Profs & Pints Napa: A History of American Horror

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.