Susan Bowyer, who rocked my world in late 2008 with her discovery that the House of Gaunt and the Dark Mark were direct borrowings from Thackeray’s Vanity Fair: A Novel Without a Hero, wrote to me earlier this month with another Vanity-Potter link:

John, do you think it’s possible that Dobby’s name comes from William Dobbin in Vanity Fair? He’s a faithful, heroic, slavishly devoted and selfless character. And we have already discussed the likelihood that Vanity Fair contributed other ideas (the Gaunt name and the ‘dark mark.’)

A fascinating possibility, which I’ll discuss below the jump.

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I had a short conversation earlier this week with the Rev. Danielle Elizabeth Tumminio, the author of God and Harry Potter at Yale, about her experience teaching Christian theology at Yale University through the lens of the Hogwarts Saga. I think you’ll find it informative — and I hope that you’ll join in the conversation with your own questions about the controversial course, its content, and her reasons for the choices she made.

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[21 December 2010 Interview on NBC-TV with Rev. Tumminio about her class and new book]

God and Harry Potter at Yale, the Rev. Dr. Danielle Elizabeth Tumminio’s book about her controversial Yale class, ‘Harry Potter and Christian Theology,’ is now available for purchase via Amazon.com. I was invited to speak to this class two of the years the course was offered so I can say as an eye-witness and participant that it was anything but a basket-weaving seminar or transcript filler. The small class of students was chosen from hundreds of Elis who applied, all of whom were Harry Potter wonks in addition to being as intelligent and earnest as you’d expect in this Ivy clad bastion. Rev. Tumminio kept the class loose but the topics they discussed while pouring through all seven Potter novels, everything from ‘The Problem of Evil’ to ‘The End Times,’ were heavy and examined with all seriousness.

Highly recommended! I’ll be interviewing the author here soon; write out any questions you want me to be sure to ask in the comment boxes below.

For your calendar and 2011 vacation planning!

• Aeternitas 2011, Laconia, NH, 28 April – 1 May, HP-MA (Harry Potter’s Boston Meet-Up)
• LeakyCon 2011, Orlando, FL, 13-17 July, The Leaky Cauldron
• DiaCon Alley 2011, Canterbury, UK, 21-24 July, The Committee
• ‘The Power to Imagine Better,’ Manhattan, NY, 29 October, Marymount Manhattan College

Please let me know what you know about any more Harry Potter, Twilight, Inkling, Jane Austen, Dickens, Anne of Green Gables, or Hunger Games fandom events and other literary conferences at which talks will be given (or “papers presented”) on our favorite books. Send me links or information and I’ll put it up!