Profs and Pints - Nashville

Profs and Pints Nashville presents: “World War I and the Middle East,” on an often-overlooked theater of the Great War and its long-term impact on global affairs, with Andrew Patrick, professor of history at Tennessee State University and scholar of American engagement with the Ottoman Empire.

[Doors open at 6 pm. Talk starts at 7. Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/nashville-ottoman ]

When we think of World War I we often think of filthy trenches, futile assaults, and stagnant battle lines in France and Belgium. The experience was much different, however, beyond the Western Front.

Gain a deep understanding of how the war was fought in Ottoman lands, and how the outcome of the conflict there continues to have a profound impact on our world today, when Profs and Pints restages an excellent talk on that subject at Fait La Force on September 16th.

Professor Andrew Patrick, who has written a book and several articles on World War I in the Middle East and teaches courses on World War I and Middle East and global history, will give you a much richer understanding of the war in Ottoman lands than you might have gleaned from watching classic films like Gallipoli or Lawrence of Arabia.

He’ll talk about how historians increasingly place the Ottoman Empire at the center of the First World War’s origins, and how the conflict in Ottoman lands lasted far longer than the war itself, arguably from 1911 until 1922.

You’ll learn how the character of the conflict on Ottoman lands differed substantially from fighting elsewhere—even though it was similarly gruesome. Along with warfare, people in the region faced ethnic cleansing, famine, and even locusts.

By 1922, European imperial powers finally accomplished the violent dismantling of the Ottoman Empire, replacing it with unwanted colonial rule, fragile states, and the beginnings of a “national home” for European Jews. In doing so they gave birth to the modern Middle East and ensured that the region would experience instability in the ensuing century. The consequences of their actions still haunt us today. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID.)

Image: Cameleers from Australia, England, New Zealand and India in Palestine (Australian War Memorial / Public Domain).

Profs and Pints Nashville presents: “The Odyssey’s Journey,” on an epic poem and its many cultural destinations, with Chiara Sulprizio, principal senior lecturer in Classical and Mediterranean Studies at Vanderbilt University and teacher of courses on Greek mythology and on Homer and the Trojan War.

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

Christopher Nolan’s hit film adaptation of The Odyssey is but the latest of countless creative works that Homer’s epic poem has inspired over the past 2500 years. If seeing—or planning to see—the new film has left you yearning for a refresher on Homer’s poem and a discussion of why it resonates so powerfully, you’ll want to set a course for Nashville’s Fait La Force taproom.

Speaking on Homer’s foundational text and its enduring legacy will be Chiara Sulprizio, a scholar of the classics and antiquity who previously has given excellent Profs and Pints talks on Roman gladiators and ancient Greek romance.

We’ll start by reviewing some of the basics about the Odyssey’s authorship, structure, and main characters. Then we’ll dive into a deeper discussion of its central themes, including nostos, or homecoming, and its relationship to Odysseus’ kleos, or glory.

We’ll look at Odysseus’ role as a different kind of hero and his signature quality of metis, or cleverness. You’ll become familiar with xenia, or the law of hospitality, and its importance to social relations in ancient Greece.

Dr. Sulprizio also will examine the central role of female figures like Penelope, Nausicaa, Calypso and Circe, who serve as both helpers and harmers in the poem.

Finally, we will explore the relationship between Homer’s epic and Nolan’s film, considering what Nolan changed, what he left out, and what stayed the same. We will also look at Nolan's choices in light of those made by other filmmakers who have adapted the epic, such as the Coen Brothers in Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) and more recently, Uberto Pasolini in The Return (2024).

In each instance, we will ponder the broader messages that these works want to convey to their audiences about love, war, and the human condition. We also will examine what they tell us about the similarities and differences between life in the modern world and life in late Bronze Age Greece. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID.)

Image: From an 1891 painting of Odysseus and the sirens by John William Waterhouse (National Gallery of Victoria / Public Domain).