Profs and Pints Meetup-Metro DC

Profs and Pints Northern Virginia presents: “Lafayette’s Long Fight for Liberty,” a look at the life, struggles, and legacy of America’s favorite fighting Frenchman, with Richard Bell, professor of history at the University of Maryland and author of The American Revolution and the Fate of the World.

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

When the Marquis de Lafayette returned to the United States in 1824, Americans greeted him with a frenzy of affection unmatched by anything the nation had ever shown a single individual. Crowds filled streets, towns held ceremonies in his honor, Congress showered him with gifts, and parents named children for the French aristocrat who had helped win the American Revolution.

Explore the extraordinary life behind that adulation with historian Richard Bell, whose excellent past talks have earned him a big following among Profs and Pints fans.

Professor Bell will take Lafayette far beyond his familiar role as George Washington’s young protégé and the hero of Yorktown.

You’ll learn how Lafayette became one of the Atlantic world’s most persistent champions of liberty—fighting for constitutional government, religious freedom, prison reform, press freedom, antislavery, and independence movements from Greece to Poland.

You’ll also hear how Lafayette’s ideals repeatedly put him in danger, making him a target of kings, radicals, imperial powers, and revolutionaries who regarded him as “the most dangerous man of all.”

Professor Bell will show how Lafayette’s life was full of contradictions: a nobleman who challenged aristocratic privilege, a centrist caught between monarchy and mob rule, an antislavery advocate whose efforts fell short, and a dreamer whose causes often failed in his lifetime. Yet Lafayette never stopped trying to make liberty universal.

Come learn why Lafayette’s name still graces hundreds of American towns, parks, counties, schools, rivers, and lakes—and why his most important monument might be not any statue or place name, but the freedoms he helped generations of people imagine, demand, and defend. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: From an 1834 portrait of Lieutenant General Lafayette painted by Joseph-Désiré Court (Palace of Versailles / Wikimedia).

Profs and Pints DC presents: “A Deep Dive into the Declaration of Independence,” on the origins and impact of America’s founding document, with Denver Brunsman, chairman of George Washington University’s history department, lecturer at Mount Vernon, and noted scholar of early American history and the American Revolution.

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

The celebration of our nation’s 250th anniversary will take on much deeper meaning if you take time to fully understand and appreciate the document that declared our independence from England and gave rise to the American experiment.

Learn essential lessons about the Declaration of Independence from Denver Brunsman, an incredibly engaging speaker who has built a big following among Profs and Pints fans in and around Washington D.C.

Professor Brunsman will start by discussing the Declaration’s background, composition, and philosophical underpinnings.

You’ll learn how by 1776 American colonists had resisted British policies for thirteen years and endured open warfare with Britain for more than a year. We’ll look at how this imperial crisis influenced the Declaration’s primary author, Thomas Jefferson, as well as the larger Declaration Committee and the Second Continental Congress.

In recent years, scholars have focused particularly on the previously underappreciated grievance section of the Declaration. Rather than simply being an afterthought to the more famous preamble (“all men are created equal”), the grievances followed a logical order that carefully presented the case against King George III and the British Empire for a “candid world” to consider. Professor Brunsman will fill you in on how that list of grievances rallied Americans and other nations to the cause.

A document both timeless and of its time, the Declaration quickly soared beyond its humble origins as a committee report to become synonymous with American independence and an inspiration for rebellion elsewhere. Dr. Brunsman will consider the place of the Declaration in American life, from the eighteenth century to today, and how the document helped shape much of American history while influencing “the course of human events” throughout the world.

The talk will close with customary toasts from the American revolutionary era. Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah! (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: From an idealized Jean Leon Gerome Ferris painting of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams drafting the Declaration of Independence.

Profs and Pints DC presents: “Owl Wisdom,” an introduction to the biology, habits, and conservation of various owl species in our region and beyond, with Steve Sheffield, professor of biology at Bowie State University, curator of mammals and birds for the Natural History Society of Maryland, and president of the Maryland Ornithological Society.

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

Who wants to learn about owls?

If you are fascinated by these hunters of the night, you’ll love spending an evening with Steve Sheffield, a biologist who extensively studies owls and works to conserve them.

He’ll start by covering the different types of owls in our region and elsewhere, and the ways in which their bodies and their sizes represent physical adaptations to their environment. He’ll especially focus on the owl species of the United States and Canada, describing their biology, ranges, preferred habitat and prey, behavior, and vocalizations.

You’ll learn how and why field biologists study owls and how owl researchers from around the world assemble periodically to discuss their work. We’ll consider owls' value to ecosystems and, especially, humans and human-dominated landscapes where they serve as especially efficient killers of rodents and other crop-harming pests.

Dr. Sheffield will talk about the many years he has spent researching owls, with much of his work focused on their exposure to environmental contaminants and how they’re affected.

Being top predators, owls serve as sensitive bioindicators of contamination throughout the food chain. Much like canaries in coal mines, they function as an early warning system alerting us to potentially dangerous levels of toxicity. We don’t just study them for their own good, but ours as well. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: Burrowing owls in Florida (Photo by travelingwayoflife / Creative Commons).

Profs and Pints DC presents: “Mermaid Tales,” a discussion of the enigmatic water spirits of East Slavic countries, with folklorist Philippa Rappoport of George Washington University.

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

Be careful out there. According to Slavic folklore, in the late spring the rusalki, an East Slavic version of mermaids, emerge from lakes and streams to water crops and to claim lives. They're mostly beautiful, with wild hair and blazing eyes, and they’re more than happy to drag smitten young men to watery graves.

Join Philippa Rappoport, an expert on Slavic folklore and rituals, for a discussion of the water spirits of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia and the traditions centered around them. She'll describe how rusalki were both revered and feared by people who would sing songs in their honor while carrying protective charms.

You'll learn how East Slavic mermaid lore permeated wedding rituals and parades, inspired the construction of effigies, and reflected beliefs about women that, throughout the world, have translated into a lot of concern over how women wear their hair and cover their heads.

Philippa has wowed crowds with fascinating talks on East Slavic nature spirits and folktales related to the underworld and winter. Her accounts of mermaids promise to be equally entertaining. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: Rusalki as painted by Andrey Shishkin in 2015 (Creative Commons).