MuggleNet Academia at Chestnut Hill College’s Harry Potter Conference: Two Hogwarts Professors in a Rousing Round Table

October 19, 2014 by Leave a Comment

Louise Freeman and I meet with Karen Wendling, Patrick McCauley, Keith Hawk and Natasha Lei to discuss everything from Hons and Rebels to Aeschylus, Cormoran Strike to Nature Deficit Disorder, and a review of what is fast becoming the best annual gathering of Potter Pundits anywhere, the Chestnut Hill College Harry Potter Conference.

It was simultaneously delightful and intellectually challenging like the most wonderful of books. Every talk was a twist and a treat, the old school Hogwartsian campus (with Griffin flags everywhere), and the congenial company — quite a few friends from this site, I’m happy to say, as well as Potterdelphians — was equal to the head-spinning content of the conversations.

Anyway, click here to listen to the MuggleNet Academia live podcast recorded Friday night. I’m already excited about next year’s gathering — with hopes of seeing even more of you there!

Filed Under: Louise Freeman, MuggleNet Academia

It’s Time! Harry Potter Halloween Party Planning Ideas

September 29, 2014 by 1 Comment

My parents told me, in front of a group of college friends as I recall, that as a child I began counting down the days to my birthday and Halloween which followed hours later, as soon as October was approaching. As a sugar addict in need of a 12 Step Program back in the day, I must have been looking forward to the sucrose blitz at the end of the tenth month that would make me fly like a kite well into November (with the hypoglycemic crash, alas, that lasted until Thanksgiving…).

My mother, God bless her memory, sewed the greatest Halloween costumes for me and my two brothers, efforts that required much more than day-of-event last minute planning. So maybe my anticipatory excitement in late September reflected her enthusiasm as much as it caused her to buy fabric and face paints?

I’ll never know. I am pretty sure if there had been a Harry Potter mania in the 60’s that we would have had the best costumes for Halloween and maybe even a theme party at a birthday. Because I would have loved the big books obsessively, right? And mom would have been all over that with encouragement and shared text enthusiasm.

I do have a pretty good idea what my bedroom would have looked like if Harry and I had been childhood friends. Ideal James sent me a link to 33 Cheap and Easy Ways to Throw an Epic Harry Potter Halloween Party and I suspect I would have done my best to express my fascination with maybe 30 of these possibilities. Definitely the glue-gun crafted wands and Dementor light shades. Lumos and Nox postings on the switches and floating candles? Oh, yeah. A must.

My daughter Sarah and her college roommate decorated their top deck flat at UChicago (aka ‘Chicagwarts’) as the Hufflepuff Common Room. The only thing they were missing from this party catalog was the envelopes-from-the-fireplace number. Which, yes, is a WOW. I’m half-hoping my children see this and get excited about a Halloween Party this year so we can put together some of these favors. There’s a month to get ready, right?

File this under ‘Shared Text,’ because, no, an Anna Karenina or Mary Poppins themed party just isn’t going to have the gags and tricks that everyone will recognize and enjoy… More Harry Party party ideas here and here. Hat tip, James!

Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes, Shared Text

Mail Bag: Weeks and Weeks of Lov-e-ly Links!

September 20, 2014 by 2 Comments

Please accept my apologies for the long absence from blogging. Look for my fall speaking schedule here in the days to come!

I do get the greatest mail from friends and readers, which I feel obliged to share. Make the jump to find your way to JRRT’s talk in Rotterdam to Hobbit fans (1958), Rowling’s revelations about Celestina and the Pine Marten, Lev Grossman notes and a review of Magician’s Land, and notes about some fascinating college classes on Harry Potter and other YA literature.

Enjoy!

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Mailbag

CFP: 18th Annual CSL and Inklings Conference

September 7, 2014 by Leave a Comment

Call for Papers for the 18th Annual C. S. Lewis and Inklings Conference

[KEYNOTE SPEAKERS: Diana Glyer and Jerry Root]

Theme of the Conference

The Fellowship of the Book: The Inklings in Community

March 26th– 28th, 2015 At Grove City College In Grove City, Pennsylvania

Papers related to the works of C.S. Lewis, the Inklings, George MacDonald, and Dorothy L. Sayers are invited.

The conference theme, The Fellowship of the Book: The Inklings in Community, seeks to explore the Inklings’ intimate relationship with one another, and their understanding of friendship, fellowship, and community. We highly recommend Diana Glyer’s profound study of the Inklings: The Company They Keep.

These questions may inspire you as you ponder a paper topic related to the conference theme: [Read more…]

Filed Under: C. S. Lewis

Guest Post: On the PotterMore Epilogue and Good Endings

August 28, 2014 by 10 Comments

From ChrisC — Enjoy!

Getting it Right: Some thought’s on the Pottermore Epilogue, Canon Narrative, and the Importance of Endings.

I’m curious.  How did everyone else feel about the Quidditch epilogue that J.K. Rowling wrote on her Pottermore website, the one that was told from the point of view of Rita Skeeter?  Did you think it was good, did it strike you as bad?  Or were you somewhere in between?

My own two cents?

For the record, I thought it was unnecessary, really.  For one thing, nothing is really added to the characters we already know, or at least nothing that broadens them. They are never given a whole new dimension that can be ascertained whenever going back to the original books.  They remain static, or at least the same as they were in the closing of Book 7.  All manner of things are still well, it seems, nothing more.  We don’t even get an ending with the word “Scar”.  In other words, I’m just not seeing any of the characters progress.  In further words, the reason for that is because it seems the characters have either finished, or just run out of things to say, do, tell, or show.

Reading the addition does however bring up (at least for me) certain matters that have been on my mind lately.  You see, with all of the extras being tossed our way; first by Pottermore; then talk of a Newt Scamander film; even (if you can believe it) the possibility of a play centering on Harry’s early years with the Durslesy before the events of Book 1; all this makes me wonder just what kind of  the audience might attach to it all? [Read more…]

Filed Under: Guest Posts