[HPforGrownups] Book 1 question

[Cristina Rebelo Ângelo]

No: HPFGUIDX 84456

Tzvi: 
<snip> 
My teacher tells us, "I only read the book for this class, and I only read
the 
first book." Would you want your children having a teacher like this? a) 
Whether you like it or not, you read all 5 books and b) you are supposed to
like 
the books, but no one is forcing them down your throat. She says shes trying
to 
get a few children books published, but if she thinks she knows anything
then 
I'd suggest reading the books. I think it is disgraceful of her to act so 
nonchalantly about this.
 
Cristina: Let me just add this: from what I know of literature analysis
(anybody heard of hermeneutics?... apart from the possibily poor english
translation of my responsability) and XXth century theories, context is...
well... *slightly* important. I believe it has been established that HP's
books are too interconnected to analyse only one while refusing all
possibility of even reading the others. You can, we all do that, analyse one
by one when we don't know of the others (because they haven't been published
yet). For academic purposes, we can work within that scope - but we have to,
academically speaking, explain, academically, why we chose only that
subject. And I don't think, academically speaking, that anyone has any
authority to speak of something (which is not new, btw, and has been
studied) when refusing to even look at other possibly meaningful material.
It's basically like wanting to analyse Romeo and Juliette and saying I don't
read any other of this author's work. If you're trying to do some solid
academic work, and she is a teacher, you can actually lose credibility (and
not pass the exam) when you neglect (talk about refusing!) to at least get
acquainted with other work from the same author, significant work of other
authors analysing that subject, etc etc.
 
We may be perceived as Harry Potter geeks, throwing around words like canon
and Potterverse, Harry Potter IS academic material. Not only because of its
popular success (I'm thinking I once found a college class on Madonna on the
Internet, for instance) - which case it is a subject of sociological study,
which will envolve some sort of literarature study; not only because, even
if some people may have doubts on this list on, for instance, can JKR write
dialogs, IMMHO, the richness of most literary cathegories in JKR justifies
academic analysis. But, mostly, because it has been done. There are papers
out there. There are academics interested in HP. The books are now part of
our culture, and of our literature. And even if JKR was a bad writer, her
success would justify that someone tried to prove her literary incompetence.
 
Your teacher's attitude is not disgraceful, in my opinion. In my opinion, it
is academically incompetent. I don't think you will learn anything
worthwhile from her. It reminds me of a technology teacher I once had who
said there was an actual physical solid thingy in CD readers, don't believe
those lies about a ray of light. We, the students, kicked that one out of
teaching.
 
Sorry for venting, this one has gotten me really... grrr.
 
C 
 
***
Cristina Rebelo Ângelo
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Amis le monde entier"
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