Potterversity: A Potter Studies Podcast

Don't judge a book by its cover - this episode is about how looks can be deceiving in Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts.

We're joined by Eizabeth Baird Hardy (Mayland Community College) to discuss her chapter in The Ivory Tower, Harry Potter, and Beyond, "Muggle Worthy: Deceptive Exteriors and Outsized Interiors in the Wizarding World." There is an implicit lesson in the wizarding world - one understood by magical children but that needs to be learned by newcomers like Harry - not to trust architecture. Staircases move, paintings hide passageways, unassuming pubs contain entrances to bustling magical streets. People, too, are more than they appear, like the enormous but gentle Hagrid.

Some spaces in Potter seem sensitive to emotional or psychological factors, such as the Room of Requirement, which seems to work in a similar way to a boggart in terms of understanding a person. While the former senses what a user needs, the latter senses what they fear. The Room of Requirement does not appear to judge and can be used for noble or nefarious purposes, whether to fight Death Eaters or let them into the castle.

What about portable, extendable spaces? Hermione has her beaded bag and Newt Scamander his suitcase full of creatures, both of which serve as metaphors for the complex personalities under the exteriors that might be overlooked. Spaces like these are also seen in Mary Poppins, Discworld, and The Chronicles of Narnia. Fantasy itself feels like a space where we cross a threshold from the mundane into a world of possibility. 

In the spirit of the spooky season, this episode is all about spirits and specters in the wizarding world.

Emily and Katy, who recently published a new article titled "Harry Potter and Historical Witness: The Pensieve and the Time-Turner," are joined by Louise Freeman, fresh off our two-part episode on memory, and David Martin, member of the winning Hufflepuff team on Harry Potter: Hogwarts Tournament of Houses and author of Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches and Other Thoughts About Harry Potter.

Why does Hogwarts have ghosts? David thinks that ghosts are representations of the past and the influence of the past on the present, so a thousand-year-old castle is bound to be full of history. Louise sees the influence of Gothic novels, in which old castles tend to be haunted.

We debate the dynamics governing ghosts and their interactions with the world around them. Ghosts don't age, but can they evolve emotionally? Peeves is a different kind of spirit altogether as a poltergeist and can interact with objects in a way the Hogwarts ghosts cannot - and thus cause much more chaos. Ghosts are also distinct from the form of Tom Riddle that emerges from the diary, the figures that appear with the use of the Resurrection Stone, and Voldemort's victims conjured by Priori Incantatem.

Most of the ghosts at Hogwarts lived centuries ago. Why did they choose to become ghosts and stay at Hogwarts? In addition to a fear of death, we discuss what unfinished business they had on earth - which could be coming to terms with death. Once ghosts finish their business, can they ever move on?

The journey to the past continues as we delve deeper into the magic of memory in Harry Potter.

In the second part of our conversation with Louise Freeman, we continue discussing the ethics of Memory Charms and move on to the memories stored in wizarding portraits and Horcruxes. Magical portraits can carry some of the memories of their subjects, allowing viewers to converse with them after their deaths. New developments in artificial intelligence purport to offer something similar. How healthy is it to dwell on memories, for wizards or Muggles? Portraits, the Mirror of Erised, and the Resurrection Stone all offer glimpses of lost loved lones, which can be helpful to a certain extent but come with warnings about becoming too attached.

While portraits can be a safe and healthy expression of the transhumanist impulse to live on through an object, the creation of Horcruxes is a dark, dangerous, evil expression of that desire. The Tom Riddle who emerges from the diary refers to himself as a memory, indicating a connection between memory and the soul. The Dementor's Kiss presumably removes memories along with the soul, as Dumbledore says that Barty Crouch, Jr.'s testimony is lost, implying that his memories could not simply be retrieved and placed in a Pensieve.

Memory is such a key part of the series partly because there is such an emphasis on grief. Harry, who was too young when his parents died to remember them, gradually reconstructs memories of them through photographs, stories from those who knew them, the Mirror of Erised, the Pensieve, and the Resurrection Stone. The grieving process, and Harry's journey more broadly, necessitates exploring the past. Is it possible that even his conversation with Dumbledore in King's Cross is entirely constructed from memories?

Explore how memory operates in magical ways in Harry Potter that might be quite unlike the Muggle understanding of memory.

Regular contributor Louise Freeman is professor emerita of psychology at Mary Baldwin University and a licensed behavior analyst and service provider for special needs individuals. She considers the implications of being able to store and share memories in a Pensieve. While the basic premise seems somewhat similar to the psychological process of encoding, storing, and retrieving memories, there is almost an element of time travel, in which the user can access details that the initial viewer surely would not have been able to see or remember. But can such details be trusted, or are they part of the viewer's subjective reconstruction and reinterpretation of the memory? While it is obvious that Slughorn has tampered with his memory of Tom Riddle, it is less clear how accurate Snape's memories of the Marauders are.

Upon his death, Snape manages to show Harry a clear montage of memories explaining everything - had he been preparing all of the necessary information in order to hand it off so neatly? How difficult is it to show memories smoothly? Could Harry's memory of the Dementor attack in Little Whinging have been used as evidence in his hearing, or would Fudge not have allowed or trusted it, particularly if presented by Dumbledore?

What happens when memories are lost to a Memory Charm? Are they fully removed, or just hidden? Victims of such charms seem to have varying degrees of success in recovering their memories. While taking memories can be portrayed as a terrible crime, like what Lockhart intended to do to Harry and Ron, modifying them is often depicted as humorous or necessary, such as when the Ministry of Magic performs Memory Charms on Muggles who have witnessed magic.

Hermione alters her parents' memories without their consent, albeit for a noble purpose, but the full consequences are unknown. If they were to be captured and interrogated by Death Eaters, could their memories be forcibly extracted? There are ethical issues surrounding memory in both the wizarding and Muggle worlds. Stay tuned for Part 2 to hear more from Louise on the complicated nature of memory.

What makes a monster, and how do we relate to them, especially when they produce works of art we love?

There are plenty of monsters in the wizarding world, but the author has also been charged with being monstrous herself following her comments on transgender people. Katy and Emily talk to Lorrie Kim, author of Snape: The Definitive Analysis of Hogwarts's Mysterious Potions Master and host of the podcast Harry Potter After 2020, about Claire Dederer's book Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma, which focuses on how audiences respond to art made by controversial creators.

We debate the idea of "the death of the author" and how possible or desirable it is. Audiences often crave details about an artist's life, which can sometimes provide insight into their work. In the internet age, we have so much information at our fingertips and can develop parasocial relationships in which we feel like we really know an artist personally - and then feel particularly hurt when we learn something about them that contradicts our image of them. This kind of revelation can be all the more difficult with media we consumed as children.

What we know about an author can impact how we read their work, as it affects how Harry reads Tom Riddle's diary and the Half-Blood Prince's potions textbook. How do we engage with Harry Potter knowing what we know about the author, and what guidance does the series itself offer?

Venture to the ancient past to explore Harry Potter and the Aeneid as foundational texts.

Dr. Mitchell Parks (Knox College) joins us to discuss intertextuality and Harry Potter’s dialogue with classical works like Virgil’s Aeneid. In his chapter in The Ivory Tower, Harry Potter, and Beyond, he examines what it means for a text to be “foundational” in various ways – as a work of literature, on a personal level, for identity groups, as a political foundation.

While the Aeneid can tell us about Roman society and later periods from readers’ reactions and literary responses, Harry Potter set the tone for young adult literature at the turn of the 21st century. The diversity of responses to Harry Potter compels us to consider how people besides the elite men whose commentary was preserved might have reacted to the Aeneid, which itself draws on Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad.

Mitchell sees the strongest echoes of the Aeneid in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows because of the darker atmosphere, heroes facing a difficult mission, and a great deal of wandering followed by battle. 

While it can be interesting to think about what sources the author actually read and intentionally referenced, intertextuality can be more of a process by which readers make connections themselves and put the text in dialogue with other texts the author may not have even read. Intertextuality is as much about finding differences as it is finding similarities.

Putting his classics skills to further use, Mitchell also shares his mind-blowing revelation about a nearly illegible Latin epitaph on Ignotus Peverell’s tombstone in The Tales of Beedle the Bard.

Finally, we consider how long the Aeneid has endured and how Potter might fare in the future. How will it evolve in the next 20 years? Could it last 2,000 like the Aeneid? 

Get a preview of the latest Harry Potter academic anthology, featuring a diverse array of essays on the series.

We're joined by Dr. Lana Whited (Ferrum College), editor of The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter (University of Missouri Press, 2002), one of the first anthologies focused on the series, and now the second volume, The Ivory Tower, Harry Potter, and Beyond (University of Missouri Press, 2024). Quite a bit of Potter scholarship is contained in anthologies devoted entirely to the series, possibly due in part to the historical difficulty of getting Potter studies articles accepted by academic journals, but these anthologies have helped to develop a community around the subject. Only the first three Potter books had been released when the first volume was compiled; by the time of the second, Lana was able to seek out chapters not only on the full series but also Fantastic Beasts and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child as well as The Casual Vacancy, the Cormoran Strike books, and even The Ickabog.

The new anthology, coming over 20 years after the first, offers something of a retrospective on how far Potter studies has come. From its early days, the field has extended beyond literary studies to include religious, psychological, political, and scientific perspectives. Podcasts have also contributed a great deal to discourse. Of course, the author's changing reputation has had a major impact.

Emily, Katy, and Lana discuss their respective chapters, "Parenting Models in the Potter Saga and Cursed Child: Human and Divine," "Secrecy and Segregation in the Wizarding World's Hidden Histories," and "The Ickabog, Monsters, and Monstrosity," offering a sample of the range of topics covered.

Get swept away by the cinematic sounds of the Wizarding World.

We're joined by musicologist Dr. Daniel White (University of Huddersfield), who has a new book about the music of two major fantasy franchises, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. He talks about the musical foundation laid by John Williams in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and how subsequent composers built off his work both within the Harry Potter series and continuing into the Fantastic Beasts films.

Dan applies music theory to unpack what makes "Hedwig's Theme" so iconic and how it contributes to worldbuilding and evokes nostalgia. We look at the tone shifts between films and the recurring musical motifs that change throughout the series. Dan tells us about his methodology for analyzing film music, including ethnographic research interviewing audiences about their reactions and conversations with composers and music supervisors for video games, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme parks.

The theme parks offer an interesting blend of diegetic (in-universe) music, like Celestina Warbeck and the Hogwarts frog choir, and non-diegetic background music from the soundtracks. Fans have of course made their own Potter-inspired music in the form of wizard rock. While the music of Lord of the Rings is more epic in scale, covering different regions, races, and communities, Harry Potter tends to focus more on individual characters, their relationships, and more specific locations. Both share a theme of home and have become homes for audiences, inspiring the subtitle of Dan's book, The Music of Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings: Sounds of Home in the Fantasy Franchise.

In the last of our episodes featuring contributors to our book, Potterversity: Essays Exploring the World of Harry Potter, take a look at two very different teachers: Albus Dumbledore and Dolores Umbridge.

Our guests are Dr. M'Balia Thomas (University of Kansas) and Dr. Brent Satterly (Widener University), whose chapters focus on Hogwarts professors. Both found ways to connect with students through Harry Potter and saw examples of what to do and what not to do as a teacher by looking at the Hogwarts faculty. They consider what it means to see teachers through the student perspective in the series but also get an inside look at certain teachers, such as Lupin and Snape, that show us their humanity and give us a sense of compassion toward educators we may forget to have.

In her chapter, "Dumbledorisms: The Idiosyncratic Style of a Hogwarts Headmaster," M'Balia examines how Dumbledore's tendency to speak in aphorisms gives the impression of wisdom but doesn't necessarily connect with students. Brent shares his experience taking on Umbridge, who is the antithesis of him as a social worker, as a drag persona in "Hem Hem… I Take Umbridge with Bigotry: Using the ­Witch-in-Pink to Counter Oppression."

While we don't get the full story of all the interactions between students and teachers at Hogwarts, the wizarding world provides opportunities to think more deeply about the context of educational situations.

Hop on a tour of the UK this summer to see Harry Potter and more beloved works of fantasy come to life.

On this episode, sponsored by History Bites Tours, Katy and Emily speak with History Bites founder Solomon Schmidt about the literary-inspired tour of England and Scotland he'll be leading in July. Solomon is the author of eight books in his History Bites series and host of the History Bites YouTube channel. In addition to his interest in history, he incorporates his love of fantasy literature, including Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and The Chronicles of Narnia, into his travel itineraries to take fans to relevant landmarks.

In just eight days, Solomon will lead fans through London, Oxford, Edinburgh, and more to discover sites of significance to Lewis, Tolkien, and Rowling, as well as filming locations for the Harry Potter movies. From Platform 9 3/4 to the Hogwarts Express, the tour lets travelers immerse themselves in fantasy, visiting the pubs and cafes the writers frequented and breathtaking natural and historic wonders. We've previously discussed the transcendent experience of Harry Potter fan pilgrimages, and this tour offers just that opportunity.

Check out the History Bites website for more information on registering for the trip of a lifetime.