Accio Festival! A Roundup of Academic Potter Events on the Horizon

January 27, 2017 by 3 Comments

Mark your calendar! For serious Harry Potter readers, uber-fans and academics, it’s time to get together. Save up those Galleons, sickles and knuts, grab a broomstick or gas up your old Ford Anglia. Here are five upcoming events of interest to the Potter conversation:

home_osuOhio State University’s Popular Culture and the Deep Past 2017: The World of Harry Potter. According to the Ohio State University’s website, the guiding principles of the annual “Popular Culture and the Deep Past” conference, hosted by the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, is “to celebrate the ongoing presence of historical cultures and traditions in present-day life; and second, to bring diverse communities together in and around Ohio State, including scholars, performers, artists, artisans, teachers, students, and families.” Sounds fun! Whereas in previous years the conference has focused on Tolkien’s works and even Game of Thrones, this year’s conference tackles Potter in celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the publication of Philosopher’s Stone. The conference seeks to combine a full-fledged academic conference with a carnival celebration of culture, including food, games, activities and cosplay.

  • Where and when: Columbus, Ohio, campus of the Ohio State University, February 24-25, 2017
  • Website: https://cmrs.osu.edu/events/pcdp/2017-harry-potter
  • Submissions: “The submission deadline for abstracts and panel proposals is November 15, 2016. Submissions after that date will be happily received, but cannot be guaranteed full consideration. Abstracts may be submitted via email to cmrs_gaa@osu.edu.” (from the website)
  • Registration: There is no fee to attend but registration is requested; follow the link on the website above; deadline for registration: February 20, 2017.
  • Of special note: As OSU’s campus is no more than a long walk from my front door, I’ll be there with bells on! I am slated to present a paper on the Christian sacramental worldview present in the Potter series. If you go, please stop and introduce yourself.

Signum University/Mythgard Institute’s Mythmoot IV: Invoking Wonder. The Mythgard Mythmoot-theme-mythgardInstitute, housed at Signum U., has established itself in recent years as a hub for the study of imaginative fiction. It has created a space online where the best teachers in the field (think Tom Shippey, Corey Olsen, Amy H. Sturgis and Dimitra Fimi) are accessible to students of any ilk: those pursuing graduate degrees or simply deeper conversations about their favorite books, films and games. Plus, Mythgardians never fail to have a really good time while wrestling with the big questions. Their annual gathering, which organizers describe as combining “academic conference, literary creative meet-up, and fan convention” is extended this year, and there’s still time to both register to attend and to submit your idea for an academic paper, panel, workshop or creative presentation.

  • Where and when: Leesburg, VA; the National Conference Center; June 1-4, 2017
  • Website: http://mythgard.org/events/mythmoot-iv/
  • Submissions: Proposals are accepted through 28 February 2017.  Send proposals to
  • events@mythgard.org with a subject line of “Paper Proposal,” “Panel Proposal,” “Workshop Proposal,” or “Creative Presentation Proposal.” Include a brief bio and A/V requirements.
  • Registration: Pricing is per day, or for the whole conference. See the website for details, as well as a link to registration.
  • Of special note: Mythmoot IV “will feature special guests Dr. Verlyn Flieger (University of Maryland) and Dr. Michael Drout (Wheaton College). It will also include the traditional banquet on Saturday evening, with much food and merriment for all!” (from the website)

DePaul HP confDePaul University, Harry Potter and the Pop Culture Conference. This one day conference, hosted by the Media and Cinema Studies program at DePaul, boasts that it is for both Muggles and Wizards, which I certainly hope implies that Witches are welcome too (ahem). The event will take place on DePaul’s Loop Campus and features keynotes, panels, fan discussions and more.

  • Where and when: DePaul U., Loop Campus, Chicago, IL; May 6, 2017
  • Website: http://www.mcsdepaul.com/depaul-pop-culture-conference.html
  • Submissions: Rather than formal paper presentations, the conference will feature roundtable discussions with scholars and fans alike, themed around certain topics. Interested parties should send a 200-300 word abstract proposing a topic and a CV/resume to Paul Booth (pbooth@depaul.edu) by February 1st. Proposals should be aimed at a general audience.
  • Of special note: The keynote speaker of the event will be Alana Bennett of Buzzfeed, best known for her writings about race-bending Hermione Granger.

And save-the-date for… Plans are also shaping up for two more Potter fests, the dates for which you’ll want to save. One is new and one has become an old favorite.

  • Roanoke, VA Harry Potter Fest. Lana Whited of Ferrum College recently contact several of us about a new (with hopes to become annual) Harry Potter festival in Roanoke, VA on May 13, with a festive feast the night before. The goal is to have educational events mixed in with the festival events, for a full day of Potter learning and fun. I’ve marked my calendar for this one for sure; if you go, you’re likely to meet more than one Hogwarts Professor there.
  • Chestnut Hill College Harry Potter Conference and Festival. It’s never too early to mark your Chestnut-Hill-College3calendar for the annual HP Conference and Festival in Chestnut Hill, PA. This year’s conference is slated for Friday, October 21 at Chestnut Hill College, with the festival in the small, nearby town of Chestnut Hill the next day. Let’s hope both these events are as fabulously fun as they’ve been in years past. We might also hope it’s not 80 degrees Fahrenheit in October this year (which made for a sweltering time in CHC’s non-air-conditioned St. Joseph Hall), and that the town of Chestnut Hill has more than one port-o-potty, and other ways of accommodating a crowd which last year swelled to an estimated 45,000, wildly surpassing the town’s ostensible preparations. If you’ve been looking for evidence that Harry and his pals are more popular than ever, look no further.

Have you heard of an academic Harry Potter event and/or fan celebration you’d like HogPro readers to know about? Please mention it in the comments below. And don’t forget to get cracking on those submissions! Hope to see you soon…

You can follow Emily Strand on Facebook and Twitter (@ekcstrand).

Filed Under: Emily Strand, Hog Pro Notes, Potter Fandom Tagged With: , , , ,

Harry Potter Halloween in Scottsville, VA.

October 29, 2016 by 6 Comments

choc-frogNestled on the James River in one of the most beautiful parts of central Virginia, the tiny town of Scottsville has been throwing a Halloween bash every year for the past three. Today was the first time I went. No Quidditch, no scholarly content (note to organizers– I am available for public talks at very reasonable prices—  just buy me a butterbeer!) but it was a great venue for a perfect fall festival.

wanted-1This party was orders of magnitude smaller than Chestnut Hill’s annual extravaganza but had a lot of the same elements of both that festival, and last summer’s first (and almost certainly annual) block party in Staunton VA:  local businesses transfiguring themselves into Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley establishments like Honeydukes and Ollivander’s, lots of homemade and commercial Potter merchandise for sale, activities for the kids, elaborately decorated spots for selfies (I couldn’t decide whether the Chocolate Frog card or the Azkaban wanted poster was my favorite!)  and lots of costumed characters of all ages.  My favorite was a dog in full Harry attire, although the Gilderoy Lockhart who appeared at the local library was also great, and threw himself into the role. The lines for candy, butterbeer and wands were long, but otherwise things were pretty manageable, and there were big fields available for parking.  This festival, for now, is in no danger of outgrowing its space, unlike Chestnut Hill, which was recently compared to Woodstock.

I love the way they adapted their sign!

I love the way they adapted their sign!

Perhaps my favorite spot was a small Episcopal church that renamed itself “St. Jerome’s” for the day, meaning someone must have read Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.  They had set up the church yard as a replica of the Goodric’s
Hollow cemetery, complete with gravestones matching the book descriptions perfectly, from the wreath of roses Hermione conjured up for James and Lily’s headstone, to the Deathly Hallows symbol on the Peverell grave,  to the scripture verses on the Dumbledoregraves and Potter stones. All we needed was a coating of snow and some light shining through jewel-toned stained glass windows, but I guess it’s the wrong time of year for that.  In any case, it was a peaceful detour to the tranquility of the books, away from the main Hogsmeade strip and its mostly-movie-inspired merchandise and costumes.  This is one house of God that welcomes Harry and its message, and it alone was worth the trip.

bathildaEven better, they were thoughtful enough to provide dear old Bathilda with a final resting place, which must have been a fairly messy undertaking after Nagini co-opted her decaying corpse for some rather nasty cosplay.  RIP, indeed, Madame Bagshot, and many thanks to the congregation of St. John’s.

Filed Under: Louise Freeman, Potter Fandom, Uncategorized

Shared Text: Donald Trump called Voldemort?

February 2, 2016 by 4 Comments

AngryTrumpThe Muggle World Daily Prophets are today abuzz over the supposed latest step in the Megyn Kelly/Donald Trump duel, where Ms. Kelly allegedly compared the Presidential candidate to the Dark Lord Himself, Voldemort.  However, the headlines seem to me to be a bit misleading, and the writer of this article seems to have missed the point when she concluded, “so the revelation that she referred to him as such an evil character will probably only worsen their feud.”

Voldemort_angryThe actual quote was from Iowa Caucus winner Ted Cruz, who said to Ms. Kelly, “Well, you know, you were joking just before we went on air that it was sort of like Voldemort, He Who Must Not Be Named.”  In that context, it seems that what Ms. Kelly was noting was not Trump’s villainy, but the reluctance of the other candidates to mention him in the last debate. In which case, her remark would have been not so much a dig at Trump, but a jab at the rest of the candidates for their timidity in the face of Trump’s bluster.

Donald-Trump-1I guess it depends on how much of a Potterphile Ms. Kelly is.  And I’ll leave it to John to remark on what it means for a staunch Evangelical candidate to acknowledge familiarity with Harry Potter; I suspect there was a time when that would not have happened.

gilde smileBut anyway, I think the Donald’s trademark coiffure is too much a part of his image for him  to be a truly convincing Voldemort.  Perhaps more of a Gilderoy Lockhart, with his own line of hair care products.

Hat tip to John!

Filed Under: Potter Fandom, Shared Text

But Wait, There’s More! J.K. Rowling Releases New Harry Potter Story about Quidditch via PotterMore

March 17, 2014 by 2 Comments

It’s funny how some authors only want to distance themselves from their most popular creations, while others keep right on keeping on as long as there is one devoted fan still breathing. J. K. Rowling is apparently steering a middle course; she is at once writing novels for a very adult audience (I have decided The Casual Vacancy should be subtitled “How to be Really Preachy While Using all the Naughty Swears You Held Back While Fighting with Your Publishers”) and still tinkering with her Wizarding World through the new Fantastic Beasts film and her work with Pottermore. Her newest contribution is a piece on the history of the Quidditch World Cup. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Elizabeth Baird Hardy, Potter Fandom Tagged With: ,

Well worth the Repeat Business: Dr. James Thomas’s Return Foray to Rowling’s Wizarding World

February 4, 2014 by Leave a Comment

In his classic An Experiment in Criticism, C.S. Lewis posited that one of the criteria by which a book might be judged “good” was its ability to hold up and produce new insights under multiple readings. For example, the mystery novel that is never touched again once one knows “whodunnit” is not good literature, while the “old friend” one reads again and again (as Lewis did Jane Austen’s novels, apparently annually) are worthy of attention, regardless of their status as “literature” by other tests. Pepperdine University professor and HogPro pal James Thomas has proven again that the Hogwarts adventures, along with their three ancillary texts, count as “good literature” by this standard, with Rowling Revisited: Return Trips to Harry, Fantastic Beasts, Quidditch, and Beedle the Bard (Zossima, 2010). If you haven’t taken a ramble with this delightful volume, you should, and if you have already, then perhaps a repeat trip to this book is in order before Hollywood destroys, um, I mean, adapts, one of the books covered!
[Read more…]

Filed Under: C. S. Lewis, Potter Fandom, Zossima Press Tagged With: , ,