I received word from the organizers of Searching for Platform 9 & 3/4, the Harry Potter Conference taking place at Northern Illinois University October 31 – November 1, that I’ll be presenting the following papers:
- The Postmodern Potions Master: Harry Potter as J.K. Rowling’s Political Fairy Tale
- Quills, Queries, and Quests: Literacy and Learning in the Wizarding World
I’ll also be hosting a podcast at the event/group discussion on a topic from the Harry Potter world.
Register for Searching for Platform 9 & 3/4! I hope to see you there!
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Travis, you chose a very relevant topic for the Platform 9 3/4 conference at NIU.
Now that we are in the showdown stage of this Muggleworld Presidential political season the first topic, “HP as JKR’s Political Fairy Tale”, will give a nice touch to the many political undertones in the Harry Potter universe.
I’m really looking forward to sitting in on that session at NIU. Should be some super dialog looking into the corruption and flaws we have seen come from the Ministry of Magic and how it relates in some ways to the political system in JKR’s homeland as well as our own.
Fascinating stuff.
These papers sound terrific!
By the way, re: the phenomenon of cons and history of fandom, it’s worth noting that Joan Winston passed away on September 11.