HP-RL-TMI

[kennahijja]

Harry Potter, meet Real Life. Real Life - Harry Potter

Oookay, forgive me, I'm still kind of hyper. I've been thinking about possible topics for the class I'm going to teach next summer... Now 'British/Irish cultural studies' is a wiiiide field. I've just done two courses on Irish history and literature, and while I can waffle on about that for ages, it might get repetitive. Thought about Ireland and Film, the English Industrial Revolution, historical drama, Harry Potter... thought 'naaah, no way'.

This afternoon I went out to lunch with my prof (who's rather unfond of HP as it amasses all that money for the London Media grandes rather than for struggling Scottish publishing), and mentioned about this outlandish idea I had about a class on HP... And then he was quite keen on it, really, only worried about me ending up with tons of people wanting to do it. Which, yeah, is what happened with the Northern Ireland class as well, but was (surprisingly) manageable.

Now, I see the distinct downsides of trying to turn my free time obsession into a subject for analytical study (while not letting on about how deeply I'm into it, really). But then again, it's something I *know* so much about, and it can be taken in so many fascinating different directions... children's literature, novels of education, archetypal elements, the British book/bestseller market, British society and the regions, fantasy literature, book/film comparison, popular culture, the phenomenon of the internet fandom (which is *totally* unknown in German academia, or at least I've never even seen a hint of it mentioned)... Not to mentioned that the fifth film is advertised for July 2007...

Can you imagine how giddy I am? On the one hand I'd feel *safer* with Irish history of the 20th century, but teaching Harry Potter would be so incredibly *cool*! :). Damn! I wish I could think about this rationally...

Had lovely rucola salad with turkey strips and parmesan cheese for lunch too - and *no* alcohol, no matter how this sounds ;).

Comments

[fourth_rose]

Oh, you're going to have so much fun :)

the phenomenon of the internet fandom (which is *totally* unknown in German academia, or at least I've never even seen a hint of it mentioned)

It can't be totally unknown, at least not among historians, because every international conference on medieval history I've attended so far had sections about Tolkien, HP, or both, and the existence of the internet fandom has been a topic on such occasions several times. I think that especially in the German-speaking countries, many scholars who know about it just don't want to admit it to their colleagues ;)

[kennahijja.livejournal.com]

You could be on to something there ;). Of course I can only go by my limited experiences, but I've never seen the concept of fandom creep up anywhere outside publications/essay collections from English-speaking countries... Then of course popular culture as such isn't really strong hereabouts in the first place... Classes on mainstream film was the most 'current' I ever took as a student, and even there it was looked at as something dodgy. But the net as a research subject instead of a research tool... nope. I've done a bit of library digging after talking slash/sex/violence with the_dark_twin a while back, and came up absolutely empty. I don't know if it's due to 'don't know about' or 'don't talk about' ;). And it's so bloody *interesting* even without coming from the PoV of a fandomer :).