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 ticket link provided in event descriptions) or at the door to the venue. Many events sell out in advance. Your indication on Meetup of your intent to attend an event constitutes neither a reservation nor payment for that event.
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 profsandpints@hotmail.com.
Thank you for your interest in Profs and Pints.
Regards,
Peter Schmidt, Founder, Profs and PInts
Upcoming events (2)
See all- Profs & Pints Nashville: Ancient DNA and De-ExtinctionFait la Force Brewing, Nashville, TN
Profs and Pints Nashville presents: “Ancient DNA and De-Extinction,” on the quest to bring back dire wolves and other long-lost species, with Katie McCormack, instructor in biological and ancient DNA research at Vanderbilt University.
[Doors open at 6 pm. Talk starts at 7. Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profsandpints/dire-wolves .]
Is it true, per recent headlines, that we’ve actually revived the extinct dire wolf using ancient DNA? What does it mean if we did?
Come to Nashville’s Fait La Force taproom to hear such questions tackled by Vanderbilt University’s Katie McCormack, who writes about genetic ethics and the impact of genetic technology and whose own research combines genetics and archaeology to study our prehistoric ancestors based on their microbial DNA.
She’ll introduce you to the field of ancient DNA (aDNA) research and bring you up to speed on efforts to reconstruct ancient genomes, the combinations of genetic information that helped make our hominid ancestors and other species what they were. She’ll give you an overview of the science that makes studying and using samples of ancient DNA possible and walk you through the history of efforts to find meaning in small fragments of DNA that survive in the archaeological record.
She’ll explore some of the major discoveries such technology makes possible and discuss efforts to bring back the dire wolf, the woolly mammoth, the dodo, and even Tyrannosaurus Rex.
You’ll learn about the Neanderthal-Human babies in your family tree, about research suggesting that seals brought Tuberculosis to the Americas, and why we almost certainly won’t be bringing T-Rex back any time soon. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID.)
Image: Skeletal remains of an extinct dire wolf on display at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History in Kansas. Photo by James St. John / Creative Commons.
- Profs & Pints Nashville: An Essential Talk on Free SpeechFait la Force Brewing, Nashville, TN
Profs and Pints Nashville presents: “An Essential Talk on Free Speech,” a look at the past, present, and future of the right to speak out, with Jacob Mchangama, research professor at Vanderbilt University, founder and executive director of the think tank The Future of Free Speech, and author of Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media.
[Doors open at 6 pm. Talk starts at 7. Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profsandpints/nashville-speech ]
Free speech is not just one among many rights. It is the very foundation of democracy.
Gain a deep understanding of this freedom’s importance and its evolution over time with Jacob Mchangama, award-winning scholar of free-speech and human-rights law, frequent writer and media commentator on speech issues, and producer and narrator of the podcast “Clear and Present” Danger: A History of Free Speech.
In an encore of a thought-provoking talk delivered to a sold-out audience in April, Mchangama will trace the enduring power—and fragility—of freedom of speech from the trial of Socrates to social media bans, from medieval heretics to modern whistleblowers.
Along the way, he’ll tackle key questions such as: Why has free speech so often been the first casualty of fear and power? What lessons can history offer us in navigating today’s digital controversies? And how can we defend free expression without abandoning responsibility in an age of Artificial Intelligence?
Drawing on his acclaimed global history of free speech, Mchangama will explain why societies that protect expression tend to thrive, while those that silence dissent often descend into repression. He’ll make the case that the freedom to speak, write, and dissent is what allows all other rights to flourish.
A compelling advocate for liberal democracy, he’ll show why free speech remains our best defense against tyranny and a vital tool for progress, even when it's messy, uncomfortable, or unpopular. You’ll emerge from your evening with him with plenty to talk about. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID.)
Image: From “The Death of Socrates,” painted by Jacques-Louis David in 1787 (Metropolitan Museum of Art / Wikimedia Commons).
