Profs and Pints Meetup-Metro DC

Profs and Pints Northern Virginia 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://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/nv-persephone .]

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 both spring and darkness? (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: From “Proserpine” (Persephone) painted by Dante Gabriel Rossetti in 1882. (Birmingham Museums Trust / Wikimedia Commons.)

Profs and Pints DC presents: “Facing Fascism,” on the history, hallmarks, and lingering power of a deadly ideology, with Kevin Matthews, professor of history at George Mason University and teacher of courses on early 20th century European history.

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

Few political movements have aroused as much anger and fear as fascism. But despite its legacy of violence, persecution, and genocide, fascism continues to hold a strange attraction to many.

Join historian Kevin Matthews for an in-depth look at an ideology that brought death to millions in Europe and yet continues to deeply influence our politics and culture.

Dr. Matthews will start by discussing how the ideology of fascism arose in the aftermath of the First World War and took hold in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s.

To give you a better grasp of what exactly fascism is, he’ll discuss its central themes: Anti-democracy. Extreme nationalism and anti-communism. The use, or threat, of violence in politics. Rejection of established values such as scientific objectivity. Denial of equal rights, especially for women. The assertion of power where a power vacuum exists.

We’ll examine the rise and fall of two notorious fascist dictators, Adolf Hitler of Germany and Benito Mussolini of Italy. For a time it was believed that fascism died in the ashes of the Second World War, but it clearly didn’t, and we’ll look at where it remains a political force today.

Finally, we’ll examine how fascism continues to permeate popular culture in ways that trivialize it, popping up in music from punk to Madonna, with its latent eroticism making it the subject of films such as The Night Porter. Having been called “the most self-consciously visual of all political forms,” it enlisted fashion leaders to produce uniforms and continues today to inspire a look known as “Nazi chic.”

Dr. Matthews previously has given fantastic Profs and Pints talks on Ireland’s fight for independence and on World War II German submarine attacks off our coasts. He’s sure to leave you with a much better understanding of fascism and a recognition that is has hardly gone away. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler during Mussolini's 1940 visit in Munich (photographer unknown / public domain).

Profs and Pints DC presents: “The Course of the Appalachian Trail,” on the fascinating past and uncertain future of a beloved wilderness trail and national park, with Mills Kelly, emeritus professor of history at George Mason University and author of A Hiker’s History of the Appalachian Trail.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees, available at https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/appalachian-trail .]

Spring brings people flocking back to the Appalachian Trail, which for more than 100 years has provided opportunities to spend anywhere from a few hours to six months traversing the Appalachian Mountains. Stretching more than 2,000 miles across 14 states, from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mount Katahdin in Maine, it ranks among the most iconic long-distance hiking trails in the world. It and its associated national park are annually visited by nearly 17 million.

Gear up for Earth Day—and perhaps some time on the trail yourself—by spending an evening with Mills Kelly, an expert on all things Appalachian Trail and is the author of two books and numerous articles on the trail’s history.

We’ll start our scholarly journey by looking at the trail’s origins. First proposed by Benton MacKaye, a forester, in 1921 as a place for urban workers to get some fresh air and sunshine, the trail took 16 years to scout, map, and carve out of the mountains. The first version was woven together mostly from abandoned mountain roads, Indigenous people's paths, and highways.

Drawing on research in archives up and down the length of the trail, Professor Mills will show us archival photographs and video clips spread across the decades of the trail’s history, and he'll let the voices of hikers themselves describe how the experience of hiking has changed over the decades. You’ll earn what hikers ate before the advent of freeze-dried backpacker meals and when and why thru-hiking became a thing. More profoundly, we’ll examine how innovations in gear changed the experiences of women on the trail, and how changing attitudes about race transformed the hiking community.

Professor Mills will describe how the trail is maintained entirely by 33 volunteer clubs, including the D.C. area’s Potomac Appalachian Trail Club, founded in 1927 to help build it. Looking ahead, he’ll discuss how the trail’s long-term health as a recreational resources is being affected by declining federal support, overuse in some sections, and climate change. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: A 1928 photo of the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club taking a break from its work (National Park Service / Public Domain).

Profs and Pints DC presents: “Doom and Dinosaurs,” a look at how mass extinctions shaped the dinosaurs and what research on these events tells us about Earth life’s long-term prospects, with Ian Wilenzik, paleontologist and visiting assistant professor of biology at George Washington University.

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

Pity the poor dinosaurs. They lacked both scientific research to help deal with potential environmental catastrophes and places where they could have a beer and discuss it.

You, on the other hand, have the opportunity to come to Profs and Pints to hear a fascinating talk on the impact of mass extinctions on dinosaur evolution and what research on dinosaurs tells us about biodiversity and Earth’s current biodiversity crisis.

Dr. Ian Wilenzik, who has studied and taught courses on dinosaur evolution, population spread, and extinction, will leave you with a greater appreciation of the resilience of life on earth and how we’re both the product and source of biologically catastrophic events.

Many of us are familiar with how a big meteor impact about 66 million years ago wiped out the Earth’s dinosaur population, leaving us only with their feathered descendants, birds. Less well known is how the Earth actually has undergone five periods of mass extinction that wiped out nearly all life, and how dinosaurs arose from one and endured another—both caused by volcanic activity—before meeting their match in the third.

To ground his discussion, Dr. Wilenzik will talk about how we study mass extinctions by looking for geologic evidence of volcanic activity, meteoric blasts, and other catastrophic activity and of gaps in the fossil record after them.

He’ll also discuss what makes a dinosaur a dinosaur, describing their distinct anatomical features. He’ll talk about how they and other forms of life evolved over long periods of time and were affected by extinction events.

We’ll look at how the meteor-caused mass extinction that wiped out dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous paved the way for the rise of mammals and the emergence of primates, and, eventually, us. Looking ahead to future mass extinctions and what might survive them, we’ll talk about how that plant you forget to water might have the last laugh, as well as why crocodiles might be around a while. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: A Triceratops mounted skeleton at the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History (Photo by Allie Caulfield / Wikimedia Commons).