Updated to include keynote address by Dr. Timothy Snyder!!
One of the advantages of the Harry Potter Academic Conference at Chestnut Hill College going online this year is that people from further away could attend, and that several presenters who pre-recorded their talks are sharing them through Youtube, personal websites or other venues.
I am including the link to my humor talk here (‘Beyond Zonko’s: Psychological Explanations of Humor in the Wizarding World’). In addition, I have listed several others below the jump and will continue to add more as I become aware of them.
All opinions expressed in the several talks described and linked to below are those of the individual presenters and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of any of the HogwartsProfessor faculty members.
‘Male Homosocial Friendships from Page to Screen’ — Lauren Camacci’s analysis of Harry and Ron’s display of affection after the destruction of the Locket Horcrux.
‘Eucharistic Themes in the Potter Saga’ — Emily Strand’s look at Eucharistic themes.
Barbara Purdom has both of her contributions, on Guy Fawkes (‘Guy Fawkes and the Order of the Gunpowder Plot’) and Little Red Riding Hood (‘Babel, Pentecost, and Blasphemy’) posted on her Quantum Harry Youtube Channel.
10/27/ 20 Update: Here’s an addition you don’t want to miss: the outstanding keynote from Dr. Timothy Snyder, The Deathly Hallows: How Literature Helps Us to See Evil in Politics. Dr. Snyder is the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University and a fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. He is the author of many books, including On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century.
I had a lot of great ideas listening to these presentations and found the conference generally a great break from the monopoly imposed on us in recent months by the pandemic and the political situation.