Profs and Pints Nashville presents: “A Trip to Hell,” on tales and visions of the Underworld and how to get there, with Cory Thomas Hutcheson, folklorist, lecturer at Middle Tennessee State University, and author of New World Witchery: A Trove of North American Folk Magic.
As Halloween approaches, Profs and Pints tempts Nashville with the hottest ticket in town: A dark tour of gateways to the Underworld in folklore, narratives, myths, and popular culture.
Your guide, folklorist Cory Hutcheson, will discuss the evolution of our collective concept of the Underworld and Hell as relayed through various stories from ancient to contemporary. Steel yourself, because he’ll also tell you how to get there.
Among the paths you’ll learn about: A theme park in Singapore where you can visit not just one hell, but the Ten Hells of Chinese folklore; the Matapan cave system of Greece’s Cape Tainaron, through which both Odysseus and Orpheus were thought to have traveled to Hades; the “Seven Gates of Hell” that, according to urban legend, exist in York, Pennsylvania.
You’ll be duly warned of the creatures that guard the gateways into darkness and gloom, you’ll hear tales of questing heroes who conquered otherworldly fears to get there, and you’ll find out whether there’s any way back out once you’ve made your way in.
Among the questions we’ll discuss on the way: Why does Hell fascinate us so much? What motivates people to do something as terrifying as trying to get there on their own? And is the town that’s the birthplace of the York Peppermint Pattie really a place to fear? (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: The “Door to Hell,” a crater in Turkmenistan where natural gas has been getting burned off since a 1971. (Photo by Flydime / Wikimedia Commons.)