Not surprising to most hogshead patrons, but Travis and John put together excellent presentations although both of them could probably each go for another 2 hours and still kept their audiences captive. I think we’re getting both Travis’s talk and the panel with John, David and Travis as podcasts although if you want to know the contents of Travis’s talk just “buy his book”

John put together an excellent talk mostly about eye symbolism in Deathly Hallows (some of which was in pubcast#60) including why Lily’s green eyes are important and other things which can all be found in his book, “The Deathly Hallows Lectures” which has been featured on this site before.

To start the day, I went to a lecture by Anne Canavan who is finishing an English PhD in the area of Gothic Literature. Her presentation looked at comparisons between Yeats the poet and Harry Potter. It was interesting to see how both him and Rowling used existing Mythology and expanded it in their works along with their works both becoming more political as time progressed. Also, she showed some similarities between the Sorting Hat’s song and Yeats’ poetry. Gina Burkart, who posted earlier in this thread, had a presentation at the same time which dealt with Christian themes of the seven deadly sins and seven heavenly virtues that seemed interesting based on the material she gave me.

Next, I saw a presentation by Vicky McKinley on when someone should read Harry Potter using both objective and subjective metrics. I think she runs the website http://thepensieve.org since her entire presentation is online at that website, but I’m not sure because I walked into the presentation late because I was talking to John and Travis . The lunchtime keynote was given by Karley Adney looking at Masculine and Feminine characteristics of Dumbledore, Snape and Voldemortand how they affected Harry and she did a good job and worked really hard to keep all of the children’s program participants engaged.

Next in the day was Travis, and then the panel I mentioned before. After that I listened to Cathy Colton, the English Chair at the College of Lake County about Heroism and Leadership in Harry Potter and she did a fine job. To end the day, I talked to John Granger and some of the event staff for the next hour before John’s talk to end the conference.

Yes, do buy John’s book. Really great stuff.

I enjoyed your panel discussion at the conference. I am sorry I was such a Hermione. Like Hermione, I always have something to say. I try to be quiet really I do.

I didn’t get to John’s talk–unfortunately. I also had to leave after the panel discussion. So I guess all of the book references were good. I will check out his new book.

It was good to meet you, David, and John.

Gina