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The worldwide phenomenon that boasts millions of fans concludes with the release of the final film last Friday but Harry Potter is still very much alive at these colleges and universities
Professors have been able to use Harry Potter to attract crowds of students eager to take on a disciplined study of the books.
Preparing for Deathly Hallows, Augustana College
This short course will serve as a review and in-depth consideration of pages 502-759 of Deathly Hallows. Participants in this course will concentrate on the characters of Snape and Dumbledore and on how book #7complements and completes themes from the first six books. Along the way students will look back at important scenes in Deathly Hallows, Part 1, and class members will have a chance to discover their Patronus and perhaps even play a little Quidditch.
This course is for high school students only. link
The Science of Harry Potter, Frostburg State University
The course, which examines the magical events in J.K. Rowling’s books and explains them through the basic principles of physics, received international attention after an Associated Press writer picked up the story. From there, reports of the FSU class appeared in newspapers and magazines across the nation and throughout Europe, Australia, Indonesia and China. Harry Potter fansites on the Web posted announcements about FSU. Even the 24-hour news stations, such as CNN, FoxNews and MSNBC, ran information of the unusual class on their bottom-of-the-screen news crawls.
Professor George Plitnik, the mastermind behind the Potter course He even received international e-mails Potter fans who wanted to take the class, including a woman in Romania!. link
Christian Theology and Harry Potter, Yale University
Danielle Tumminio, a Yale Divinity School graduate student and the instructor for Yale’s Harry Potter course “Christian Theology and Harry Potter,” said her academic background in literature and theology, combined with her personal interest in the books, inspired her to design the course.
The course uses all seven Potter books and the students examine Christian themes such as sin, evil and resurrection. Interactive: All about Harry.
The class was an immediate draw for students. Seventy-nine people showed up at the first session for the 18 open seats. link
Ethics of Harry Potter, Bridgewater State College
In this course, with the assistance of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, students will view Harry Potter through a philosophical lens to determine what Harry’s choices reveal about the nature of virtues such as courage, temperance, magnanimity and justice.
The Harry Potter series is a worldwide phenomenon. Despite the assertion from some that the books promote witchcraft, many take seriously the proposition that they are full of philosophical significance. This proposition is exemplified in The Chamber of Secrets, when Dumbledore raises the question of character when he says, “It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities”. link
Principles of Sociology and Harry Potter, Meredith College
This class, covers all the subject matter of an introductory sociology class, but puts much of the material in the context of Harry Potter’s world. Lori Brown, associate professor of sociology, is taking a new approach to teaching Principles of Sociology this semester with some help from Harry Potter. By teaching about his fantasy world, students are learning more about their own society.
“Author J.K. Rowling has created another world that has some of the same problems we do,” Brown explained. “It’s not so hard to talk about issues of race when it’s talked about in muggles and mudbloods.”
It’s a great way to see how similar our society is to the magical society of Harry Potter, Walker said.link
Knights of Old & Harry Potter, Georgetown University
The objective of this course is to explore the medievalism of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels. To do this students need to go back to their medieval antecedents in the 12th-15th centuries, which will allow them to contrast and compare the old and the new. Also they read masterpieces of imaginative storytelling from French, German, and English medieval literature in addition to selected Harry Potter volumes, but they also consult Plato and Joseph Campbell. link
Harry Potter Inside and Out, Arizona State University
According to Arizona State University’s student-paper, The State Press, students will be able to sign up for HON 394, better known as “Harry Potter Inside and Out” starting next semester.
Professor Joel Hunter said that even though he started reading the books reluctantly, he wanted to teach a class on the series to allow students who grew up with the book to connect it to intellectual thinking.
The Arizona State University chapter of Dumbledore’s Army, a club for Harry Potter fans, said they will continue to host wizard-inspired events despite the series coming to an end. link
Finding Your Patronus, Oregon State University
What do Martin Luther King Jr. and Albus Dumbledore have in common? That was the question of the day Wednesday for the Harry Potter-themed class at Oregon State University called “Finding your patronus.”
A patronus is a charm a wizard or witch casts to produce a protective energy. And that makes it a fitting title for a class offered through OSU’s U-Engage programs to orient freshmen to campus as part of an effort at student retention.
“The goal of the class is two-fold: explore leadership education within the framework of Harry Potter and welcome the freshmen into the OSU community,” said Van Drimmelen, who led the class. link
Six Degrees of Harry Potter, St. Catherine University
“Six Degrees of Harry Potter,” a 200-level literature course taught by Professor of English Cecilia Konchar Farr, was one of the University’s most sought-after classes on winter 2010 semester. Thirty-one students made the cut — only three have not read all the Harry Potter books by British author J. K. Rowling.
In addition to the seven thick Harry Potter books — chronicling the adventures of the adolescent wizard Harry Potter and his best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger — the students have to read one scholarly book and a compilation of essays on Harry Potter, and participate in class and small-group discussions. They also have to complete a final project, which could include writing a research paper or creating a character that lives at Hogwarts for a computer game. link
Harry Potter’s Library, Kansas State University
This class examine the Harry Potter phenomenon by reading the novels themselves and the works of Rowling’s antecedents, influences and contemporaries.link
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