“Magic is Might 2012” Proceedings of the International Conference Edited by Luigina Ciolfi and Gráinne O’Brien ISBN 978-1-84387-359-4 “Magic Is Might 2012: Proceedings of the International Conference” Edited by: Luigina Ciolfi ([email protected]) C3RI, Sheffield Hallam University (UK) Gráinne O’Brien ([email protected]) University of Limerick (Ireland) First published by Sheffield Hallam University, Howard Street, Sheffield S1 1WB, United Kingdom March 2013 ISBN 978-1-84387-359-4 The “Magic Is Might 2012” conference was sponsored by: Front and rear cover design featuring original artwork by Lette Moloney Photography ([email protected]) The production and editing of this volume was supported by: DISCLAIMER: This book is not authorized, approved, licensed, or endorsed by J.K. Rowling, Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., or anyone associated with the Harry Potter books or movies This compilation is copyright ©2013 by Ciolfi and O’Brien. Copyright of each individual article remains with the respective author(s). Permission to copy without fee all or part of this work is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for direct commercial advantage and that the original source is acknowledged. iii Table of Contents Table of Contents iii Introduction 1 Luigina Ciolfi and Gráinne O’Brien The Making of Home Places in Harry Potter 7 Luigina Ciolfi Cauldron Cakes, Pumpkin Pasties and Every Flavour Beans: Food and British 16 National Identity in the Harry Potter Series Jennifer Trieu ‘There is No Good and Evil, Only Power and Those Too Weak to Seek It’: 25 Voldemort versus Sauron in Popular Culture M. Renee Benham “The Bravest Man I Ever Knew”: Severus Snape and the Gothic Trauma in the 32 Harry Potter Series and Fan Fiction Agata Zarzycka Humdrum Magic: Design Explorations into the Magic of Everyday Life 40 Berry Eggen and Daan Eggen Anticipating Exceptionalism: Institutional Order and the State of Exception in 49 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Kamillea Aghtan The Good, The Bad and the Malfoys: The Role of Free Will in the Creation of the 59 Criminal Child in the Harry Potter series Lucy Andrew Why Queers Never Prosper in the Wizarding World: Phallocentricism, 67 Heteronormativity and Wandlore in the Harry Potter Series Gráinne O’Brien Wand Privilege: Superiority and Inferiority in Wizarding Society 74 Alice Nuttall From the Sorcerer’s Stone to the Magic Quill: Transmedia Storytelling and the 84 Potterverse Cathy Leogrande Split Seven Ways: The Magic of Death in the Harry Potter Novels 95 Breanna Mroczek KEYNOTE PAPER 104 Harry Potter: Archetype of the Child as our Future in the 21st Century Mark Patrick Hederman T(r)ends towards infinity 114 Sonja Loidl The Power of Mother: Archetype and Symbolism in the Harry Potter series 123 Željka Flegar Magic Is Might 2012: Proceedings of the International Conference iv Harry Potter and the Unsettling Subalterns 134 Molly Brown Harry Potter and the Chamber of Commerce: Pottermore.com 145 Terje Colbjørnsen Pottermore: Encouraging or Regulating Participatory Culture? 159 Bethan Jones Six Times Trouble: Queering the DADA Teachers 172 Vera Cuntz-Leng Tom Riddle, the Abject Child 181 Maureen Saraco Index of Authors 189 Magic Is Might 2012: Proceedings of the International Conference in Ciolfi, L. and O’Brien, G. (2013), Magic Is Might 2012: Proceedings of the International Conference ISBN 978-1-84387-359-4 Introduction to “Magic Is Might 2012” Luigina Ciolfi* and Gráinne O’Brien^ * Communication and Computing Research Centre, C3RI, Sheffield Hallam University (UK) [email protected] ^ University of Limerick (Ireland) [email protected] 1. About the Conference This edited collection gathers the research papers originally presented at the “Magic Is Might 2012” conference, held on July 23-24 at the University of Limerick (Ireland). “Magic is Might 2012” brought together a group of international academics discussing the cultural influence of the Harry Potter books and films across disciplinary boundaries. Indeed, the selection of papers that were presented at the conference covered a wide multi-disciplinary span: from literary analysis, gender studies, media and technology, e- commerce, law and many more. The programme of “Magic Is Might 2012” and the resulting edited collection we present here are a true testament to the wide cultural influence that the Harry Potter books and films have had on various aspects of scholarship and of society. In recent years, increased attention to popular culture phenomena and to their impact on audiences has led to a corresponding academic interest in analyzing and understanding related issues. Much research has been conducted on the impact of popular films, TV programs and music on cultural production, audience participation and textual and narrative analysis. Harry Potter is no exception: with 450 million copies sold by 20111 and extensive related media in the forms of major motion pictures, video games and online reading resources such as “Pottermore”2, the story of the Boy Wizard has undoubtedly made a resounding impact on popular culture, and has generated a community of dedicated fans and followers that has been studied as a phenomenon in its own right (Anelli, 2008). From a scholarly perspective, research has been conducted on both the construction and crafting of the story by author JK Rowling and by the makers of the films produced by Warner Bros., and on the effect that this fictional universe has had on audiences and, particularly, fans. The years of publication of the books and films have also coincided with unprecedented development of online communication and interaction mediums, thus being connected to 1 Source: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/complete_coverage/harry_potter/ 2 http://www.pottermore.com Luigina Ciolfi and Gráinne O’Brien 2 high visibility and fast development of fan communities and to intense participation by fans and readers online (Anelli, 2008), leading to the proliferation of fan-made art, fiction, themed-crafts, music and much more. With this backdrop in mind, it is not surprising that scholarly literature on the study of the Harry Potter series has been appearing for some years (see for example the edited books by Heilman, 2008 and Sims, 2012). Similarly, academic events on Harry Potter have been held around the world for over a decade. One notable example is the academic track at LeakyCon3, the largest fan convention on Harry Potter, which was established in response to increased interest in in-depth debate around the series; other events have included “Phoenix Rising”4, “Terminus”5 and “Harry Potter Conference”6. Interestingly, the year 2012 saw the first academic conferences on Harry Potter being held in both Ireland and the United Kingdom, the former documented in this volume and the latter having taken place at the University of St. Andrews in May 2012. Both events had a wide disciplinary span and a peer-reviewed programme of presentations, attracting speakers from several countries. Interestingly, another similarity between the two events is the widespread media attention they received in their respective countries. In the UK, several national newspapers covered the event, with some expressing open criticism over whether Harry Potter “deserves” academic study (Rainey, 2012; Flood, 2012). In Ireland, although “Magic Is Might” received very positive commentary by Irish national newspapers (Hayes, 2012; Woulfe, 2012; Duggan, 2012) recognising the cultural significance of JK Rowling’s work, media personality Ray D’Arcy questioned the appropriateness of the conference on his popular show7 on the Irish national radio station Today FM, and invited one of the organisers to “defend” the event as something that a respected public university should endorse. Quite naturally, the “defense” of academic events on Harry Potter is the fact that academics find Harry Potter interesting as a literary work and as a popular culture phenomenon, and that it sparks the desire to be understood better, even by scholars who are not themselves fans of the series. Indeed, studying Harry Potter does not equal with being a fan of it: nonetheless its effect on readers and on other domains (such as education, technology, business, etc.) is worthy of investigation. Little did we know that in organising “Magic Is Might 2012” we would find ourselves arguing on the academic freedom to examine and reflect on what shapes contemporary culture and leads to new knowledge in so many disciplinary fields. This debate on Harry Potter as a subject of academic study interestingly connects to both the invited presentations hosted at “Magic Is Might 2012”: the opening remarks by Eoin Devereux and the keynote presentation by Mark Patrick Hederman (which is included in its entirety in this volume). Devereux, building on his own extensive research on audiences and fandom, particularly regarding popular music (Devereux, 2009), remarked on how popular culture fans tend to 3 http://www.leakycon.com/ 4 http://www.thephoenixrises.org/ 5 http://www.terminus2008.org/ 6 http://www.chc.edu/News/2012/September/Harry_Potter_Conference/ 7 http://www.todayfm.com/shows/weekdays/ray-darcy-show/Overview.aspx Magic Is Might 2012: Proceedings of the International Conference Luigina Ciolfi and Gráinne O’Brien 3 be “pathologised” as obsessive and extreme by others, contrarily to other followers such as, for example, sport fans. Their motives and the forms of their following are singled out; linked to this is also the questioning of whether certain aspects of popular culture should or should not be studied in more depth (Devereux, 2007). Hederman’s keynote – included in this volume - refers to writings where the likes of Harold Bloom and A.S. Byatt declared the poor value of Harry Potter in comparison to other works of fiction that have been subject to scholarly inquiry. Hederman, however, responds: “They keep on telling us what they think we should be doing, rather than telling us the meaning of what we prefer to do.