Reading, Writing, Rowling

Explore the whimsical, fantastical, compelling images in Jim Kay’s illustrated Harry Potter editions. On this episode, Katy and Emily talk with artist and fantasy scholar Emily Austin (Signum University) and literary scholar Beatrice Groves (Trinity College, Oxford) about the rich, marvelous world depicted in Jim Kay’s gorgeous illustrations of the Potterverse. Looking at Books 1–4, we dissect Kay’s style and the range of his artistry and also decode some of the symbolic language in his visual storytelling. Emily Austin and Bea help us understand Kay’s artistic process and how we can see that coming through the books’ images. We talk about how art and design comingle in the “visual feast” provided by these editions and how much of his own sensibility Kay includes in his depictions. You’ll hear about our favorite images - the ones that amuse us and the ones that move us. Bea and Emily share their thoughts on Kay’s artistic influences and visual references. He uses a lot of nature imagery and symbols from the

Discover how politics can be both Dark Arts and the defense against them in Harry Potter. Katy and Emily talk to Dr. John S. Nelson, Professor of Political Theory and Communication at the University of Iowa and author of Defenses Against the Dark Arts: The Political Education of Harry Potter and His Friends, published by Lexington Books in 2021, about the politics of the series. John feels that the Harry Potter books “hit you over the head” with the interest in politics exhibited by Harry and his friends, even if it doesn’t seem quite as obvious until the later installments. He revels in the “glory” of political styles available in Potter, which perhaps offers even more options than the real world. Politics exist not only in the Ministry of Magic and other explicitly political environments but in how we interact with people on a daily basis. The politics of Potter serves as a helpful teaching tool by providing examples that a large number of students will understand. The political applications of the series

Discover the transfiguring effects of reading the Harry Potter series on this month’s episode. Emily and Katy talk with Dr. Anne Mamary (Monmouth College) about her anthology The Alchemical Harry Potter: Essays on Transfiguration in J.K. Rowling’s Novels (McFarland 2021). We talk about the power of the Potter books and films, and how they not only express alchemical themes but also work a kind of alchemical magic on readers and viewers. Anne explains that alchemy is a way to transform not only metals but also the alchemist and our entire worldview. Although we could look at nature from a modernist perspective, requiring the neutrality of the experimenter and presuming a mechanical model of the universe, alchemy requires being open to the enchantment within nature and our deep connection to it. Not all historical alchemists were Christian, but often a notion of religious or metaphysical transformation emerges through alchemical explorations of nature. Anne explains that alchemy posits that the heavenly exist

Wrock out on this episode about musical fan creations in the Potterverse. We are all about fan culture in this month’s episode. Emily and Katy talk with Paul Thomas (University of Kansas) about his book I Wanna Wrock!: The World of Harry Potter-Inspired “Wizard Rock” and Its Fandom (McFarland 2019). Paul is himself a wrock musician in the band the 8th Horcrux. He first got involved in wrock as a way to impress his crush, who is now his wife and fellow bandmember, Trina. As a result, he’s a participant observer in the wrock phenomenon, fully qualified to discuss how, why, and where musically-minded fans have expressed their ideas and feelings about Harry Potter. He talks to us about the challenges of taking both insider and outsider perspectives and also the joys of being a wrocker. Paul helps us understand the history of wrock, the songs at the foundation of the movement, and its many musical and literary influences. You will want to check out some of this early wrock music, including songs by Switchbla

Eavesdrop on the Potterversity faculty in the staff lounge as we dish about Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore! NOTE: This episode contains spoilers! On this special episode, hear uncensored opinions and on-the-spot analysis about The Secrets of Dumbledore from some of our Potterversity regulars, Beatrice Groves, Emma Nicholson, Louise Freeman, and Lana Whited. We’ve pulled together outtakes from our technically off-the-record conversations for your listening pleasure. Some topics include: Romance and relationships in the films Whether there will be another Fantastic Beasts movie How this one compares with the other films Albus’s disappointingly reserved fashion choices Mads Mikkelsen’s Grindelwald compared to Johnny Depp’s What happened with Tina Queenie’s motivations Cruel and unusual punishments in the wizarding world Where young Tom Riddle fits in the timeline Whether Gellert still loves Albus Funniest moments Critiques and lingering questions Our new understanding of Dumbledore’s machi

Join us for our deep dive into Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore and its literary allusions, beastly lore, and continuation of the plot points in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. NOTE: This episode contains spoilers! Dr. Beatrice Groves (Trinity College, Oxford) joins Katy and Emily to decode the symbolic elements of this story and help us understand where it fits within the Harry Potter series. Find out about Bea’s prediction-come-true and hear about how the central beasts in the film reference medieval mythological creatures featured in various bestiaries that Bea has kindly read for us so she can share her knowledge. From the Qilin to the Obscurus, Bea explains the importance of making beasts central to Grindelwald’s plan, which unites the Dumbledore plot with Newt Scamander’s. Grindelwald uses beasts for his own ends instead of appreciating them as they are, as Newt does, and this provides us key insights about his character – and echoes similar problematic aspects of Voldemort’s chara

David Martin, one of the winners of Harry Potter: Hogwarts Tournament of Houses, talks about his amazing experience on the show. On this episode, Katy and Emily talk with our friend David Martin about being on the victorious Hufflepuff team on the Tournament of Houses quiz show, which aired on TBS November to December 2021. He tells us how the auditions went, what it was like to be on the show, which questions most stumped him, what it’s like to have become a social media star, and why he is a lifelong Hufflepuff. Be warned: There are spoilers! David also shares with us some of his scholarly analysis on why the wizarding world seems stuck back in time, the cultural significance of Mr. Weasley's love of plugs, wizard dating tips, and the significance of particular trees in the Harry Potter series. Whether you're a Harry Potter trivia whiz or not, you will love the good humor, sharp insights, and behind-the-scenes dishing of this episode. In our special segment, David sticks around to talk with us about

Understand the ties that bind – blood and otherwise – in Arthurian legend and the wizarding world in this episode. Emily and Katy discuss with Dr. Carol Jamison (Georgia Southern University) the links between Arthurian literature and Harry Potter through the concepts of blood lines, noble (or “pure”) blood, and blood feud. Author of Chivalry in Westeros(McFarland, 2018), Carol examines medievalism in popular culture, not only in the Potterverse but also Game of Thrones. She explains both medievalism and neo-medievalism in pop culture and how the Harry Potter stories play with Arthurian themes that fit these categories. We learn about how views of chivalry and heroism connect the characters and themes of the two literary sources, including the values of generosity, loyalty, and sacrifice, along with the notion of noble-bearing or birthright that distinguishes heroes in both. But the two series actually test the assumption that heroism comes automatically from bloodline, pointing out that virtue does not, in

Take a closer look at the Harry Potter fandom in this month's episode! What aspects of the fandom are your favorites: festivals, online communities, cosplay, fan fiction, or something else? On this episode, Emily and Katy talk with Dr. Marianne Martens (Kent State University), author of The Forever Fandom of Harry Potter (Cambridge University Press), about what makes Harry Potter fan communities unique and persistent. The first Harry Potter book was published at about the same time that online communication and social media became more popular. Marianne explains how digital platforms have helped researchers understand what appeals to readers in addition to facilitating readers connecting with each other online, circulating theories and creative reflections on the series. The Potter fandom has a strong participatory aspect, especially among young people, and significantly higher engagement than many other fan communities built around young adult novels. A lot of Harry Potter fan participation happens o

We at Potterversity love house-elves! Join us for our valentine to Dobby, Winky, Kreacher, and Hokey and their persistent relevance for understanding injustice. House-elf fans Emily and Katy talk with Dr. Christine Schott (Erskine College) about how the house-elves keep Harry Potter relevant to social issues today. Given the upheaval this new generation of readers sees in our world, Christine tells us, the Harry Potter stories give us a "training ground" for figuring out how to respond to those problems and complexities. The unsatisfying, unresolved issue of house-elf enslavement leads us to continue thinking about this wizarding world oppression in ways that help us consider persistent injustices in our world. The house-elves can be related to all kinds of oppressed peoples, including those bound in chattel slavery, house-wives (as Katy has argued), immigrant communities, and even artificial intelligence (as Emily has explored). Yet the house-elves' ambivalent portrayal in the Harry Potter series as "ha

Looking to recover lost love? Discover the connections between the Harry Potter stories and The Christmas Pig.  Designed for younger readers, The Christmas Pig features a young boy going on a perilous quest to thwart a materialist villain, The Loser, and reclaim his lost, beloved best friend, Dur Pig (DP). In this first episode of the new year, Emily and Katy explore the similarities between The Christmas Pig and the Harry Potter novels. Common motifs include the value of courage and loyalty, the challenge in dealing with bullies and tyrants, anti-modernism and anti-materialism, the heroism of the small and marginalized, coping with death and our own mortality, and the transformative power of love.  Emily highlights the Christian themes appearing in both, particularly the magic of the Christmas season, comparing Hogwarts Christmases with the miraculous possibilities of Christmas Eve in traditional lore. She also explains the religious significance of some of the names in the story. Katy points out how, in

Tune in for the latest Potter Studies insights from the tenth annual Harry Potter Academic Conference! In this special episode, Emily and Katy have an in-person roundtable with Laurie Beckoff, Kat Miller (Alohomora!), and Kat Sas about some of the exciting ideas and controversial issues raised over the course of October's Harry Potter Academic Conference (HPAC) at Chestnut Hill College. Fresh from the conference, we talk about media and social media "mirrors" in the wizarding world, Hogwarts as a setting of "dark academia," the Harry-Horcrux dilemma, Potter activism, and the eternal debate about Ron Weasley: hopeless or hero? Along the way, we contemplate the ever-relevant lessons of the Potterverse for us in the Muggle world, changes in the Potter fandom, public performance and reputation in the series, thing theory, and racism and oppression in the wizarding world. Who are the wizarding world media influencers? How does the Harry Potter series fit in with other macabre campus mysteries? Is Harry really

Get a little "meta" in this episode about Harry Potter fandom and pop culture podcasting!  Emily and Katy talk with film and fandom scholar - and fellow podcaster - Michael Boyce, Professor of English Literature and Film Studies at Booth University College and host of the Geek 4 podcast. We investigate how the Harry Potter films have affected our fandom and explore podcasting about popular culture from within the "ivory tower" of academia. Were you first attracted to the Harry Potter world through the films or the books? Michael explains how he came to be a Potter fan and his early experiences of the fandom. We discuss how the actors' interpretations in the film (ahem, Michael Gambon) change the way we understand the characters and how directorial cuts affect our memories of the narrative. Have these interpretations become canon or do the films exist in a kind of alternate universe? Different directors have also created distinct interpretations and even tones for the various books, and we consider how th

Investigate bullying at Hogwarts on this month’s episode. In this episode, Emily and Katy talk with Ithaca College’s Katharine Kittredge and Carolyn Rennie about the history of bullying and how it relates to the social and educational environment at Hogwarts. We talk about what makes a bully and how that conception has perhaps changed over time in the western world. Katharine explains how eighteenth-century writers tended to think of bullying as natural to children and inevitable in the school setting, especially where differences of privilege existed. The nineteenth century revised that view to consider bullying as a deviant behavior or the result of a problem in the bully’s psychology, which is more like our view today. Carolyn discusses the modern and feminine forms of bullying, especially facilitated by social media, and the volatile context in which kids can be both bullied and bullies depending on the situation at any given moment. The Harry Potter stories’ relationship to Tom Brown’s School Days 

Decode magical numbers on this month's episode! Katy and Emily talk with Dr. Lana Whited (Ferrum College) about one of the more mysterious of the magical subjects at Hogwarts: Arithmancy. We discuss where this subject fits in the Hogwarts core curriculum, its historical and etymological roots, and its meaning within the Harry Potter series. And, for that matter, how do you even pronounce it? Arithmancy is a type of divination using numbers used to predict events in the ancient world. Lana walks us through how to do these calculations and how to understand the numbers that result. Pointing out that we quite commonly assign significance to numbers (hello, lucky episode #13!), Lana explains the significance of important numbers in the Harry Potter books, like 3, 4, and 7. Much numerical significance comes from people’s observations of the heavenly bodies, and the number 7 specifically represented the divine across historical eras. Why does Hermione loathe Divination but not Arithmancy? We also talk about math

Harry’s explorations of loss, grief, and the nature of death borrow heavily from classical visions of the underworld, especially Virgil's Aeneid. In this episode, Katy and Emily talk to Dr. Vassiliki (Lily) Panoussi, Chancellor Professor of Classical Studies at William and Mary, about references in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to Virgil's Aeneid. Lily tells us about this ancient Roman origin story, which also references classical Greek texts like The Iliad and The Odyssey. It explores themes like heroism, sacrifice, community, friendship, and grief. Virgil's story about Aeneas's journey was immediately influential in the Roman Empire and remained so throughout western literary history. Lily explains that J.K. Rowling seems to consciously draw on the epic structure and themes of this classical story, particularly to serve a similar purpose as "a foundational epic that will have impact on the real world." Like Aeneas, Harry is supposed to usher in a new global era. Lily teaches us about katabasis, or

On this episode, we're reading Harry Potter through trauma theory, Fat Studies, and semiotics - and from the perspective of a nonbinary trans scholar of young adult literature. What does it meant to be a Potter scholar? Get a glimpse of one academic's research into a variety of topics in the Harry Potter books. In this episode, Emily and Katy talk with Tolonda Henderson, former librarian and current scholar of the intersections of disability, race, and adolescence in young adult literature, about their research into the seven-book series. Tolonda shares how they became interested in Potter scholarship, wondering "Why is Madame Pince so useless?" and then moving to a wide array of Potterian topics. "What the text says matters," Tolonda explains, and so looking closely at the language and symbols used in the books has become an essential part of their study of Harry Potter and other young adult literature. Tolonda decodes for us the symbolic and textual memorialization of Harry's family in Godric's Hollow

Universes collide as we imagine the story of the founding of Hogwarts in the form of a Shakespeare play. In this episode, we're joined by Ian Doescher, author of William Shakespeare's Star Wars as well as Shakespearean retellings other of modern tales. He tells us about how he first embarked on this project and what made Star Wars a natural fit for Shakespeare. Ian is particularly struck by how Shakespeare mines human emotion and provides insight into characters' motives and feelings with soliloquies - something we don't get during emotional but silent scenes on film, such as Luke Skywalker watching the binary sunset on Tatooine. We love Star Wars and Shakespeare here at Potterversity, but what does this have to do with Harry Potter? It comes down to an intriguing line in the FAQ section of Ian's website, which explains that he had an idea for the story of the Hogwarts founders as told by Shakespeare, which unfortunately did not receive permission to go forward from the powers that be. We talk about why

Explore the many dark connections between Harry Potter and Dracula, two stories of love, death, and the conquest of evil. In this episode, Katy and Emily talk with Dr. Beatrice Groves (Literary Allusions in Harry Potter, Bathilda’s Notebook) about the many parallels between Bram Stoker’s Dracula and the Harry Potter series.  Hogwarts evokes Count Dracula’s castle, and J.K. Rowling and Stoker evoke similar impressions of eastern Europe as a place where dark magic dwells. Despite the scarcity of actual vampires in Harry Potter, Rowling evokes vampiric imagery with both Voldemort and Snape. Rowling even drew early images of Snape where he looks like the Count. Does Quirrell have a parallel in Dracula? Harry parallels Dracula’s heroine, Mina Harker, especially in having a traumatic experience with the villain that creates a continuing psychic connection.  Ideas about blood and the transfer of blood exist in both works, creating similar questions about purity and power. Dracula also has objects that keep him

'Our Puffs-palooza continues as we talk with some of the talented people behind the play Puffs.  We continue our conversation about the wonderful fan re-vision of the Harry Potter series, the off-Broadway play Puffs. Emily and Katy discuss with Matt Cox (Puffs creator) and Stephen Stout (Puffs actor and producer) the creative process behind the making of the play. Note: This episode contains spoilers of the play.  Matt and Stephen explain how they became fans of Harry Potter, and then fan-creators. Matt tells us how he came up with the idea for the play, and Stephen how he became a “fandom anthropologist,” especially by visiting Universal Studios’ Wizarding World theme park in preparation for working on the play, convincing him they had to be “responsible in their fooling” because of how much the series means to fans. Interested in the nostalgic expression of pop culture, Matt embraced the tragic and comic aspects of the Harry Potter series, and the way the Puffs' perspective magnifies those elements. He