Profs and Pints San Francisco Bay Area

Profs and Pints Napa presents: “A History of American Horror,” a look at fear-inducing creative works as a reflection of our nation’s anxieties, with Kim Hester Williams, professor of literature at Sonoma State University and scholar of the American Gothic and Horror in literature and film.

[Tickets available only online, at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profsandpints/napa-american-horror .]

Along with firing the cannon shot that decapitated Sleepy Hollow’s headless horseman, the American Revolution gave rise to a nation with a distinct brand of horror rooted in its history and anxieties.

Come revisit what has scared us—and gain insight on what American Gothic and Horror stories tell us about our past and present—by spending an exceptionally spooky evening at Napa Yard listening to a scholar of terrifying tales.

Dr. Kim Hester Williams of Sonoma State University will set the stage by discussing how horror narratives long have sprung from the American Experiment and its formation of a new society based on liberal humanist ideals. She’ll talk about how the limits and elusiveness of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness have served as fodder for haunting and fright.

She’ll then take us on a journey through time to get a sense of the appeal of some of the nation’s most notable horror stories as told in beloved literature and films.

We’ll start with the early American narrative and figures like Ichabod Crane of Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and the white whale and Captain Ahab of Herman Melville’s classic Gothic novel Moby Dick.

From there we’ll move forward to contemporary horror films of the 1970s and to today’s current era in celluloid terror, unpacking the deeper meaning of characters such as the murderous chimpanzee in Jordan Peele’s Nope. It will be a night of monstrous clowns, possessed dolls, menacing corn fields, threatening calls from inside the house, and a host of other sources of startles. (The night will be intense enough to be reserved for mature audiences only.)

Throughout it all you’ll be invited to ponder why certain things scare us and why we so enjoy being scared.

Edgar Allan Poe once quipped, “Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.” The same also holds true for images, and you’ll leave with a much better appreciation of the creative works that have frightened us and the realities from which they drew their terrible power. (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Doors open at 5:30 and the talk begins at 6:30.)

Image by Canva.

Profs and Pints Alameda presents: “Magic and Demons of Ancient Egypt,” with Rita Lucarelli, associate professor of Egyptology at the University of California, Berkeley, faculty curator of Egyptology at its museum of anthropology, and scholar of ancient Egyptian demonology and death practices.

[Tickets available only online, at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profsandpints/alameda-demons-of-ancient-egypt .]

Get yourself hyped up for Halloween in a distinctly old-school way, by learning about magic, death, and demon beliefs in ancient Egypt. Come to Faction Brewing in Alameda and take a scholarly trip through space and time to learn about evidence of belief in the uncanny among those who lived under pharaohs many centuries ago.

We’ll start by discussing what is meant by “magic” and “demons” in ancient Egypt and in the ancient world at large. We’ll look at recent studies on the topic as well texts and artifacts from Egypt from early Pharaonic times to the Greco-Roman periods. Professor Lucarelli will discuss ritual and magical objects, particularly coffins, as well as ancient Egyptian magic spells from the Book of the Dead and other sources.

From there we’ll look at the character of ancient Egyptian magical practices, with a special focus on the role that demons played in magical texts and images. You’ll learn how the demonologies and magic practices of ancient Egypt compared with and influenced those elsewhere in the ancient world, including Greece, the Near East, and the ancient Jewish world.

You couldn’t ask for a better guide on such a journey. Dr. Lucarelli is the co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of the Egyptian Book of the Dead and the author of The Book of the Dead of Gatseshen: Ancient Egyptian Funerary Religion in the 10th Century BC. In addition, she is working on a project aimed at creating 3D models of ancient Egyptian coffins and writing a monograph about ancient Egyptian demonology. She serves as faculty curator of Egyptology at UC-Berkeley’s Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology and she teaches courses on Egyptology and on interest in ancient Egypt in the modern world.

Learning from her will be a Halloween treat. (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: A segment of ancient Egypt’s Book of the Dead, circa 1275 BCE, depicts the crocodile-headed demon Ammut, “devourer of the dead,” attending a final judgement (British Museum / Wikipedia).