Profs and Pints Metro Baltimore

Profs and Pints Baltimore presents: “Celtic Mythology,” an exploration of the beliefs of a people whose influence spread far beyond the British Isles, with Larissa “Kat” Tracy, past president of the American Society of Irish Medieval Studies, former editor of its journal, Eolas, and visiting assistant teaching professor of English at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.

[Doors open at 5. The talk starts at 6:30. The room is open seating. Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/baltimore-celtic-mythology ]

The Celts inhabited lands stretching from the British Isles to parts of France and the Holy Roman Empire. Their influence can be seen in the art of the Vikings, in the rich oral and literary traditions of the Irish, Welsh and Bretons, and in the modern renaissance of Celtic culture. But who exactly were they?

Get into the minds of the Celtic people by learning about their myths and beliefs with Larissa “Kat” Tracy, a scholar of Old and Middle Irish and Middle Welsh language and literature and published translator of Old Irish texts whose dynamic and fascinating talks have earned a considerable following among Profs and Pints fans.

Dr. Tracy will delve into early medieval literary records that tell stories of the Tuatha de Danann, a godlike people who invaded Ireland and then were defeated themselves.

She’ll offer a new perspective on faeries, banshees, and leprechauns by describing how the ancient Otherworldy people once believed to inhabit the western realms of Ireland were diminished or demonized into figures of popular folklore. You’ll learn how the ancient God of the Sun become one of the “little people” guarding cauldrons of gold and bestowing luck, how immortal beings of majestic stature shrank to small winged creatures in the back of gardens, and how supernatural women associated with the “people of the mound” became screaming harbingers of death.

We’ll explore how medieval literary texts inspired later legends and became adapted into folklore. You’ll gain an understanding of how the medieval Catholic Church’s growing power led local people to reimagine their ancient gods and goddesses as Christian figures like Saint Bridget and Saint Patrick.

You’ll gain an appreciation of how the Celts gave rise to living traditions that survive in modern popular culture through the preservation of languages, storytelling and music enjoyed all over the world, and renewed interest in goddesses like Brid and celebrations like Samhain. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID.)

Image: From “Riders of the Sidhe,” a 1911 John Duncan painting of Tuatha Dé Danann.

Profs and Pints Baltimore presents: “The Boston Massacre’s Backstory,” a look at the hidden history of an event that you probably heard mythologized in school, with Richard Bell, professor of history at the University of Maryland at College Park.

[Doors open at 3. The talk starts at 4:30. The room is open seating. Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/baltimore-boston-massacre ]

Everyone knows something about the Boston Massacre: the snowy night, the redcoat soldiers lined up like a firing squad, the helpless civilians lying in heaps in front of them. Five people were killed that night—March 5, 1770—and their deaths at the hands of the British military is a grim and well-known milestone on the road to the American Revolution.

But most of what we think we know is wrong, the product of layers of myth and centuries of distortion.

What went down that night on King Street was nothing like the frozen cartoon lineup we’ve seen in textbooks a thousand times. The true story of the Boston Massacre was messier and darker and filled with the sort of class and race divisions that often get whitewashed out of the popular mythology of the Revolution.

It began two years earlier when the troops first arrived to turn Boston into an occupied town. Some of those redcoats would make friends in Boston and marry local women. Others would make sworn enemies. The tensions between soldiers and civilians built slowly—one drunken argument at a time—until the powder keg was primed and ready to explode.

It took weeks and months for everyone to figure out what had happened that night. In its aftermath, both soldiers and civilians began trying to assign meaning to this tragic loss of local life—and to give it a name. The official British report called it an “unhappy disturbance,” but Boston leaders took to calling it the “horrid massacre.”

You’ll love seeing the 1770 Boston Massacre explored from all its many sides by University of Maryland historian Richard Bell, whose electric speaking style has earned him a large Profs and Pints audience following. Drawing on the latest scholarship, he’ll convince you that the backstory of the “affray on King Street” makes it far more fascinating than Paul Revere’s famous engraving of it has led us to believe. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID.)

Image: A chromolithograph reproduction of “Boston Massacre, March 5th, 1770,” an 1855 painting by William L. Champney (Boston Athenaeum).

Profs and Pints Metro Baltimore presents: “Celtic Mythology,” an exploration of the beliefs of a people whose influence spread far beyond the British Isles, with Larissa “Kat” Tracy, past president of the American Society of Irish Medieval Studies, former editor of its journal, Eolas, and visiting assistant teaching professor of English at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.

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

The Celts inhabited lands stretching from the British Isles to parts of France and the Holy Roman Empire. Their influence can be seen in the art of the Vikings, in the rich oral and literary traditions of the Irish, Welsh and Bretons, and in the modern renaissance of Celtic culture. But who exactly were they?

Get into the minds of the Celtic people by learning about their myths and beliefs with Larissa “Kat” Tracy, a scholar of Old and Middle Irish and Middle Welsh language and literature and published translator of Old Irish texts whose dynamic and fascinating talks have earned a considerable following among Profs and Pints fans.

Dr. Tracy will delve into early medieval literary records that tell stories of the Tuatha de Danann, a godlike people who invaded Ireland and then were defeated themselves.

She’ll offer a new perspective on faeries, banshees, and leprechauns by describing how the ancient Otherworldy people once believed to inhabit the western realms of Ireland were diminished or demonized into figures of popular folklore. You’ll learn how the ancient God of the Sun become one of the “little people” guarding cauldrons of gold and bestowing luck, how immortal beings of majestic stature shrank to small, winged creatures in the back of gardens, and how supernatural women associated with the “people of the mound” became screaming harbingers of death.

We’ll explore how medieval literary texts inspired later legends and became adapted into folklore. You’ll gain an understanding of how the medieval Catholic Church’s growing power led local people to reimagine their ancient gods and goddesses as Christian figures like Saint Bridget and Saint Patrick.

You’ll gain an appreciation of how the Celts gave rise to living traditions that survive in modern popular culture through the preservation of languages, storytelling and music enjoyed all over the world, and renewed interest in goddesses like Brid and celebrations like Samhain. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: From “Riders of the Sidhe,” a 1911 John Duncan painting of the Tuatha Dé Danann.

Profs and Pints Baltimore presents: “The Search for Life Beyond Earth,” with Måns Holmberg, postdoctoral researcher at the Space Telescope Science Institute and part of a team of astronomers looking for chemical traces of life on distant exoplanets.

[Doors open at 5:30 and the talk starts at 6:30. Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. ]

Are we alone in the universe?

While many of us have pondered that question, astronomer Måns Holmberg of Baltimore’s Space Telescope Science Institute is seriously focused on answering it. Last year he was part of a Cambridge-led team of astronomers who generated worldwide headlines by announcing that they had discovered potential evidence of a gas produced almost exclusively by life in the James Webb Space Telescope’s data from the atmosphere of a distant world.

Learn about the search for life elsewhere by coming to the debut of Profs and Pints at Baltimore’s SOS Pickleball, which has a bar and deli and will be reserved solely for this event, with no sounds of play.

Dr. Holmberg will talk about how the search for life elsewhere is being conducted and what strides are being made on that front. He’ll describe what it would take to confirm signs of life on such a world, what challenges remain, and how the next wave of observations could ultimately tip the scales.

Dr. Holmberg also will look at the role being played by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), how it uses infrared light to decode the chemical composition of strange atmospheres, and how it has left us closer than ever to answering the question of whether life exists elsewhere.

He’ll discuss astronomers’ growing interest in a new class of exoplanets known as “Hycean worlds”—ocean-covered planets with hydrogen-rich atmospheres that could be surprisingly hospitable to life. We’ll visit K2-18 b, a distant world around twice the size of Earth that orbits in the habitable zone of a cool red-dwarf star 120 light-years away, and discuss why it has become one of the most interesting exoplanets in the search for life.

Recent observations from JWST have revealed something extraordinary: the atmosphere of planet K2-18 b contains carbon-based molecules like methane and carbon dioxide and possibly even dimethyl sulfide (DMS), a gas that, on Earth, is almost exclusively produced by life. Dr. Holmberg will discuss what makes DMS a compelling (though not yet definitive) biosignature candidate.

You’ll emerge from the talk with a much richer appreciation of the immense possibilities out there among the stars. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID.)

Image: An illustration showing what the exoplanet K2-18 b might look like. Source: NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI) / Wikimedia Commons