Science Café to feature special presentation on vampires on Oct. 29

Ohio University’s Science Café will present a special Humanities Café with Professor Fred Drogula discussing “The Undead Café: Vampires as Expressions of Humanity” on Tuesday, Oct. 29.

The event, which is free and open to the public, will begin at 5 p.m. at the Baker Center Front Room on the fourth floor of Baker University Center and via You Tube.

The Café will focus on the evolution of the vampire in history and myth. Drogula will explore ancient stories about early vampire-like creatures, and then move into the origins of the vampire proper in the Middle Ages, and how it was originally mixed in with werewolves and zombies, but gradually emerged as its own monster type.

In addition, he will look at how people talked about vampires in those periods (including the tradition of vampire hunts), and if time allows, at how the idea evolved up to the end of the 19th century when Bram Stoker established the modern concept of the vampire with his novel Dracula.

Drogula has served as the Charles J. Ping Professor of Humanities since 2018.  He also is the advisor for the “Monsters in Literature Club.”

His research specialties include ancient Greek and Roman history, the Roman Republic and Empire, ancient religion, ethnicity and gender in the ancient world, as well as military history, and power, authority, and the state.  In 2019 he published “Cato the Younger: A Life at the Collapse of the Roman Republic,” with Oxford University Press. He has a book forthcoming from Oxford that is titled “Spheres of Control: The Origins of Government in Early Rome.”

• Watch the Oct. 2 Science Café live or later on YouTube.

The Fall 2024 Science Café series

This is the 16th anniversary of the Science Café series, which is supported by the Ohio University Research Division and Ohio University Chapter of Sigma Xi.

Upcoming Fall 2024 Science Café events include:

• Wednesday, Nov. 6, Brian Schoen and Tim Anderson, History and Geography 
• Wednesday, Dec. 4, Brian Clark, Biomedical Sciences

For more information, contact Howard Dewald at dewald@ohio.edu or visit the Science Café website.