Hogwarts Professor

Is Joe Posnanski the Best Sportswriter in America? Almost certainly. The Best Writer in America? My gut says he’s in the running. Which probably means, Joe tells me, that I’m way off base.

Two examples of why I love Joe: On Saying What You Think Is Right Without Evidence (real title: ‘The Toughest Three Outs’).

Maybe the throw-away line that “the last three outs in baseball are the hardest” doesn’t make you flinch. Joe explains not only why this talking head cliche is nonsensical, he leaves a reader wondering how often s/he says things that just ‘sound right’ but have no substance or link to the way things really are. Posnanski seems to be writing about baseball; he’s really jump starting a discussion of epistemology and psychology that is visceral and important.

I write about Joe here today only because of something he wrote recently on the Death of Donna Summers (‘Last Dance’) that, again, is less about the late great (?) pop star than the inside bigger than the outside. He drops a Harry Potter reference in one of his opening paragraphs:

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Yesterday, we reviewed the Press Coverage of the first International Academic Harry Potter conference held last week at St Andrews University in Scotland. Today, the inside story via a 10 Questions exchange with conference organizer and co-director, John Patrick Pazdziora! (Picture of St Andrews Cathedral ruins by Daniel Peckham of Tracing Light)

Ten Questions: 1. Whose idea was it to have an academic conference at St Andrews? What was s/he thinking?

It was my idea, partly. My office mates and I would get into these arguments about Harry Potter–whether the epilogue was good or not–and one of them was reading the series for the first time in the run up to DH2. So then we started wondering what sort of academic work had been done on the series, and found out that there’s really very little looking at the Harry Potter novels strictly as a literary text. Which seemed odd, since they are literary texts. So the idea of a conference came up then–mostly out of curiosity, I think.

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What a delight! For two full days, Potter Pundits and Professors from some of the world’s best universities met at St. Andrews University in Scotland to discuss Joanne Rowling’s Hogwarts Saga as literature, as cultural artifact, and as shared text. The presentations varied from the academically sound and profoundly boring to the academically daring and nigh on inspiring — of the latter, the school actually kept the Daily Mail reporter, Rita Skeeter in a not very convincing disguise, from the room where the Racism papers were being read!

The best of the close to 50 talks are already being prepared for publication, so I won’t spill those beans here, but I can share links to 15 news stories, including some television coverage (see Mr. Pond and myself being interviewed in the Headmaster’s office! Watch ASU Prof Joel Hunter talk about the Chemistry of the Harry Potter Fairy Tale — with Prof James Thomas, Pepperdine Potter Pundit and author of two books on the series, in attendance!), below the jump. Tomorrow — the controversy about whether Harry Potter merits serious discussion and a 10 Question Interview with John Patrick Pazdziora. See you then —

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I am back in Oklahoma City after a beautiful but quite chilly week in St. Andrews, Scotland. I was invited to give a Keynote Presentation to the Brand of Fictional Magic: Reading Harry Potter as Literature conference at Scotland’s oldest university — in its 600th year! — and the people there were so kind that it took three stewards to wedge my swollen head into the Aerobus cabin for the long flight home.

I’ll be writing up stories and thoughts from and consequent to that remarkable meeting of minds for some time, I’m sure, but today I wanted to talk about another conference this summer, one that I’m dreading and cannot wait to attend: HPEF’s Ascendio 2012 at Orlando’s Universal Studios Theme Park with its Wizarding World of Harry Potter, 12-15 July. The reason I don’t want to go and wouldn’t miss it for the world? Why I have realized in a summer of great conferences and fan gatherings this is the one fan gathering in 2012 I know I will always remember and regret — and why I hope very much to see you there?

Because it is HPEF’s last hurrah and that is something for us all here at HogwartsProfessor to celebrate and mourn in almost equal measure.

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