I received three separate emails tonight informing me that three of my four proposals for presentations were accepted for Prophecy 2007:
- The Fountain Told a Lie: Deconstructing the Wizarding World
- The Meaning of the Phoenix: Love’s Victory Over Death in Harry Potter
- Voldemort: Shadow, Sociopath, Sinner
Prophecy 2007 takes place in Toronto, Canada, August 2-5. It is the first major Harry Potter conference that takes place after the release of Deathly Hallows. (Deathly Hallows will be released right in the middle of Sectus 2007 in London). I will speak three times, each a 50 minute presentation (I think).
Should be a really great and exciting time, especially being just two weeks after the release of Deathly Hallows.
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{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
Congratulations!
Oh the dizzy heights.
Matthew
p.s. I won’t be there
Congratulations!!! (This is my firt post in this site though I regularly vist.)
Congratulations! Ah, I wish I could go.
Congrats!
Brave, brave, Sir Travis. To take on the task of speaking about the phoenix, love, death and Voldemort so soon after the release of the Deathly Hallows.
What if all conjectures are off, what if JKR zigs where we (you!) thought she’d zag? What if she introduces a major new wrinkle (Neville not Harry was the chosen one, Snape is Draco’s father, Harry dies) that you need to incorporate into your presentations?
I can see you in your hotel room, 2 o’clock in the morning, feverishly rewriting.
May the force be with you, young Prinzi.
Thanks to all.
Yes, Reyhan, that is my greatest fear – that with less than two weeks between the release of Deathly Hallows and the conference, I’ll have to entirely rework three 50 minute presentations.
Let’s hope most of my guesswork is accurate!
Notwithstanding Reyhan’s cautionary words, I do not think you need trouble yourself greatly, Travis. You have chosen your topics wisely, I think.
I would say that the probability that Book 7 will portray a wizarding world in which no prejudice exists, in which the resurrection symbolism of the Phoenix has no further meaning, in which love plays no role or in which Voldemort turns out to be a nice chap after all, is zero. You will therefore have plenty to talk about regardless.
IOW I do not think you will be facing the rewrites that Reyhan mentions, though no doubt you will want to incorporate references to – and insights from – the newly released rush of canon. All of which I’m sure you will do with ease and grace and still get a good night’s sleep!
Master S_B is right, of course, Travis. The chances of the general principles which guide the saga of Voldemort’s fall and rise and fall being changed are nonexistent.
I can see two things happening in the Deathly Hallows. JKR will pull a few rabbits out of the hat which will leave us gasping. These will not go against the operating principles, but will be unexpected all the same. But more interestingly, for me anyways, JKR will bring new depth and signficance and feeling to the themes which we are already familiar with: the role of love and death and resurrection in defeating evil.
This will enrich the insights you bring to your presentations, make them fresher and more vivid and more satisfying both for you and your audience.
It’s going to be scary, and exciting, and a tremendous amount of fun.
Well done, mate.
Congratulations, Travis–that’s brilliant. Wish I could be there, but the timing and distance won’t work for me to do it. I hope you’ll later put your papers here so we can all read them.
I’m sure there will have to be some things you re-work, but as seriously_black said, I don’t think you are too far off the mark.
I realized when I took the latest Quiz over at TLC, and answered yes to a lot of questions about what we will see and learn about in book 7, that my hopes are very high to get all those unanswered questions answered–and she probably won’t come close to doing all of it. Which leaves a lot of room for speculation even after the last book.
Pat
Congratulations, that’s great! I hope you’ll use the opportunity, esp. the Phoenix talk, to let people know about the Christian symbolism in the Harry Potter books. I think Harry Potter fans who are not Christian think Christians all hate Harry Potter and I don’t want them to think that!
What was your 4th topic? And, can we read these somewhere, if we won’t be able to go?
No podcast this week? You’re probably still busy with school . . .
Mrs. Lovegood, yes, the talks will be made available in at least text format, and if I can swing it, I might do an audio recording of them with my laptop. Gotta look into that.
I’m going to try to get a podcast done tonight, but it’s been crazy lately. Yes, the schoolwork is crazy, but on top of that, a dear family member will probably pass before the end of the day, which will slow things down to a grinding halt for a week or so here at SoG.
Overall, activity here will slow down for a couple weeks, and then pick up like crazy as soon as my final papers are in (May 4!).
Just adding my congrats. Sadly at the moment, it doesn’t look like Prophecy will be in my travel plans, but I look forward to the reports.
Congratulations Travis. I wish I could go as well. It would be very fun and interesting. I’ll see…
Travis,
Was your question on Restless Reformer regarding racism to help you prepare your The Fountain Told a Lie paper for Prophecy 2007?
Matthew
Matthew, no, it wasn’t. While I’ll be taking up some of those themes in that presentation, that was for an entirely different project I was working on altogether.
waz thiz tread 4?
Be for real, mate.
Read the entry at the top and answer your own question.
Matthew
come hear me speak,>so waz that?