I have started teaching my elective subject ‘Cultural Studies in English: The Harry Potter Series’ this week… and it’s been a very good beginning. I have around 50 students, of which 8 (I think) are auditors (non-registered students who get no credits); they come from BA degrees such as Translation or Anthropology and three are my own MA students. The Erasmus and exchange students have started arriving on the second day and all in all, this looks very good so far.
I’ve also added a new guest to my list of three so far: 1) a doctoral student of mine, Auba Llompart, writing her dissertation on childhood in gothic fiction for young readers; 2) a learned (Goth) colleague, Bela Clúa, who gave me the motivation I lacked to read Rowling; 3) Kika Pol, an MA student writing under my supervision her dissertation on the construction of secondary characters with a focus on Snape and, finally, 4) Jaime Oliveros, an MA student working on curses and hexes in Shakespeare –who has turned out to be a Potterhead!!
Here are a few funny moments. It felt very, very odd to announce that I’d devote a lecture to discussing house elves, with an emphasis of course on Dobby and Kreacher. I don’t know why but it’s the first time I’ve thought ‘my, this is weird’ –I need to think further about this. Just consider that I have already declared in public my infatuation with Sirius Black, as understanding it is a major motivation for me to teach the subject.
Then, trying to teach my students how to control their fan passion for the saga, I asked them to which of the four houses they belonged: Slytherin, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw or Gryffindor. The idea was to teach them that a critical reader would question the very presence of the houses in the text, their imbalanced presentation, how Rowling encourages absurd rivalries, etc. To my surprise, they all knew which house they ‘belong’ to (yes, some Slytherins included). I, the supposed guiding critical reader, ended up taking not one but four online tests to confirm what I knew intuitively: I’m Ravenclaw (like Luna Lovegood). No surprises there, as I have Mulder’s ‘I want to believe’ poster in my office, Quibbler-style, and I’m known for studying hard…
Next came the wands… I had already checked where you can buy and how much they are with a view of getting myself one as a memento of the course (Luna’s, I think), but was put off in the end by the 35 euros they cost (I mean the copies of the wands in the films). I asked my students whether they owned a wand and I think 85 to 90% said yes… of course. I need to think on which day they can bring them… I told a colleague who’s not at all into Harry Potter or popular fiction about this and she was quite unsympathetic about students spending that much money on the silly wands and not on books. I realised it would be simply impossible to explain to her the attraction of owning a wand or, for that matter, a lightsaber (or my little Pikachu!).
I’m giving the students a two-week preliminary introduction to Cultural Studies before we plunge into the text. I can already see, however, what the main challenge is going to be: understanding the sheer glee which any comment on the series brings on. We had a moment of pure enjoyment when they named their houses, a moment that I’ve never enjoyed in connection with any of the literary texts I’ve taught. Uninformed onlookers might have mistaken that for childishness but, then, we’re all past childhood, I more than anyone else. It’s something else.
This glee does not incapacitate anyone to produce good critical work, as I know first hand but has to be repressed, so I need to walk a fine line between giving students the necessary academic training and giving them room to enjoy themselves. And I’m highlighting this because I thought that my main challenge would be dealing with the sentimental attachment to the text (which I do share).
Last year in my English Theatre class there were many intense moments and a certain ongoing impression that we were doing something transgressive, and fun, instead of boring ourselves silly with lectures. This year, and this is just the first week, I get a clear impression that, finally, students are dealing with a text that matters to them as part of their own private reading experience (the ‘finally’ is more theirs than mine). The Harry Potter series is, evidently, a text they do want to learn more about and I can see they trust me as a guide. This is thrilling, very, very exciting.
I will ask them towards the end whether other texts would have the same effect, for future subjects (Star Wars has been mentioned). Perhaps I’m the luckiest teacher in my university and, for once in my career, students agree 100% with my choices. I’m well aware, though, that it may never happen again.
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