Cos-play gone wild? Video games that draw blood? A satire street-drama about our obsession with sports, especially at major colleges and State Universities? You decide.

Independent scholar Joel Hunter, formerly of Arizona State University’s Barrett Honors College, has launched a new venture called ‘Hogwarts Preparatory Academy.’ This will certainly interest HogPro readers because it features this Potter Pundit of note’s reflections not only on the Hogwarts Saga but also popular story. This week, for example, he reviewed the film ‘Whisper of the Heart.’ Check it out!

Dr Hunter has also ventured into guiding students online with success in an Honors Seminar. That happens at his name website — JoelHunterPhD.com. Read more about these tutorials — ‘Mastering the Human Event’ — here.

Elizabeth Baird-Hardy and I have both been to Arizona State during Prof Hunter’s tenure there and I had the pleasure of catching up with him at St Andrews University at the Potter Conference in 2012. His talk then on the Proppian analysis of Harry Potter using fairy tale elements was a highlight and is a featured piece in the paper collection from that conference that is about to be published. More on that in the coming weeks!

Nicholas Carr’s book The Shallows is the most important book I’ve read this century. That’s a recommendation. Though I disagree with his premise that Gutenberg-brain is the optimal human state (it’s remarkably deficient in wisdom and risibly confident in rationalist givens), his is the clearest voice of alarm about the changes occurring in our capacities for thinking and understanding consequent to our adoption of intellectual technologies.

The talk above was given, incredibly, at Google’s west coast campus, a site and company criticized in merciless fashion in The Shallows. Please listen for a challenge to your thoughts about technology and reading — and please reflect on your relationships with your Smart phone, PC, and GPS system. Hat tip to Stephen S!

I spoke last Thursday morning to a packed Baptist Church at Carson-Newman University, just outside Knoxville, Tennessee. It was the third in a series of lectures sponsored by the University for their students on the subject of ‘truth and beauty.’ My spin was about the internet, the central place of story (and reading stories specifically), and one answer to ‘the mystery of fiction.’

The students and faculty were as kind and welcoming as their campus is beautiful, which is really saying something, especially as the Blue Ridge was exploding in color. If you enjoy this talk, I’m confident you have had only a small fraction of the pleasure I enjoyed in good company and conversation at Carson Newman. Cheers to you — and thanks to Alison, Macy, and April at Carson Newman for making my stay as pleasant as it was!