Goldstein's “Fallen Princesses” photo series and in a smattering of recent remakes of Cinderella such as Ever After, the live-action Cinderella, and comedic takes like Cinderfella.

Among the questions Dr. Maynard will tackle: Where does Cinderella really come from? And what makes her story so compelling to us today?
Don’t worry. The talk will end long before midnight. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: From an Elizabeth Tyler Wolcott illustration of Cinderella from about 1920.