What we’re about
Profs and Pints 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 link provided in event descriptions) or at the door to the venue. Many events sell out in advance.
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 [email protected].
Thank you for your interest in Profs and Pints.
Regards,
Peter Schmidt, Founder, Profs and Pints
Upcoming events (4+)
See all- Profs & Pints Northern Virginia: The Single LessonNoVa Bar & Grill, Fairfax, VA
Profs and Pints Northern Virginia presents: “The Single Lesson,” on myths and misconceptions about singlehood and research and advocacy efforts focused on the unmarried, with Craig Wynne, a professor of English at the University of the District of Columbia and pioneer in the growing field of Singles Studies.
All around us are messages that being “coupled up” is the norm. Shows like The Bachelor, 90-Day Fiancé, and Indian Matchmaking have people rooting and fawning for marriage. J.D. Vance has derided cat-owning single women as a demographic that threatens the fabric of the nation.
Yet, despite its supposed unpopularity, the rate of singlehood is increasing. By 2030, the Pew Research Center has projected, 25 percent of 45- to 54-year-old adults in the United States will never marry.
What’s the real picture when it comes to singles? Is a growing share of the population missing out on marital bliss, or are single people on to something?
Hear such questions tackled by Professor Craig Wynne, co-editor of Singular Selves: An Introduction to Singles Studies and author of How to be a Happy Bachelor.
Dr. Wynne will discuss how stereotypes of singlehood are perpetuated in the media and influence laws, policies, and our daily social interactions in ways that harm not just single people but those who are married, cohabitating, or in a relationship.
His talk will tackle the concepts of “singlism,” the stereotyping and stigma around people who are not married or otherwise unpartnered; “matrimania,” over-the-top societal obsession with marriage and weddings; and “amatonormativity,” the assumption that a romantic relationship must be prioritized above all other kinds.
Finally, Dr. Wynne will discuss the emergence of Singles Studies—a field devoted to granting singlehood validity in an academic context—and look at recent advocacy intended to secure single people equity in a world that still privileges being married or coupled. (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)
Image by Canva.
- Profs & Pints DC: The Six Wives of Henry VIIIPenn Social, Washington, DC
Profs and Pints DC presents: “The Six Wives of Henry VIII,” with Amy Leonard, associate professor of history at Georgetown University and scholar of women during the early modern period.
[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://profsandpints.ticketleap.com/boleyn/ .]
“Divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived.”
This six-word rhyme is often all anyone knows or remembers about the six wives of Henry the Eighth. It’s also the starting point for the acclaimed hit musical Six, scheduled to be performed at Washington D.C.’s National Theatre from November 12th through December 1st.
But as the musical makes clear, these six women were more than just a footnote in Tudor history, and they deserve to be remembered for more than just how their lives ended.
Learn more about them at DC’s Penn Social with the help of Professor Amy Leonard, a scholar of women in Europe in the early modern period, when Henry VIII reigned. Having previously given fantastic Profs and Pints talks about subjects such as prostitution in premodern Europe and feminism and the French Revolution, she’s the perfect guide for this trip back through time to learn what it was like to married to a king who’d stop at nothing to ensure a male heir to his throne.
We’ll look at the history of 16th century-England through the eyes of the women Henry married: Catherine Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, and Katherine Parr. You’ll learn how these women were instrumental in solidifying the Tudor dynasty and both helped instigate and support the Protestant reformation. You’ll also learn the role they played in ushering in one of the most famous monarchs of early modern Europe, Elizabeth I.
Regardless of whether you have seen Six or even plan to do so, you’ll be glad you grabbed a ticket to hear Dr. Leonard discuss the history that the musical is based upon. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)
Image background: Henry VIII in the style of Hans Holbein the Younger. Foreground, clockwise from upper left: Jane Seymour, Catherine Parr, Anne Boleyn, and Catherine of Aragon (artists unknown), Anne of Cleves and probably Catherine Howard (Holbein).
- Profs & Pints DC: Spirits Around the PlacePenn Social, Washington, DC
Profs and Pints DC presents: “Spirits Around the Place,” a look at East Slavic beliefs in supernatural creatures and haunted spaces, with folklorist Philippa Rappoport of George Washington University.
[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://profsandpints.ticketleap.com/homespirits/ .]
Traditional beliefs associated with Ukraine, Belarus and Russia hold that we’re seldom alone, even if no people are around. Instead, we’re nearly always surrounded by mythological beings. They can make our lives complicated and sometimes even injure or murder us, sometimes because we’ve annoyed them or, in other cases, just because that’s what they like to do.
Prepare to return to the days when you wondered what’s under your bed with this talk by Philippa Rappoport, an expert on Slavic folklore and rituals. She’ll describe how East Slavic culture long ago gave rise to beliefs in such mythological beings, known as “nature” or “place” spirits, who exert their influence on farmsteads, bathhouses, threshing barns, woods, water, and, yes, our own homes. Their presence was felt daily in the peasant’s world, and it still can be seen today in the ways in which people relate to home, space, and boundaries.
The real frightening fun will come when Dr. Rappoport introduces us to these supernatural beings, discussing their characteristics and the beliefs and traditions surrounding them.
We'll learn about the spirits of the home and homestead, such as the domovoi, a cranky spiritual master and protector of the home and hearth, and his counterpart of the yard, the dvorovoi. We'll talk about the bannik, the bathhouse spirit who presides over bathing and births but also sees saunas as a great place to strangle folks who don’t show him enough respect.
A little farther from home, we'll meet the spirits of the forests, waters, and fields. They include the leshii, master of the forest and its inhabitants, who might appear like a peasant, devil, or beast. Another spirit, the vodianoi, or “water devil,” is a bloated, shaggy, slimy water spirit that you’ll want to avoid at all costs.
We'll examine how these supernatural creatures are related to perceptions of space, boundaries, danger, and people who are categorized as “others” and shunned for it. We’ll gain insights on how people express fear of the unknown, and how such fear connects to xenophobia and some of the worst human behavior imaginable, deeds which render their perpetrators as monsters in their own right. It’s a talk that will give you an entirely new vantage point for viewing Slavic history and culture, and help you better understand the 19th- and 20-century Russian propensity to close borders or punish by exile and gulag. (Door: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)
Image: A bannik, or Russian bathhouse spirit, as drawn by Ivan Bilibin in 1934 (Wikimedia Commons).
- Profs & Pints Northern Virginia: You Better Watch OutCrooked Run Fermentation, Sterling, VA
Profs and Pints Northern Virginia presents: “You Better Watch Out,” a look at terrifying holiday folklore around the world, 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://profsandpints.ticketleap.com/shelfelf/ .]
Today, the December holidays are all about joyous magic, warm evenings curled by the fire, and celebrations of the good in the world. Traditionally, however, the winter season also ushers in the terrors of the dark and the cold, teaching us to bar doors, whisper warnings, and, above all, to be “good for goodness’ sake.”
While many are now familiar with the holiday terror of the Krampus, this talk will explore a few less familiar, but no less frightening, folkloric characters of the season.
You'll hear tales of the Icelandic Jólakötturinn, a gigantic cat that devours naughty children, and learn how to best the Welsh Mari Lwyd, a skeletal horse with a taste for song and poetry. You'll get to know the Eastern European Christmas witch Frau Perchta and trace the history of the sometimes mischievous, sometimes terrifying Yule Lads and their monstrous mother, Grýla.
Join Brittany Warman as she explores the scarier holiday traditions around the world. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)
Image: A statue in Iceland depicts the troll Grýla next to the pot in which she prepares her meals of naughty children.
