by Travis

I pulled onto the University of Ottawa campus today, and just happened to pull in behind a thoroughly bewildered John Granger, who had spent the last hour trying to get from the wrong campus to the right one.  He made up for this blunder, however, by giving an excellent keynote presentation on “The Five Keys” - which talk’s excellence is increased by the fact that he’d been on the road since 4am, after having gone to sleep at 2am.  You’re definitely going to want to get a copy of The Deathly Hallows Lectures when it’s published.  The revised version of Unlocking Harry Potter will also be a must-read, but The Deathly Hallows Lectures will go into depth on the final novel in a way for which UHP will not have the space.  

It’s a very small gathering - only 25 or so.  Hopefully, there will be some folks coming for day passes tomorrow.  If you’re in the area, do come; you’re missing out on some good stuff!  Aside from John’s talk, today:

• Nicole Bontoft opened up a discussion on the “Harry Potter Subculture,” something I’ve been trying to do some thinking about for my Adolescent Development and Youth Culture class.  Is Harry Potter fandom a “subculture,” or is it too mainstream for that?  How does the internet affect subculture?  Who’s in control of HP fandom: the markets or the participants?
• Josee Leblanc, from the Leaky staff, gave an excellent presentation on translating HP into other languages.  Really great stuff; you’d be surprised how much goes into the translation process, the difficult decisions that need to be made, and the short time in which translators have to work.
• Harry Potter music videos were shown today and will be shown tomorrow, courtesy of Anneke.

Sadly, I arrived too late to hear the first three presentations of the day: Anneke, Lynn Eddy, and logospilgrim.  Tomorrow, I give the keynote luncheon address (”Of Fountains, Fabians, and Freedoms: Dumbledore as Fabius Maximus and Libertarian Headmaster”), John will give the keynote dinner address (”Snape’s Green-Eyed Girl”), there will be two talks by Yolanda Carroll, one by Anneke, and one by Adam Waldie.

More brief comments throughout the evening on The Hog’s Head Twitter Page.