Advance ticket sales have ended, but plenty of additional tickets remain available at the door.
Profs and Pints presents: “The Powers of Witches,” a special-matinee look at the origins of witch trials in Europe and the hold that witches continue to have over the popular imagination, with Mikki Brock, associate professor of history at Washington and Lee University and scholar of demonology, witchcraft, and early modern Scotland.
[Under current District of Columbia regulations attendees will be required to wear a mask except while eating or drinking. The Bier Baron will be requiring proof of Covid-19 vaccination or a negative Covid-19 test from the previous 72 hours for entry. It also will be requiring ticketed event attendees to purchase a minimum of two items, which can be food or beverages, including soft drinks.]
We remain a society fascinated with witches. From films like Roger Eggers’ The Witch to the revamp of the TV show Sabrina to witch-themed Halloween costumes for everyone from kids to cats, the image of the witch looms large in popular culture. It also has risen in prominence in our political discourse, thanks to the tweeting habits of the 45th US President.
But what about the real history of the witch trials, which claimed the lives of tens of thousands of women in sixteenth and seventeenth-century Europe? How accurate are modern portrayals? And why do we remain so entranced by witches?
Come explore such questions with Professor Michelle Brock, who teaches a class on witch-hunts at Washington and Lee and remains one of the most popular speakers to take the Profs and Pints stage. In an update version of the talk that first gained her a loyal following, she’ll discuss the history of witch hunts, both real and rhetorical, and of the outsized role that witches continue to play in our culture.
Prepare for an afternoon of both horror and humor, as she describes the beliefs that drove the witch hunts in early modern Europe and analyzes our ongoing obsession with everything from demon sex to witches’ familiars.
As the author of Satan and the Scots: The Devil in Post-Reformation Scotland, c.1560-1700 and co-editor of the forthcoming Routledge History of the Devil in the Western Tradition, Professor Brock knows both tales of the supernatural and accounts of bizarre human beliefs and behavior that will send a chill up your spine. Her talk just might leave you spellbound. (Advance tickets: $12. Door: $15, or $13 with a student ID.)