Potterversity released the second half of the Chestnut Hill Academic Conference recap today. It was definitely a Gilderoy moment for me, as my Strike talk on xenomelia got a lot of great feedback.  There was also some interesting discussion on the lack of scholarly interest in Rowlings other works.

Interestingly, the xenomelia talk would never have happened if my now-retired colleague in philosophy had not invited me to give a guest talk in his Mary Baldwin honors colloquium on the self. The richness and expansiveness of the liberal arts and sciences should never bee underestimated.

Check it out here.

J. K. Rowling has revealed the title of Book 7 and it isn’t one that was on our radar! @CormStrikeFan who administers the Strike Fans website and has had remarkable success in gleaning new details via the medium of coaxing new Twitter Headers asked for a clue, and Rowling responded with “Disentangle the hanging venturer”.

Our friends at The Strike and Ellacott Files podcast provided the solution with The Running Grave! A quick search of the phrase “Running Grave” reveals the somewhat obscure Dylan Thomas poem When Like a Running Grave.

When, Like a Running Grave
When, like a running grave, time tracks you down,
Your calm and cuddled is a scythe of hairs,
Love in her gear is slowly through the house,
Up naked stairs, a turtle in a hearse,
Hauled to the dome,

Comes, like a scissors stalking, tailor age,
Deliver me who, timid in my tribe,
Of love am barer than Cadaver’s trap
Robbed of the foxy tongue, his footed tape
Of the bone inch,

Deliver me, my masters, head and heart,
Heart of Cadaver’s candle waxes thin,
When blood, spade—handed, and the logic time
Drive children up like bruises to the thumb,
From maid and head,

For, sunday faced, with dusters in my glove,
Chaste and the chaser, man with the cockshut eye,
I, that time’sjacket or the coat of ice
May fail to fasten with virgin o
In the straight grave,

Stride through Cadaver’s country in my force,
My pickbrain masters morsing on the stone
Despair of blood, faith in the maiden’s slime,
Halt among eunuchs, and the nitric stain
On fork and face.

Time is a foolish fancy, time and fool.
No, no, you lover skull, descending hammer
Descends, my masters, on the entered honour.
You hero skull, Cadaver in the hanger
Tells the stick, ‘fail’.

Joy is no knocking nation, sir and madam,
The cancer’s fusion, or the summer feather
Lit on the cuddled tree, the cross of fever,
Nor city tar and subway bored to foster
man through macadam.

I damp the waxlights in your tower dome.
Joy is the knock of dust, Cadaver’s shoot
Of bud of Adam through his boxy shift,
Love’s twilit nation and the skull of state,
Sir, is your doom.

Everything ends, the tower ending and,
(Have with the house of wind), the leaning scene,
Ball of the foot depending from the sun,
(Give, summer, over), the cemented skin,
The actions’ end.

All, men my madmen, the unwholesome sind
With whistler’s cough contages, time on track
Shapes in a cinder death; love his trick,
Happy Cadaver’s hunger as you take
The kissproof world.

I was part of the scholarly panel recapping the annual Chestnut Hill Harry Potter Academic Conference on the most recent Potterversity podcast.  Tune in to see coverage of characters from Dumbledore to Snape to Peeves to Reg Cattermole, and keep your ears open for comments about Hogpro regulars like Bea Groves and David Martin.  There is also a review of the keynote speaker’s advice on dealing with dissension in the fandom of today.

This is part 1 of 2, so more to come.

No sooner than the excitement for J. K. Rowling’s new Twitter header died down, then as a further mark of her esteem for @CormStrikeFan, a new header has been posted!

This time we have a portion of a mandala constructed along the principles of I Ching divination.

I am sadly ignorant of bot the I Ching and Carl Jung, but Jung is said to have taken an interest in the system, so this may be related to Jungian psychology.

Even to the most biased eye, it is obvious that this book represents one long admonition to careful scrutiny of one’s own character, attitude, and motives

Jung quoted in: Smith, Richard J. (2012). The I Ching: A Biography.

Merry Western Christmas! Hat Tip to Wayne for the music.