The Five Reasons Jo Rowling Didn’t Want You to Know She Writes the Cormoran Strike Mysteries

July 30, 2015 by Leave a Comment

2013Happy Birthday, Jo and Harry!

To celebrate JKR’s 50th and Harry’s 35th, Keith Hawk and I invited Karen Kebarle of Algonquin College in Ottawa and Dolores Gordon-Smith, author of the Jack Haldean mysteries, to do something different on MuggleNet Academia, namely, discuss the Cormoran Strike detective novels. At last — and at length and in depth!

GalbraithTo focus our discussion I wrote up a 17 page argument detailing the five reasons why our birthday girl decided to write her mysteries under a pseudonym. You can download that paper here. I’ll post a link to MuggleNet Academia for our animated back-and-forth about where I’m right (and where our guests think I’m off the road and in the ditch upside-down!) as soon as Keith has finished his edits and added the theme songs.

Again, Happy Birthday, Jo, Harry, and fandom!

Filed Under: Cormoran Strike, MuggleNet Academia

MuggleNet Academia: Medieval Motifs

July 15, 2015 by 10 Comments

Lakehead University Professor Rhonda Dubec joins, Keith Hawk, myself and two MuggleNet staffers to discuss the Medieval Motifs in Harry Potter, a class that she teaches live in Thunder Bay, Ontario, and online via her university’s distance education program. We all agreed during this animated conversation that we wish very much that the course were available to those South of the Border — as I think you will, too! Tune in and let me know what you think.

Filed Under: MuggleNet Academia

MuggleNet Academia: Books Inside the Books — About How to Read Books!

July 8, 2015 by 7 Comments

David Martin joins Keith Hawk and our two brilliant student guests to discuss ‘Books Inside the Harry Potter Novels,’ a self-referential, mind-bending topic if there ever was one. Is Ms Rowling providing a key to how her readers should be reading (and how they should not be reading) her books inside the plot events of her own books? So it seems! Let me know what you think after listening to this week’s show.

Filed Under: MuggleNet Academia

Guest Post: David Martin reveals the Role of Books in the Hogwarts Saga

June 30, 2015 by 11 Comments

Tomorrow night MuggleNet Academia’s Keith Hawk and I interview David Martin, Potter Pundit extraordinaire, about a talk he gave at MISTI Con on the role of books inside the Harry Potter novels. David graciously agreed to letting me post his notes from that brilliant talk here so listeners could have a follow-up reference to the podcast. He only asks that I mention upfront that this is a work in progress, not a polished piece or finished production.

If you’re like me, you’ll be wow’ed by this remarkable survey and eager to hear David talk on the subject in this week’s MuggleNet Academia show. Here’s David!

[An updated version of David’s Notes was posted here at his direction on Thursday, 2 July 2015. Enjoy!]

Introduction

Note: This talk was presented at Misti-Con in 2013 and again in 2015.

Introduction

The Harry Potter novels take place in a fully developed book culture – that is, they take place in a world where people (some people) use and interact with books.  There are many more books used in the Harry Potter novels than there are other series with which they are sometimes compared.  When I present this topic as a talk, I begin by asking the audience for the names of books that are mentioned in the HP novels.  The audience will easily come up with a dozen titles very quickly. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Guest Posts, MuggleNet Academia

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