What we’re about
Profs and Pints (https://www.profsandpints.com) 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 ticket link provided in event descriptions) or at the door to the venue. Many events sell out in advance. Your indication on Meetup of your intent to attend an event constitutes neither a reservation nor payment for that event.
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
Upcoming events (1)
See all- Profs & Pints Philadelphia: The Grim(m) and Glorious Story of Children's LitBlack Squirrel Club, Philadelphia, PA
Profs and Pints Philadelphia presents: “The Grim(m) and Glorious Story of Children's Lit,” on the history of tales that stick with us well into adulthood, with Melissa Jensen, award-winning lecturer in English literature at the University of Pennsylvania and scholar of Children's Literature, the Gothic, and adolescence in media and society.
[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus processing fees. Available at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profs-and-pints-black-squirrel/kid-lit .]
Just about every single one of us can quickly invoke a favorite or personally influential children’s book. We can finish nursery rhyme lines and almost instinctively sing along with songs from countless Disney films. But what do we really know about the body of literature that played such a profound role in shaping our young minds?
Join Children’s Literature scholar and author Melissa Jensen for a talk that will have you thinking about the beloved books of your formative years in an entirely new way.
She will explore the evolution and convolution of Children's Literature from the 17th to 21st centuries, discussing the beloved, the famous, and the just plain odd. She’ll help you understand why these books are not just an integral part of the developmental fabric of our youth, but also have critical literary, scholarly, and cultural importance.
Her talk will lean into more than three centuries of grim(m) messaging in books for children, with takeaways from “Do good or get dead” to “Do bad and get dead” to “Do good and get dead anyway.” She’ll discuss whether plunking death front and center in the literature makes perfect sense or is counterintuitive.
We’ll discuss beginnings, endings, and countless other elements that determine the value of “kidlit.” We’ll look at how far Disney’s Ariel is from Andersen’s original Little Mermaid, and how that difference turns a whole new lens on the meaning of “happily ever after.”
Among the questions we’ll tackle: Is there a value in contemporary kids knowing centuries-old nursery rhymes involving babies falling out of trees? Why does it work that Jensen’s all-time favorite novel—not just children’s novel, but novel of any sort—begins with “Where’s Papa going with that ax?” (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Guests are welcome to arrive any time after 5:30. Talk starts at 6:30.)
Image: From an Arthur Rackham illustration of the Brothers Grimm’s “Hansel and Gretel” as published by Dutton and Company in 1920 (New York Public Library / The Internet Archive).
