Introduction

Misti-Con 2015 was an awesomely magical event that took place May 21 – 25, 2015 at the Margate Resort in the beautiful lakes region of Laconia, NH.  The Margate was sold out within weeks of the announcement of Misti-Con 2015 in August 2014, which gives tremendous credibility of this fantastical bi-annual Harry Potter conference.  Misti-Con was organized by The Group That Shall Not Be Named (HP-NYC),

I have been to Potter conferences all over the U.S. by various organizations over the last 10 years and Misti-Con was impressive by the dedication of its loyal staff who saw to every minute detail of the 5-day event from the programming, events, talks, concerts, hotel menu items, and down to the immense amount of decorations that permeated the hallways, lobbies and conference rooms at the two locations at the Margate (main hotel and secondary building).  To welcome us as we entered was a large statue with characters from the Potter movies intertwined together as one entity.

Opening ceremonies offered skilled Japanese drumming and a magician with a few tricks up his sleeve as well as introductions of the Misti-Con staff and brief in-seat introductions of guest speakers; the ceremonies closed with a bang when fireworks filled the lake skies of the Margate.

Guest speakers during the course of the conference included the visual engineers of Universal’s The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, actor Chris Rankin (Percy Weasley), and the esteemed Dean of Harry Potter Scholars, John Granger.

Several discussion groups, as well as lectures were offered – Harry Potter Fan Zone’s fellow reporter, David Gras, presented two round-table discussions and other talks offered attendees deeper journeys into the world of Harry Potter including Dr. Patrick McCauley from Chestnut Hill College, PA who is releasing a book entitled Into the Pensieve: The Philosophy and Mythology of Harry Potter

Some classes offered Harry Potter dance lessons and art classes.  The Bewitching Bazaar showcased vendors offering various magical items such as Potter tea, Potter-style witches hats, jewelry, as well as fan fic books.  The Wizarding World’s Fair offered various feats of magical-ness – alas the hot air balloons rides were cancelled due to high winds. Wizard Wrock and ghost stories down on the beach entertained the night-time crowd.

Kudos to the organizers of this well-planned and articulated event with special thanks to Clay Dockery, Treasurer and Co-Head Organizer.  This reporter, as one of hundreds, look forward to the next MistiCon!

— Toni Gras, Reporter for Harry Potter Fan Zone

“All important literature has some ethical end; and the tale of the preternatural…can be an instrument for the recovery of moral order.”

Russell Kirk is justly renowned for his revival of Burkean conservatism in politics. What is not as well known is his love of great literature and his accomplishments as a writer of ghost stories and horror himself. Chris Calderon has written this brief introduction to the man and his work to encourage HogwartsProfessor readers to read Kirk’s ‘Cautionary Note on the Ghostly Tale,’ what some believe is the horror-able equivalent to Tolkien’s ‘On Fairy Stories.’ I highly recommend it.

The only reason I have for giving a brief intro to the thought of someone else is very simple: the great majority of both readers and non-readers don’t know who Russell Kirk is, and the great majority will go to the grave never even knowing the self-styled “Sage of Mecosta” once walked about the place (and for all any of us know, probably still does).

Briefly, Kirk was, to a very small coterie of critics, writers, pundits and politicians something of a hero, I guess.  At least he was regarded as what’s known as a genuine Man of Letters.  He was a critic and writer on the interrelated subjects of political history, theology, and literary criticism. His The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot and A Conservative Reader are staples of the modern conservative movement (Kirk helped found the political journal, National Review, of which, with William Buckley, he is a patron saint). In other words, he was what nowadays probably be called a social pundit, though it’s the designation of critic that probably sums him up best (though in today’s narrowly compacted public square he’d most likely be labeled a Catholic apologist).

Along with writers like T.S. Eliot, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Kirk approached the writing and study of literature from a Christian perspective (in his case, American Catholicism).  This conviction shaped everything he did, from a study of the thought of Edmund Burke, to what I still regard as the best biography of the Four Quartets author, Eliot and his Age.  Kirk’s belief about fiction, as he put it, was “All important literature has some ethical end; and the tale of the preternatural…can be an instrument for the recovery of moral order.” This brings us to one other thing Kirk shared in common with the Inklings.  Like them, he was a writer of fantastic fiction.  The difference was that his chosen field of work was the Horror genre. See Ancestral Shadows: An Anthology of Ghostly Tales for a collection of his ghost stories and Old House of Fear for his best known gothic novel.

Ghost stories and the like are not a topic generating much discussion at HogwartsProfessor!  Which just makes Kirk’s beliefs about it all the more novel.  His basic claim for the genre was that it fulfills the same Mythopoeic functions as either Fantasy or Science Fiction.  Does this mean that Kirk would be willing to say certain types of Supernatural tales offer their own bone-chilling form of Escape, Recovery, and Consolation?  While I’ve never seen an essay where he used those words exactly, he was more than familiar with the writings of both Tolkien and Lewis, and his criticism speaks to all these ideas.

In A Cautionary Note on the Ghostly Tale Kirk made a deliberate effort to reveal the mythopeic heart beating in the works of Poe and Hawthorne.  Whether or not he will leave others convinced is something others will have to make up their own minds about.  And with that, I turn the floor over to the esteemed Mr Kirk via this link to his Cautionary Note essay online about this very subject. And for those who want more, be sure to check out Jeffrey Dennis Pearce’s webpage devoted to Kirk’s thoughts on the genre, Ghostly Kirk.

A sample from Cautionary note:

Since most modern men have ceased to recognize their own souls, the spectral tale has been out of fashion, especially in America. As Cardinal Manning said, all differences of opinion are theological at bottom; and this fact has its bearing upon literary tastes. Because—even though they may be churchgoers—the majority of Americans do not much hunger after personal immortality, they cannot shiver at someone else’s fictitious spirit.

Perhaps the primary error of the Enlightenment was the notion that dissolving old faiths, creeds, and loyalties would lead to a universal sweet rationalism. But deprive man of St. Salvator, and he will seek, at best, St. Science—even though he understands Darwin, say, no better than he understood Augustine. Similarly, our longing for the invisible springs eternal, merely changing its direction from age to age. So if one takes away from man a belief in spirits, it does not follow that thereafter he will concern himself wholly with Bright Reality; more probably, his fancy will seek some new realm—and perhaps a worse credulity.

Thus stories of the supernatural have been supplanted by “science fiction.” Though the talent of H. G. Wells did in that genrenearly everything worth undertaking, a flood of “scientific” and “futuristic” fantasies continues to deluge America. With few exceptions, these writings are banal and meaningless. My present point, however, is simply that many people today have a faith in “life on other planets” as burning and genuine as belief in a literal Heaven and a literal Hell was among twelfth-century folk, say—but upon authority far inferior. . . . Having demolished, to their own satisfaction, the whole edifice of religious learning, abruptly and unconsciously they experience the need for belief in something not mundane; and so, defying their own inductive and mechanistic premises, they take up the cause of Martians and Jovians. As for angels and devils, let alone bogies—why, Hell, such notions are superstitious!

But if the stubborn fact remains that, although not one well-reputed person claims to have seen the men in the flying saucers, a great many well-reputed persons, over centuries, have claimed to have seen ghosts; or, more strictly speaking, to have perceived certain “psychic phenomena.” From Pliny onward, the literature of our civilization is full of such narrations. Scholars have analyzed soberly such appearances, from Father Noel Taillepied’s Treatise on Ghosts (1588) to Father Herbert Thurston’sGhosts and Poltergeists (1955). The Journal of the Society for Psychical Research has examined painstakingly, for decades, the data of psychic manifestations. Eminent people so different in character as the Wesleys and Lord Castlereagh have been confronted by terrifying apparitions….

Do read the whole thing!

A Highlight of 2014 — A Trip I’m Planning in 2015!

The HARRY POTTER CONFERENCE at CHESTNUT HILL COLLEGE in PHILADELPHIA: OCTOBER 17-18, 2014 — a report from Toni Gras

Literary scholars amidst a backdrop of Hogwarts surrounded by Griffins….

This was the atmosphere of the third annual Harry Potter Conference at Chestnut Hill College on Friday, October 17, 2014. The college, located in north Philadelphia, was founded by the Sisters of Saint Joseph in 1924 and is an independent Catholic institution.   The tall gothic spires and medieval architecture of St. Joseph Hall, the center point of the campus and conference, along with the griffin flags and seals around the campus, attested to the fact that the conference organizers thought this a most perfect location for a Harry Potter Conference.

And they were right!

Karen Wendling, PhD Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Patrick McCauley, PhD Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and Philosophy organized the concept of the conference 3 years ago through their love and study of the J.K. Rowling Harry Potter book series and inspired by the campus of the college where they teach. The conference has since doubled in size and also served as the inspiration for the Harry Potter Festival that follows the conference that evening and the next day in the quaint old English-style town of Chestnut Hill which sits just one mile down the hill from the campus. [Read more…]

From Chris Chalderon:  a Reading List for 2015 — all the books you won’t get for Christmas (and wouldn’t have wanted to give away…). Thank you, Chris!

Another HogwartsProfessor Christmas Gift and 2015 New Years Reading List

I admit it, I don’t have an original thought in my head.  Every time around this year it’s always the same.  You find yourself in the position of having to choose something to give to either the kids, husband or wife.  Let’s face it, it’s been more than 50 something years of holiday gift giving, and apparently this job is never going to get any easier.  All those whose gift lists currently include new sweaters, sign in and let me know!

I wish I had some words of wisdom about this sort of thing, but each heart is a very intricate and individual thing, and finding what really makes each one happy is task for several lifetimes.  Instead, all I got is a bunch of measly suggestions for books I thought others might get a kick out of.  However, like I said, each heart is intricate, and because of that, each book is listed under a heading designed for certain groups of readers, from those who like to delve all the way into literature, to those who’d just a like a good story.

The best that can happen with these gifts – for others or for oneself – is that they might awake the two things that matter most for a child, curiosity and imagination.  Enjoy!

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