In addition to the reading and research I did to prepare for my plenary talk at the Harry Potter Academic conference, when one of my students (in my intro to interdisciplinary studies class and my Girls on Fire class) offered up her expertise, I asked her what it was about the books that spoke to her.

Her response was not only heartfelt and illuminating, it also helped me to understand several of the presentations I attended. The role of trauma, violence, and grief were the focus of several presentations and it was clear that Harry Potter has helped countless people survive, process, and heal trauma of all kinds. My student’s response was the kernel of a paper that I will encourage her to write and submit to neat year’s call for papers.

As I noted in part one of this two-part blog, the papers accepted and presented at the Harry Potter Academic Conference are selected not based upon academic credentials, but on the merit of the ideas presented in the abstract. There is also a clear effort to include undergraduates, independent scholars, and even high school students. This approach helped to create a diverse multi-generational, interdisciplinary, group of presenters and attendees and an environment for a free exchange of ideas.
My plenary was an overview of my work about the Girl on Fire—the power of the symbol and the potential of imagining the future through the lens of girls and women. And while I was there to give participants a new lens on Harry Potter, I also gained a new lens for my Girls on Fire work. While the presenters were not explicitly using a “Girls on Fire” lens, their work spoke to the spirit of the Girl on Fire—as symbol, as role model, as activist, as mentor.

There were a wide variety of interdisciplinary presentations that applied lenses of psychology, sociology, science, critical theory, religious studies, queer theory, feminism, history, Shakespeare, and pedagogy, as well as character studies including an insightful and entertaining powerhouse of a presentation by Kate Glassman, an MFA, poet, and middle school teacher from Minnesota: “Irascible and inflexible, perhaps, but always dependably, solidly present: The Preeminence of Minerva McGonagall in Harry Potter.” She was on fire: sassy, witty, and unapologetic.

Two Girls on Fire gave inspiring talks in the last session. The first, Madison Stump from Bowling Green State University, presented “Harry Potter as a Discussion of Environmental Harm and Impact.” She was on fire, imagining an environmental movement made up of visionary Potter fans. The second, Wellesley student, Anto Chavez Alfonzo, presented with her mentor, the advisor of the Miami Dade College chapter of the Harry Potter Alliance, Emily Sendin. She was on fire describing the social justice events that Hermione’s Army organized and the “transformative effects on a community of student readers and leaders.”

While there were plenty of men at the conference, the majority of presenters and attendees were women. This may be due to any number of factors including women’s majority in education generally, and their over-representation in the humanities and soft sciences. It might also be due to the ways in which the Harry Potter books speak to female readers through the “Girl on Fire” character of Hermione Granger—and a number of other female characters like Luna and Ginny.

Further, the men who presented illustrated the best characteristics of allies to Girls on Fire. For instance, Brett Slattery presented “You Won’t Need Any Ink: Dolores Umbridge and Pathological Tribalism” while dressed in the most fabulous drag ever—a skillfully crafted ensemble of pink and camp. And, co-organizer, Patrick McCauley, presented “The Appeal of the Universal Under the Shadow of the Postmodern”—a brilliant call for an intervention in postmodern theory and practice. He framed his talk with a story about the silencing of his female students—a call for approaches that empower young women who choose not to speak up because of the costs of being a know-it-all.

While I had no doubt about the richness of the Potterverse—I see it reflected in my students and colleagues all the time—I was not fully prepared for the magic (ah, there’s the obvious reference again!) that came from witnessing the best qualities of academic conferences. Enthusiasm, critical inquiry, celebration, connection, imagination, collaboration, vision, and inclusion. As I learned to say, we all solemnly swear that we are up to no good!

When I was invited to be the keynote speaker at the 8th Annual Harry Potter Festival at Chestnut Hill College, I had never read a word of the Harry Potter books. I had heard a paper about HP at an academic conference and, of course, I had heard and seen a variety of advertisements for the movies and merchandise. My friends and colleagues were big fans; my nephews and niece were super-fans. I knew more than one family of five who decided to all dress up as Harry Potter for Halloween. I had sat through countless HP references and inside jokes with only minimal understanding. In fact, it was kind of a thing that I had never read Harry Potter, and my closest friends and colleagues knew that eventually I would have to read them, even as I resisted the idea. Given my Girls on Fire work, the people I talked to were often shocked to hear that I had never read Harry Potter. But I was invited to the conference not because I was a HP scholar, but because I was not one—because my work speaks to HP fans and scholars in new ways. I was an experiment, and a successful one, I hope.

Until I accepted the invitation, I had no intention of picking up the HP books any time soon. But I knew that I had to have something beyond superficial familiarity if I was going to walk into the belly of the beast. I knew that every person at the conference would have read every book, and probably re-read every book. I knew that they would have seen all the movies and that many would probably be wearing HP clothing and accessories. I knew that they would all have at least a decade, if not a two-decade head start. I knew I could get nowhere near their level of interest, insight, or expertise. But I read the first two books and began the third one, and read some introductory scholarship, so that I would feel at least a little less than clueless.

The reasons I had never read HP were mostly coincidental. When the first book was published, I was just beginning grad school. And even if I had wanted to read HP, I was not reading anything that was not assigned for my classes or instrumental for my teaching. I also don’t tend to read a lot of books that are centered around male protagonists and I have never been a big fan of British literature. Because I do not have children, the books were never really on my radar and when I did begin reading again, I was much more inclined to read science fiction and dystopia and only turned to YA fiction when I ran out of Octavia Butler books. And soon I was deep in the world of YA dystopia with female protagonists—the “guilty pleasure” obsession that became my academic obsession. And, finally, I tend to be one of those readers/pop culture consumers who turn their nose up at wildly popular trends. For years, I was quite sure that HP was over-rated, but I certainly could not deny the impact that these books had on my family, friends, and colleagues.

So, I accepted the invitation to speak at the conference, in part, because I knew that this gig would challenge me and, in part, because the conference organizers assured me that my work would be relevant to the conference attendees. I accepted the invitation because I try to keep an open mind, and because I love to learn new things. And I accepted the speaking invitation because I will really accept any invitation that allows me to share my passion for young adult dystopia’s Girls on Fire. I was interested in finding out more about this HP world—or Potterverse, as the fans know it. I had assumptions and preconceived notions, but I also had a curiosity. As I have since confirmed via a few online sorting hat quizzes, I am Ravenclaw after all.

Overall, the conference was a wonderful experience, from the setting to the atmosphere created by a bunch of people who are passionate about Harry Potter and the work that they do—in and out of academia. Despite the fancy private college setting, the conference is put together with very few resources and with a lot of energy, and the conference organizers are committed to keeping the conference accessible to a diverse range of people. The papers accepted and presented are selected not based upon the academic credentials, but on the merit of the ideas presented in the abstract. There is also a clear effort to include undergraduates, independent scholars, and even high school students. The energy, the joy, the untapped possibility—they were all palpable.

As I noted during my plenary talk, what’s better than the HP books or the Girls on Fire books, is what readers, fans, scholars, and activists do with the texts. Even when I was unfamiliar with certain aspects of the overall story or later books, I found all of the talks to be interesting, insightful, enlightening, and some were even entertaining. More than once I was moved to tears by the passion of the participants, especially at the reaction of the two high school students who presented their papers and were awarded with scholarships to Chestnut Hill College.

I saw so many wonderful presentations and met so many incredible people. Dare I say the conference was … magical?! And, of course, the conference also did not disappoint in terms of my own learning and new insights I was able to glean regarding my Girls on Fire work. (Ravenclaw, again!) But for these insights, you’ll have to read the second part of this two-blog series! Stay tuned!