Hogwarts Professor

December’s edition of Touchstone magazine features ‘Book Binders,’ by John Granger, a prolonged discussion of Harry Potter as Generation Hex’ Shared Text, a subject familiar to regular readers of HogwartsProfessor. If you enjoyed the article online, please drop the editors a note, or, better, subscribe. Touchstone is the only magazine I read cover to cover every month and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

For those of you visiting HogwartsProfessor.com for the first time after reading this article at Touchstone online or from the hard-copy magazine, welcome! Please join the conversation on any thread below that strikes your interest, raises your ire, or leaves you scratching your head.

For starters, try the longish notes on the Deathly Hallows epigraphs, Penn and Aeschylus, listen to some audio files and podcasts, or just scroll down the page to discover how Rowling speaks through Dumbledore in Beedle the Bard to make a case for Gay Marriage and patristic psychology (really) and why some serious readers don’t care about anything she writes beyond the seven canonical books. I look forward to reading your comments, questions, and corrections, and to our exchanges in the days to come.

Again, welcome! Thank you in advance for signing in and introducing yourself to the regulars and me.

This morning in Thinking Matters, an “online publication written for lay Christians in New Zealand,” ‘Stuart’ wrote a five point explanation of why Harry Potter is edifying reading titled ‘Muggle Matters – is Harry Potter a Doorway to the Occult?‘ I think articles like this, which despite their understandably poor grasp of Potter/Rowling trivia (what church she is in, when she said she wouldn’t discuss her faith, etc.), are very encouraging signs. Stuart thinks and, more importantly, writes, in a mainstream, mainline evangelical journal, that Harry Potter is more than “not dangerous” or “okay if handled judiciously” but excellent reading.

Perhaps it is time, then, to say “Mission Accomplished” in the battle to rescue Harry from the Harry Haters in culture war ghettos. Or, better, to acknowledge that we have already moved on to win high ground in the battle with Harry Hallowers, on the one hand, who see the Hogwarts adventures as disguised evangelical tracts rather than edifying reading, and, on the other hand, the academic Hairy Hearted who would dissect Harry as cultural artifact and deconstruct him into meaninglessness. [Read more…]

No, I’m not selling anything. I received my first e-vertisment, though, to buy some Harry Potter themed Christmas gifts which got me thinking. It’s two weeks until St. Nicholas Day on the Church Calendar and, yikes, tomorrow for you Gregorians out there. Did anyone see any great Harry gifts (other than ‘Hairy Heart’) during your Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping? Please share the “where” and “how much” for your finds.

My eight year old son’s favorite plate is the Harry Potter momento I bought for him at Nimbus 2003. My daughter at VMI refuses to relinquish the Whirlwood Wand she received at the same time (though she isn’t even allowed to bring unregistered weapons into her barracks room so it sits on a shelf at home). We also have a Sorting Hat, and, as you’d expect, quite a few books about Harry. What accessories do you own? Do you feel like an idiot when you buy “licensed products”? Outside of the wand (which a friend makes) and the books (which are life-essential), I sure do.

But my son might stop eating if his Potter plate disappeared; I certainly remember the Dennis the Menace, Huckleberry Hound, and Fred Flintstone headed spoons I used as a boy and how attached I was to them. Is there a tie-in between these real world objects and our experience of story? How does owning a piece of Potter paraphernalia compare, say, with watching a Potter movie? With reading Beedle? Is positive association and reinforcement part of imaginative experience and integration?

Joanne Rowling’s new book, Tales of Beedle the Bard (BTB), argues via satire that homosexuals should be allowed to marry and that those who deny them this right are politically dangerous, even evil.

I have very little time this morning so this will be a hurried explanation of the satirical allegory implicit to Dumbledore’s commentary on the tale, ‘Fountain of Fair Fortune’ and of the upside and downside of this argument in story, with a rushed review of how Harry Haters, Harry Hallowers, LeakyMug Fandom, and HogPro AllPros will almost certainly react to this news. Forgive me the haste and typos, please.

(For the best discussion of the five Beedle Tales, as mentioned yesterday, go to The Hog’s Head where there are threads dedicated to each story!)

First, the satire: [Read more…]