Posts tagged as:

theology

Take out your wands, students, class is starting!

by Danielle Tumminio on August 20, 2009

Hog's Head ConversationsGreetings Harry Potter enthusiasts! Whether you used the Knight Bus, floo powder, or, um, your keyboard, I’m so glad that you found your way to my guest blogging at the Hog’s Head. I’m going to be hanging with you all for a few weeks, and I’m looking forward to chatting about one of my favorite topics: the relationship between Christianity and the Harry Potter books. But before we get to that, I thought I’d start by telling you a little bit about myself.

For the past two years, I’ve been teaching a seminar at Yale University on Christian theology and Harry Potter. It’s a full semester course that provides an introduction to key topics in Christianity and asks students to analyze how those ideas are present (or not) in the series. The class has been a huge hit on campus—over 70 students have signed up each term, even though the class is capped at 18, and going through their applications is both a challenge and great fun. I’m pretty sure no other instructor on campus gets to hear about how their potential students founded Quidditch Clubs in their high schools or read Prisoner of Azkaban over and over on rainy days in elementary school. I feel like the luckiest teacher in the world because of that: I know my students are passionate about the class, and that makes me passionate too. [click to continue…]

  • Share/Bookmark

{ 39 comments }

Theology Needs Literature

by Travis Prinzi on September 22, 2005

Challies has jumped onto the “Harry Potter is influencing people become witches” bandwagon, and The Fat Triplets have started a discussion about it. Challies hinted at a future post on the subject that would make a lot of people angry. It’ll be interesting to hear him tease out what he meant by his statement, since it is really just one kinda obscure statement in the post.

I have no idea whether or not my following comments apply to Challies himself, because like I said, we’ve only heard the one unexplained statement from the post in question. But here are a few thoughts about theologians who oppose Harry.

[click to continue…]

  • Share/Bookmark

{ 2 comments }

Magic for Muggles

by Travis Prinzi on September 21, 2005

“Ingenious, really, how many ways Muggles have found of getting along without magic.”

So declares the wizard Arthur Weasley as Harry Potter explains to him the use of a telephone in Chamber of Secrets. Indeed, Mr. Weasley. Ingenious. But somehow, I fear, troublesome as well.

I recall very well the days when I was adamantly opposed to the Harry Potter series. The reason I primarily cited above all else was that in every interview I heard with little children, they always said their favorite part of the book was the magic. That was dangerous, in my opinion.

Now, truth be told, I had only seen one 30 second news segment, in which the 4 or 5 kids interviewed said that magic was their favorite part. But telling that part of the story wouldn’t help my rhetoric any. “Every interview I’ve ever heard with children” was a much more impressive thing to say.

It turns out that even if it is true that every child adores the magic in the Harry Potter books (and they do), my argument failed terribly anyway, as I would soon find out when I finally sat down and watched the first two movies and then plowed through the five Potter books available at the time. Now, I’ve got a new take on things: The problem is not that kids love magic; it’s that adults do not.

[click to continue…]

  • Share/Bookmark

{ 0 comments }