Lumos 2006 Class Notes - Friday

OK - I was a delinquent student and missed a couple classes, but they have an order sheet of CD recordings of the talk, I got the order form. They said that there is a website in the works to order online after the conference (not at a discount price as at the conference but I'm going to be putting the email addy up here anyway ... I missed the talk given by the ladies I ate with last night, from Le Moyn College, because I was hanging out doing the Granger thing [there was a time overlap so I only would have been able to catch half their talk anyway], but they had been telling me last years conference was much more devoted to fan-fic and art and what they are calling the "fanon" (fan canon) but this years has much more on education and using HP in education ... lots of education types here, so some of you may really find some of that really interesting ... There was a CD that came with the conference packet and if it has education stuff on it maybe we can provide some of it here.) But I got some very exciting stuff today. (I'll try to post some of the pics I took today after I get this out ... just some fun stuff of costumes, and one where you can see how packed Vander Ark's talk was.) Voldy as Malignant Narcissist - by Maria Hsia Chang Really good. She went through Voldy's characteristics and showed how they were common of pathological narcissism - such as young Tom's affable charm, being a consummate liar, but obsessed with telling when others are lying, envious and projecting that onto others (connected with the duplicity issue in HP when talking to Dumbledore, "greatness inspires envy, envy engenders spite, spite spawns lies"[HBP 443]), prefers being feared to being loved (for a great portrayal of this see the lines by Chaz Palmenterri on it as "Sonny" in his movie "A Bronx Tale"), fearing loss of love (I noted to myself ... "Davey Jones"). The thing I liked about this woman's talk was her clarity on one issue. She asked the question of whether the source of this narcissism might lay in his childhood, and concluded that while there were factors there, these could not explain it all ... only his own choices could have full caused it. The best formulation was when somebody asked in the Q&A how culpable he is and if this is "mental illness." She said she has pondered this one a bit (ie this was not a pat answer, that it had taken her some thinking to arrive at this conclusion) that Voldy's is not mental illness but a spiritual illness. I was not quick thinking enough to get in on the Q&A but I should have asked her to compare and contrast Lupin and Voldy (or more accurately Lupin and Greyback) as a way to illustrate this point. If magic represents psychic capabilities, that is capabilities in the soul, that connect us to higher realities, then Lupin's "magical malady" is symbolic of psychological malady, but he does not make the same choices as Greyback or Voldemort. Religion in the Wizarding World - Panel I left this one early because it was not what I was looking for, but there were two things I thought would be useful here. 1. The reason it did not interest me is that it was too "realist." They were addressing the question "why don't kids in the books go to Church or practice a religion." They were all very professional and I respect their work, I just don't think that a good question. The one woman gave statistics on current UK and very low church attendance, especially among the predominant group, Anglicans - thus, the religious practice of Hogwarts student would accurately reflect the demographical stats in the UK. While this is a good argument for whether the books accurately do that, I don't think that doing that falls within the scope of their literary art. What I mean is that I think a much better argument is one that I heard Joseph Pearce use in a talk at Franciscan University once, regarding the absence or formal religion in Lord of the Rings. He said the setting of LOTR is "pre-Incarnation" and since it cannot be about the Jewish people, the only option would be paganism. I would prefer the term "extra-Incarnational" and HP is exactly why. The time of Harry is obviously after Christ, but the setting, because it is mythic symbolism (magic and all), is "outside" of that historical setting (ie this only bears slight coincidental common characteristics with the official genre of "historical fiction" ... it is decidedly not that genre). They do practice Christmas and Easter but only in the aspects of these holidays in which the core meaning has been diffused into sociological affectation. The panelists focused on a question "what would be the reaction in my religious tradition [they were from various backgrounds] if a kid got a letter from Hogwarts" and I just didn't feel like that was an accurate question for this issue, even though I respected the work and research they had put in on it. 2. The other thing relates to the "Potter teaches Wiccan" thing. One of the panelists (Karen Dougherty) was, in fact, a "frequent attendee of Neo-Pagan festivals ... a member of the Earth Spirit Community and ... a twenty year member member of Arn Draiocht Fein: a Druid fellowship" (- from the Lumos program) ... and her comment was "I just don't see it." (I view this as being kind of like Ian McKellan on the issue of homosexuality in Lord of the Rings ... he's a big activist for that cause, but he's also honest ... he said it would be untrue to Tolkien's text to introduce it and it would seem from his choice and performance that he still respects that text as a good piece of art to be involved with.) In Defense of Ginny: Harry's Ideal Girl - Panel There was some good stuff in this talk but only one thing I can work into a "structure/prediction" post here. Some of the other cool notes include the noticing that the library scene in Book 5 (over contacting Sirius) is where we see Harry start to trust Ginny in a mode that he can't pull off with Ron and Hermione (the trust is there but other things are too - Harry's worry about Hermione's judgment on morality and her reaction), and that each has a unique relationship with Voldy - not only unique from others but unique from each other ... Harry will never have the "possession" (the whole school year with that intimate of contact with Riddle) and she will never have his particular experience of Voldy, they will always have to trust each other's complimentary perspective and others will have to respect their combined perspective/knowledge. The thing I thought was cool was their shared "leader" role in regards to what one of the women referred to as the primary and secondary trios, especially if the primary trio of Harry, Ron and Hermione go a little bit "Indiana Jones" for a bit in book 7 - Ginny will be the leader of the trio consisting of herself, Neville and Luna (another reason to see Neville and Luna getting together ... just kidding, just thought I would toss that in there) ... I thought that was kind of cool. The only other thing here is that one of the women said that, based on reading the books and on some of the stuff Jo has said in interviews about how she wanted to craft that element of the books, romance is and will always be a "subplot" in the books, not a main plot. I would frame it, rather, in the language of symbolism in the line of thought of Charles Williams (in an out of print essay called "Religion and Love in Dante") that even not only is marriage symbolic of divine Grace (and in Catholic theology, that "symbolism" being seen as sacramental) but the psychological state of "being in love" is symbolic ... (along the lines of the medieval thing of seeing courtly love as symbolic of Grace), ie romance ... and I would call this more of a "subsidiary symbolism" in the books, but with a real connection to the main symbolism of the main plot. "Lucky You": Gender Agency and Alternate Myth Making in the Characterization of Ginny Weasley - Gareth Fisher This was a great talk. I'll try to compactly synopsize the main point and how I was a bit chuffed (I love that word since Jo2 brought it up on her site, I think from the books, but either way, I love it) that it supported my chiastic reading and the Quidditch imagery. :) The "Lucky You" is from in Book 5 when Ginny confronts Harry about the fact that he thought he was possessed but never asked the one person who really had been possessed - her - to see how his experience compared. He say "I forgot" and she says "Lucky You". Fisher started by saying he would not be focusing on the psychological meaning of myth (as do Jung and Joseph Campbell) but on the anthropological matter of myths as having a role in organizing society. Particularly he focused on the fact that this is not a static matter, but one in which some myth forms get re-written. Specifically, Ginny begins in book 2 as the "helpless maiden" heroine who owes Harry her heart because he saved her life. But Rowling rewrites the myth and in book 5 we begin to see Ginny develop as more than a helpless maiden in her relationship with Harry, and by book 6 Harry "gets the girl" but definitely out of the "heart debt for saving her life" deal ... the myth has developed. Fisher made the point that Ginny does pay Harry back, but in the form of other things he really needs like a good kick in the pants when he is moping, and also a sympathetic ear (library scene in book 5, about contacting Sirius, noted in the just previous panel discussion on Ginny). In book 5 we begin to see her development as a character and it is with the wisdom from this that she repays Harry. The thing I liked is that book 2 (Harry saves the girl) and 6 (Harry gets the girl but no longer because of the "heart debt" idea) and linked in the chiasm. The other part is that Ginny's "non-passive" quality as heroine is shown in that she gets Harry as much as he gets her in that they get together after she catches the snitch to win the match. Welcome to the Wizarding World - Steve Van Ark Let me start by saying, Van Ark is a phenomenal speaker ... completely gripping and entertaining. I wish I could give you all the whole experience. At one point he had up a map of London and was cataloguing the POA text details on the travels of the Knight Bus when it picked Harry up, then he said "so I have overlaid on this map of London the route taken by the bus on the night in question." and up came a complete mess of lines criss-crossed all over the map of England. then he said "and I have overlaid that with the flu network" and up came scribbles in another color covering the whole map as well. He had a ton of details, really fascinating, and I'll get to them under his second point, sort of my closing point on his talk. Well, let me change that - he had 2 main points: Time (such as establishment of MOM in 1692 act of secrecy) and Setting, and these had fascinating details I will put under his second "preliminary point" - things you have to understand before even beginning to talk about the Potterverse - and these 2 preliminary points will be my two main points of his talk (hope that wasn't too confusing). 1. Wizarding Logic: Because of magic, any place you are is ever only about 40 seconds from any other place. Thus, in the wizarding world (I loved this statement and so did everybody else, everyone was rolling laughing) - if you live in Hogsmeade, and you attend Hogwarts, how do you get to Hogwarts at the beginning of term? You go to London to catch the train at platform 9 and 3/4 ... because that is where the Hogwart's express leaves from and that is how you get to Hogwart's. My way of saying it is that in the hierarchy of truth, "scientific" truth (such as "the shortest distance between two points is a straight line" - material quantification) is lower down the totem pole that things such as relationship and function/role. (in other words, and I can explain this a little more in comments if anybody wants ... my point is that, even the material world is not truly/fully defined by the "material quantification" of Descarte's "res extensia" ["extended reality/matter"] ... ie the it's quantifiability)) 2. "Jo Logic" The point on "material quantification" dovetails nicely with "Jo Logic" because Vander Ark himself used the language that she has a clear and vivid mental picture, but "she's not that good at quantifying it" (personally I think this is why "Jomione" has Hermione into arithmancy, which is basically numerology rather than "quantification" math, like the "precision" needed for potions. In an interview Jo said that she doesn't have a floormap of Hogwarts (although it seems like one has since been provided by her, at least as far the grounds in relation the castle), but that she does have "a clear mental picture." In fact, Vander Ark put up a map that he had made in 2001 from the books and then the one she provided since the interview and they were almost identical, and his point was not that he was so clever, but that her mental picture was so clear and brought through into the text so well that somebody else was able to make a map like this. The thing he brought out is how believable this image she has is and how well she carries it through to the page. Hence some of the stuff he went through under "place." I mean, he did or has had done some serious stuff, and it was a riot to listen to. He has a buddy in England who actually did experiments in Surrey to try to locate the location of Little Whinging ... what neighborhood did she base it on, meaning what neighborhood has the "feel" (and I mean this guy did in depth studies on the noted architecture of the Dursley house) ... and he (this correspondent of Van Ark's) even actually did one test of walking around dragging a trunk through the various neighborhoods ... and is pretty sure he found # 4 private drive. This guy also pinned down the location of the Leaky Cauldron, and there is a place in Exeter (where Jo went to university) named "Burrow Hill Farm" surrounded by locations/towns, such as "Chudley" and "Dawlish." He pointed out that the thing is not whether or not Jo consciously had these places in mind ... maybe she just passed by them once, but certain things about the world she has lived in stuck in her head, certain feels, and she is really good visualizing those feels in a concrete image of a place and at crafting those feels on the page (from my writing prof in undergrad, I would say that JKR is capable of putting "the smell" of a place on the page, the sense of smell being one of the most difficult to get but the most effective is you can nail it ... particularly the way she characterizes Harry's impression of Ginny when he smells amortensia fumes) Disney Does Derrida - John Granger Wow ... a lot to write here ... I may just pop some highlights up and then write a more thorough post when I get back, because in conversing with him briefly outside after the talk I got to ask him some about something from "Looking for God in Harry Potter" that I want to write about too because it relates (when I get the lines of thought drawn out) to the whole "bipartite vs tripartite" discussion Jo2 and I have delved into here). First of all ... John Granger is a great guy. He's a great speaker too: energetic, genuine, clear ... in short amazing. Second, I really respect the attention he gives and the respect he has for the intellectual hard work of others and the genuine interest he shows in it. Let me explain: there were two women with him helping him, one was his wife and there was another, and I'm pretty sure the one I am talking about here was the other. When I said who I was to John, she said "oh yes, I read the thing on Pirates of the Caribbean ... I took the advice and printed it out" ... Now all I ever knew is that Pauli had emailed John himself to check out our site ... but he must have cared enough to pass it on in his organization a little for others who work with him to see what they think too .. which to me speaks of respect for what people are doing, a willingness to take a minute and actually focus on what somebody is saying (and with as much email as the guy gets, his minutes are at a premium price). ... (and since you [the woman working with John, whose name I was too flustered, ie excited, in the business and jostling around of it to get] read the piece on Pirates, if you stop back and are reading this, please drop a comment and say hello ... it meant a lot to me that you had read the piece.) Third - an interesting revelation ... Red Hen is a woman named Joyce who is in tight with Granger, has one of the pieces in the Who killed Albus DD book (she was there in the audience but by the time I could identify her from a comment he made back her direction and a reply she gave, I couldn't get the camera ready in time to snap a good pic before she left early and I didn't see her any after that) ... I have come to agree with Pauli that RH's theory of the whole remainder of Riddle's soul having gone into the scar, leaving only memory/ego and will/malice as "vapormort" (vapormort not having a soul) ... does not fit Rowling's world (and this goes back to the bipartite-tripartite thing that I hope to get into more in a later post.) Signing Off Anyway, that's all for right now. It's late here.