Advance ticket sales have ended but plenty of additional tickets remain available at the door.
Profs and Pints DC presents: “When Vampires Arose,” a look at early vampire beliefs and folklore, with Stanley Joseph Stepanic, who teaches a course on Dracula and vampire folklore as an assistant professor of Slavic languages and literature at the University of Virginia.
The vampires of ancient folklore might be unrecognizable to kids these days. They weren’t sexy like many of those in the True Blood series, or hilarious like those in What We Do in the Shadows, or powerful monsters like the Dracula figure in the Castlevania video game series.
No, the original vampires stuck to what vampires do best: Drinking blood, rising from the dead, and scaring the heck out of people.
Join leading vampire expert Stanley Joseph Stepanic in digging far back into history to uncover the vampires of the past. In the first of two talks he’ll be delivering as part of a vampiric doubleheader in the dark confines of DC’s Bier Baron Tavern, he’ll discuss the vampires of ancient folklore and track their development up to their earliest media depictions.
We’ll begin by looking at pre-Christian Slavic beliefs concerning the dead, and then progress through time to the “Great Vampire Epidemic” of the eighteenth century. You’ll learn how that particular historical event caused the vampire to enter popular consciousness in Western Europe, giving root to the first popular-culture vampire and a cultural phenomenon that swept through Gothic literature and before making an appearance on stage.
The talk is being staged at the brunch hour, and, yes, Bloody Marys will be served. (Advance tickets: $12. Doors: $15, save $2 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later. Please allow yourself time to place any orders and get seated and settled in. The Bier Baron will be requiring event attendees to purchase a minimum of two items, which can be food or beverages, including soft drinks.)
Image: This 800-year-old "vampire" skeleton in Bulgaria had been stabbed through the chest with an iron rod. Photo: Bin im Garten / Wikimedia Commons.