People will read what they want to read into in any book. Even a cookbook. Allegory works at every conceivable level.

Can't we just have the adventure as escapism without all the alleged "hidden meanings"?

This is tiring.

I think you've explained the topic fairly well #1, here-here.

Some people are idiots reverse tracks hidden meanings - if you buy it tough !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Good grief! The Sheraton Centre is practically on my doorstep and I didn't know about this convention. I'll have to get there as fast as I can! The Harry Potter series is magnificent but I'm not sure all this theorizing is really necessary. However we're in the dog days of summer. It's scorching hot in Toronto and the Sheraton is air-conditioned.

Why no comment from Ian Rankin, or Lord Foulkes in the piece?

I want to know what I should think about this!!

Um, the author is still alive. Go ask her if Voldermort is a sociopath and Hermoine was meant to be a self actualized feminist.

Otherwise, stop. It's a book.

saddos, the lot of 'em. if you want fantasy come and see the brand of football played at Easter Road

#7 hit the nail on the head - what a lot of twaddle, tell these people to get a life! Worse than a Star Trek convention - at least the trekkies don't take themselves seriousely

Dear god, there is no hope for some people.

It is just a very average series of books written for kids - it not some sort of all knowing codex!

I really, really want to swear.

Tolkein was bad enough.

Lets not forget - The DaVinci Code!!!!!

Never mind! I enjoyed the books anyway! :)

Get a life folks other people are milking you dry its rubbish from start to finish its not muggles its just MUGS

This is all I am going to say on the subject of Harry Potter; God help Great Britain and the World if they think Harry Potter is a real person.'This I will say. Walt Disney paid the Vatican 1,000,000 dollars to but the Proghecy the three little girls were reported to have been given by the Virgin Mary. Hence Snow White ,Cinderella. Beauty and The Beast. Sleeping Beauty. Have a word with Ken Bruce.Harry Potter is the one the Royal Astrologer predicted and the masons Proghecy. So the king of England had his boat sunk in 1936. he did not want a commoner have it.But it was the commoners that paid for it.End of say on Harry.

I remember joking with my English teacher that before long we would be 'deciphering' and exploring in depth the 'hidden meanings' of the Harry Potter books- the only hidden meaning I can see is that J K Rowling got loaded of a good book for children; which many adults can enjoy and the more people talk about it and create 'Potter-mania' the more money she probably gets...
Let it rest- it's a story!

No. 14- a very succinct and in-depth analysation- you should be up there with them ;) But that is generally what it comes down to- people always want to believe there are hidden meanings; especially if they 'find' them because it makes them feel special.

What a load of twaddle.

Giving lectures like this must be so much better than having to work for a living.

Laugh out loud oh my god are these people serious they should write childrens books themselves what a great imagination and knack for conjuring up fantastic stories they have.

There really is no hope for the majority of the human race!

If this is all they can worry about then they really are brain washed unstable maniac's.

Oh, please --- how about instead we go over what John Lennon meant when he said "I am the Walrus"

I frequently wonder when I listen to the "experts" on documentaries if they don't have undiagnosed mental issues. In the case of these "Academics" I don't have to wonder, it is obvious.

Come on, Harry Potter is a great fantasy series that kids and adults who have not forgotten how to enjoy a good book can escape into for a wonderful experience.

I think there are just an awful lot of people who are jealous of the author's success and want to show her she isn't as clever as they are. I for one an glad that she did not forget how to think like a child.

This is absolute disgusting what these eggheads are planning, it's a book written for children. Leave it as it is and stop analize the books of Harry Potter. JK Rowling has done something extraordinary, she kept hundreds of millions of people in her own magic for many years. Let's not ruin it shall we?

For what it is worth,

Erik

I'm the editor of "The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter," the first (2002) published collection of essays on the Harry Potter phenomenon. So I guess that makes me one of the "egg head academics" to whom Stephen McGinty refers and who, according to some who've posted comments already here, should "get a life" and find a real line of work. I confess that I'm mystified by why so many people who find literary analysis of the sort McGinty describes here unnecessary or uninteresting feel the need to denigrate and make fun of the people who do it. My experience in teaching students is that those who tell me I "read too much into" literature in analyzing it are generally those who can't do it themselves and therefore seek to denigrate it so they don't have to feel bad about themselves. To borrow a Quidditch term, this lot is apparently composed of Beaters and Chasers, not Seekers.

The 'Harry Potter' series is filled with recognizable symbols and archetypes. In this way it relates to our own world and other literature and cultural traditions of the past. I think the key is to read a broad selection of other literature so that we understand these elements for ourselves. Conventions and academic studies may be taking it a bit far- people piggy-backing on the popularity and financial success of the series.

Only in America.

Muppets.......

or did you mean Canada?

Sorry,
Only in Canada!! Apparently....lol
No you get idiots like this in America too
Ther'e all,
Muppets.................

#25, haha thank you, it was beginning to seem that no one of the cognoscenti was even here. Ah yes they sure aren't seekers taha... i get the idea that these people didn't even understand Romeo & Juliet when it was broken down for them by their high school teachers.

dumbing down ?

Such conferences take so long to put together than I suspect there will be no papers which will deal with vol. 7. What surprises me is that none of the sites I have visited -- nor none of my fellow fans -- have commented on Harry's classic "near death experience" when Voldemort makes his first attempt to kill Harry in vol. 7. I would speculate that what protected Harry was the residual of the protection afforded by his mother's sacrifice -- which Voldemort thought would disappear when Harry parted from the Dursley's on his 17th birthday. Dumbledore was wrong a time or two, and this may have been yet another error on his part.

I was brought up on Alan Garner and Susan Cooper.
30 years on I still enjoy their books. I hope Harry Potter readers are still enjoying his adventures when they that much older... Personally, for me it's all a bit 'middle of the road'....
But then, at least it's encouraging children to read!

Typical - we have 4 days full of programming - serious, silly and everything in between, and this reporter grabs a handful of the events, and paints us all as lunatics.

There are 1,500 of us here, the vast majority being fully-functional people leading complete, happy lives, and this is a fun vacation for us. A vacation that lets us think, talk and laugh about a subject that millions of people have enjoyed.

And I though Scots were supposed to be proud of their heritage of education, inquiry and analysis.

I suppose if we spent the weekend shopping and ball-playing, you'd approve. Sad.

#1 - If you want to read the books as just escapism, fine. Why are you upset that we like talking about them?

#4 - I think registration is closed, but stop on by. The lobby is cool, lovely and very entertaining now that we're running around in our outfits!

#6 - You say "Its a book" like you mean "Its JUST a book." Books are the basis of our civilization, and can be pretty durn powerful.

#18 - We DO work for a living. That's why we enjoy having a fun vacation for a couple of days.

#33 - Yes, we do have some programming on the DH. The organizers emailed all of us a couple days ago, asking if anyone wanted to do something on the 7th book, and they've already got several events planned.

These people need to seriously get a life. What's worse, your tax-dollars are subsidizing this academic rubbish (not this conference, but the silly fools who masquerade as professors these days and waste time and money on useless pet theories that have absolutely no use in the real world).

Regarding #25

I took those types of course and I was perfectly capable of all of the requisite skills for deconstructing a book, analysing its multiple levels, etc. I may have gotten an A in the class, but I still came out of it thinking, "what a bunch of hogwash."

It may be too low-brow for you, but I can't help but recall a scene from the Rodney Dangerfield movie "Back To School." In it, Dangerfield's character is a self-made millionaire who's son is at college. He decides to join him and proceeds to buy anything and everything he needs, including term papers. In one instance, his English professor fails him on a paper about Kurt Vonnegut, claiming that he didn't understand any of the deeper meaning of the work. He returns to his dorm room, where a veritable army of employees is busy at his homework. There is a knock at the door and who should be on the other side but Kurt Vonnegut. Dangerfield fires him because the paper that Vonnegut wrote analysing his own book got an F from his English professor.

I wonder how many authors would find some of this analysis unintelligible. And if it is possible for an author to create so many levels of meaning without being capable of the intellectual feat required to recognize those levels, then it must be nothing short of a miracle.

So, one level of intellect is incapable of your analysis so they deride it. You're level of intellect can perform it and so feels superior. I can perform it but I also see right through it, and admit that I still know little more of what th author truly intended than when I first began. Why? Because no one BUT the author can tell you with any certainty what was truly intended.

ya whats the diffrence were mind controlled every day just with the news and the goverment.

Two things. An author might not be the best one to interpret his/her book, although it'd be expected, which is why the Vonnegut story is a good one [tho sad]. I'm quite sure authors often admit that some particular slant on their work had escaped them, and they'll often thank the pointer-out. 2nd, I personally think this whole junket is a tongue-in-cheek party, whose participants vie with one another to analyse the sacred text in as screechingly pedantic a mode as possible. I'm reminded of that grand send-up, The Pooh Perplex.

Sounds to me like everyone's trying to get their "piece of the pie" before it's done...hurry!

Still think the're a bunch of Muppets.