Potter at University

Harry Potter classes are popping up at colleges everywhere. I already mentioned the one at Augustana where I’ll be speaking in March. Dr. Danielle Tumminio continues to teach a Potter class at Yale. I spoke last year at Dr. Joel Garver’s philosophy class on Potter at LaSalle. Dr. Amy H. Sturgis is currently teaching Potter at Belmont. Of course, Dr. James W. Thomas teaches Potter at Pepperdine.

And I just read a news article on what I’m sure is a fascinating class for freshmen at Wesleyan University in Connecticut: a “Myth, Magic, and Movies” course, taught by Dr. Robert Steele (a Harvard PhD), and focusing primarily on Potter.

The course, which explores the power of myth to reveal the intricacies of the human psyche, focuses on the seven “Harry Potter” books because, according to Steele, author J.K. Rowling handily combines all the factors of mythology into a coherent story for people of all ages.

“She takes elements from classical mythology, from eastern mythology and from alchemy, and she weaves them all together,” he said. “But she doesn’t belabor it; she doesn’t make it boring stories. She actually just incorporates it into the story that she’s telling. She writes prose and narrative that’s utterly contemporary but has all these resonances that go back 5,000 years. Not a lot of people do that really well.”

Potter’s presence in academia is growing, as I predicted it would during a panel discussion at Portus (and, indeed, as many others have rightly predicted as well). It’s one of the reasons I’ve recently changed this site’s tagline to “Smart Talk on Harry Potter.”

What interests me in particular about this course is its combination of psychological and cultural analysis, because I do some of both in my book, Harry Potter & Imagination: The Way Between Two Worlds. The psychological analysis is found in the mythical exploration of archetypes in Part II, with more overt psychological analysis in the chapter on Voldemort (“Harry’s Shadow: Voldemort at Sociopath and Sinner”). The entirety of Part III is cultural analysis: Rowling’s and the Wizarding World’s politics, race issues, gender issues, and governmental abuse of power.

Harry Potter & Imagination also contains a defense of the exploration of the human psyche through Myth. Part I is rooted in the thesis that great fairy stories accomplish what Tolkien called “the imaginative satisfaction of ancient desires” (“On Fairy Stories”), and that Harry Potter accomplishes this through two primary themes: fear of death, and self-sacrificial love.

In other words (if you’ll allow me just one more pat on my own back): I’m pleased to see that the themes I’ve explored in my book are finding the same ones being examined in college classrooms!

By the way, George has written the book’s fifth 5-star review at Amazon.com. Thanks, George!