Few things make a professor happier than seeing students go on to great things after graduation. I was thrilled recently to see a Facebook post about a student who was just awarded her PhD in archeology. The sight was doubly meaningful because this was the student I took to the first Harry Potter conference I ever attended, almost exactly 8 years ago:  JMU’s Replacing Wands With Quills. I reminded her of that in my congratulatory Facebook note and she fondly remembered the conference as “thrilling event to dip my toes into.” 

This prompted me to look up the handful of other undergraduate students that I had involved in Harry Potter or similar scholarship: students who had attended the Chestnut Hill Harry Potter Academic Conference, guested on Mugglenet Academia, or co-presented a Divergent and Neuroscience poster in the teaching section of the Society for Neuroscience Annual meeting. As expected, I found a number of success stories: two currently in PhD programs in clinical psychology and biochemistry , two completed masters degrees in engineering and industrial/organizational psychology, one currently in an information science masters program, one who had the rare honor of publishing her undergraduate thesis. It appears that these early professional experiences–where students learn not only that they have good ideas but that others want to hear about them–are associated with later success, even when the students ultimately pursue an entirely different area of study from Potter Punditry. 

Of course, correlation does not equal causation; it is likely that the talent and initiative students show in seeking out these experiences are the same traits that lead to academic success later on.  But it also appears that many look back on the Harry Potter academic experience as particularly meaningful in shaping their self-confidence as scholars. 

On that note, it is worth announcing the CFP for the other major showcase for Potter scholarship:  The Southwest Popular/American Culture Association annual meeting in February.  See below.

The deadline for proposals for the 2020 Southwest Popular/American Culture Association (SWPACA) is ONE WEEK from today!

The 2020 SWPACA conference will be held Feb 19-22, 2020 at the Hyatt Regency in Albuquerque, New Mexico. We invite proposals for any topic related to popular and/or American culture studies. See further details:http://southwestpca.org/conference/call-for-papers/

Submit your proposal here: https://register.southwestpca.org/southwestpca by November 20, 2019.