What we’re about
Profs and Pints brings professors and other college instructors into bars, cafes, and other venues to give fascinating talks or to conduct instructive workshops. They cover a wide range of subjects, including history, politics, popular culture, horticulture, literature, creative writing, and personal finance. Anyone interested in learning and in meeting people with similar interests should join. Lectures are structured to allow at least a half hour for questions and an additional hour for audience members to meet each other. Admission to Profs and Pints events requires the purchase of tickets, either in advance (through the link provided in event descriptions) or at the door to the venue. Many events sell out in advance.
Although Profs and Pints has a social mission--expanding access to higher learning while offering college instructors a new income source--it is NOT a 501c3. It was established as a for-profit company in hopes that, by developing a profitable business model, it would be able to spread to other communities much more quickly than a nonprofit dependent on philanthropic support. That said, it is welcoming partners and collaborators as it seeks to build up audiences and spread to new cities. For more information email profsandpints@hotmail.com.
Thank you for your interest in Profs and Pints.
Regards,
Peter Schmidt, Founder, Profs and Pints
Upcoming events (4+)
See all- Profs & Pints DC: Goddess of Spring and the UnderworldThe Hill Center at the Old Naval Hospital, Washington, DC
Profs and Pints DC presents: “Goddess of Spring and the Underworld,” an introduction to the Greek goddess Persephone in her many incarnations, with Brittany Warman, former instructor at Ohio State University and co-founder of the Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic.
[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profsandpints/pomegranate .]
Join Brittany Warman, who has earned a huge following among Profs and Pints fans by delivering fantastic talks on folklore, myths, legends, and fantasy, for the perfect event for the season: a look at the spring goddess Persephone and the many ways in which she has inspired the human imagination.
The story of Hades and Persephone is one of the most famous—and most retold—episodes in Greek mythology. Persephone’s abduction, her interlude in the Underworld, and her partial return to the world above have inspired statues and webcomics, ancient cults and contemporary poetry. Thousands of years after her tale was first told, we’re still fascinated by this goddess.
Brittany will discuss how Persephone’s appeal lies in her liminality in being caught between two very different worlds and lives. She represents spring, renewal, and rebirth because Earth blooms with her return, but she’s also the Queen of the Underworld. From a 21st-century perspective, she’s basically a goth girl adorned with a flower crown.
We’ll also look at Persephone’s mythic roots, including their connections to the Eleusinian Mysteries. And then we’ll dive into some of the ways that Persephone has been revised and retold in recent years, from the Tony award-winning musical Hadestown to the webcomic Lore Olympus to memes and fairy tales and fashion.
After all, why be just one thing when you can be the queen of spring and darkness? (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)
An image from “Proserpine” (Persephone) painted by Dante Gabriel Rossetti in 1882. (Birmingham Museums Trust / Wikimedia Commons.)
- Profs & Pints Northern Virginia: Encountering CryptidsCrooked Run Fermentation, Sterling, VA
Profs and Pints Northern Virginia presents: “Encountering Cryptids,” on the cultural, historical and psychological significance of beings that may exist only in lore, with Joshua Barton, lecturer in English at Virginia Commonwealth University and scholar of horror.
[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profsandpints/crooked-run-cryptids .]
Some started out as anecdotes shared by explorers. Others were created as cautionary tales, or literally were just developed as spooky stories for kids. Regardless of their origins, they’re now entrenched inhabitants of our nation’s landscapes, their lives perpetuated through tales told by communities that believe they’re real.
They’re cryptids with names like Sasquatch, Mothman, the Jersey Devil, Ogopogo, the Flatwoods Monster, and the Beast of Bray Road. And your single best chance to get to know them might be by coming to this talk by Joshua Barton, a scholar of horror who has earned a following among Profs and Pints fans with incredibly entertaining past talks on horror films and Christmas ghost stories.
He'll look at the genesis of the tales themselves and what they tell us about historic approaches to the unknown. He’ll discuss how tales of cryptids reflect societal fears, inspire local legends, and connect communities through shared myths, and he’ll examine the impact of cryptid tales on modern storytelling and local tourism.
Turning his attention to specific cryptids, Barton will describe how the Jersey Devil speaks to our nation’s puritan roots and our collective fear of evil. The chupacabra reflects anxieties over the blending of cultures, while Bigfoot and Mothman stand out as huge generators of tourism revenue.
You’ll learn how the study of such creatures—cryptozoology—exists at the intersection of oral folklore and modern belief, and you’ll probably emerge from the talk eager to tell cryptid tales of your own. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)
Image: An 1889 Garrick Mallery sketch of a painted rock encountered on the Tule River Reservation in California. Cryptozoologists have interpreted the three figures painted on it, generally regarded as Native American symbols for negation, as instead representing an entire Sasquatch family.
- Profs & Pints DC: Encountering CryptidsPenn Social, Washington, DC
Profs and Pints DC presents: “Encountering Cryptids,” on the cultural, historical and psychological significance of beings that may exist only in lore, with Joshua Barton, lecturer in English at Virginia Commonwealth University and scholar of horror.
[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profsandpints/dc-cryptids .]
Some started out as anecdotes shared by explorers. Others were created as cautionary tales, or literally were just developed as spooky stories for kids. Regardless of their origins, they’re now entrenched inhabitants of our nation’s landscapes, their lives perpetuated through tales told by communities that believe they’re real.
They’re cryptids with names like Sasquatch, Mothman, the Jersey Devil, Ogopogo, the Flatwoods Monster, and the Beast of Bray Road. And your single best chance to get to know them might be by coming to this talk by Joshua Barton, a scholar of horror who has earned a following among Profs and Pints fans with incredibly entertaining past talks on horror films and Christmas ghost stories.
He'll look at the genesis of the tales themselves and what they tell us about historic approaches to the unknown. He’ll discuss how tales of cryptids reflect societal fears, inspire local legends, and connect communities through shared myths, and he’ll examine the impact of cryptid tales on modern storytelling and local tourism.
Turning his attention to specific cryptids, Barton will describe how the Jersey Devil speaks to our nation’s puritan roots and our collective fear of evil. The chupacabra reflects anxieties over the blending of cultures, while Bigfoot and Mothman stand out as huge generators of tourism revenue.
You’ll learn how the study of such creatures—cryptozoology—exists at the intersection of oral folklore and modern belief, and you’ll probably emerge from the talk eager to tell cryptid tales of your own. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)
Image: An 1889 Garrick Mallery sketch of a painted rock encountered on the Tule River Reservation in California. Cryptozoologists have interpreted the three figures painted on it, generally regarded as Native American symbols for negation, as instead representing an entire Sasquatch family.
- Profs & Pints DC: Becoming HumanPenn Social, Washington, DC
Profs and Pints DC presents: “Becoming Human,” on where we came from, who we are, and what that means, with Ella Al-Shamahi, paleoanthropologist, explorer, stand-up comedian, and host of the upcoming BBC/PBS series HUMAN.
[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profsandpints/dc-becoming-human .]
Come to Washington D.C.’s Penn Social to learn compelling story of, well, us–Homo sapiens—in a talk that asks not just where we come from, but who we are and what that means.
Telling the tale will be Ella Al-Shamahi, a National Geographic-sponsored explorer who explores Paleolithic caves in unstable or hostile parts of the world, produced the BBC2 series Neanderthals: Meet Your Ancestors, and has taught classes at the University of London while pursuing a doctorate in anthropology.
She’ll start by describing how, once upon a time, our world was a bit like Lord of the Rings in that we, Homo sapiens, shared this planet with many other species of human. We weren’t that remarkable—in fact, our origins were rather humble. But somehow, today, we are the only ones left.
Ella Al-Shamahi will examine how we didn’t just survive against all odds, but thrived like no human species has ever thrived. We innovated and travelled, becoming an explorer species who built cities and smart phones and painted the Sistine Chapel.
Our success has been profound. We and the world we have curated are the embodiments of this. But that success comes at a cost, and we’ll look at that as well.
Ella Al-Shamah, who at 18 had initially entered a university as a creationist intent on overturning the theory of evolution, will share her thoughts on the nature of truth and tribalism. She’ll toss in a few wild tales from her expeditions to nations such as Iraq, Somaliland and Yemen in what promises to be a fascinating and engaging night. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)
Image: A child peers at a model of “Mrs. Ples,” a famous Australopithecus africanus skull, at the visitor center of the Cradle of Humankind paleoanthropological site in South Africa. (Photo by flowcomm / Creative Commons.)
