Profs & Pints Northern Virginia: Labyrinth Lore

Profs and Pints Northern Virginia presents: “Labyrinth Lore,” a mapping of tales of loss and of finding, 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/nv-labyrinth-lore .]

Labyrinths and mazes have inspired and haunted mankind since King Minos forced the inventor Dadaleus to build one to contain his wife’s monstrous child, the Minotaur. Since then, the labyrinth has only continued to capture imaginations, appearing in novels, films, anime, self-help books, and, of course, actual landscapes.

Come take a journey through the labyrinths and mazes that captivate us with Brittany Warman of the Carterhaugh School, who has earned a big following among Profs and Pints fans with her past talks on folklore, myths, and legends.

She’ll discuss how the Greek myth of the Minotaur made the labyrinth a place of terror but also adventure and triumph. Although the flesh-eating Minotaur devoured many Athenians, he was ultimately defeated by the hero Theseus, who used cunning (and a bit of help from Minos’ daughter Ariadne) to thwart the labyrinth’s design.

She’ll also explore Jim Henson’s cult-classic film Labyrinth, which takes place almost entirely within a maze that the film uses as both the physical location of a quest and a metaphor for growing up and into yourself.

Among other works she’ll venture into, Guillermo del Toro’s sinister film Pan’s Labyrinth features a labyrinth that stands between two worlds, fascist Spain and Faerie. In the dark magical girl anime Puella Magi Madoka Magica, labyrinths become the lairs of witches, spaces that are deadly but also profoundly personal and creative.

All of these labyrinths are deeply liminal. They are places of becoming, change, and possibility. What’s the difference between a labyrinth and a maze? Why are humans so obsessed with them in real life and in stories? Join Brittany to find out! (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: The Minotaur in the Labyrinth depicted in an engraving on a 16th-century gem in the Medici Collection in the Palazzo Strozzi, Florence (Wikimedia Commons).