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“Something he could do without being taught”:Honors, Play, and Harry Potter

In a 2011 essay in JNCHC, Annmarie Guzy expressed concern that her honors composition course, which includes reading and writing about J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, "might be considered unorthodox material" (Guzy 89). Humanities faculty who teach Harry Potter, she speculated, might scandalize "other faculty, administrators, students, and the general public" because the series constitutes "popular work" rather than highbrow or literary writing. She had, however, no need for concern. Not only was Guzy's Potter-themed composition course continued, but scholars in the humanities and elsewhere continue to mine the riches of the Harry Potter series. Its academic status is no longer in doubt. What is more, the series' widely recognized scope, character, and complexity make it an ideal vehicle for teaching students, both intellectually and affectively, in an honors program. Years after the publication of its seventh and final volume in 2007 and the completion of the film series in 2011, the Harry Potter series is still studied and cited by professionals in fields ranging from science and economics to law and theology (for recent examples see Gierzynski and Eddy; Reagin; Bassham). Its continuing popularity in the United States is evident in the multitude of courses, seminars, and extracurricular events offered in colleges and universities nationwide. This ongoing popularity is congruent with a general trend in the consumption, as well as teaching, of contemporary popular culture at the college level; series from J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings to Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games have proved to be attractive to the same student population. One reason for the Potter phenomenon--and one reason, frankly, why the books are so easy to teach--is undoubtedly the parallels between Harry's eponymous story and the readers' own. Harry's extended bildungsroman is an ideal example of the Hero's Journey monomyth described in Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949). Like Campbell's hero, Harry is called to a world of adventure, endures numerous tests and trials, including being ostracized socially, and finally emerges triumphant. Yet the series does not lend itself to an uncomplicated indulgence in vicarious hero-fantasy, for protagonist Harry is not always heroic, and, even when he acts heroically, Harry's mistakes cause the death of loved ones. In addition, the books themselves poke gentle but unmistakable fun at the solipsism of youth, one example being Phineus Nigellus Black's declaration in Order of the Phoenix that he "loathed being a teacher! Young people are so infernally convinced that they are absolutely right about everything.... I have better things to do than to listen to adolescent agonizing" (495-96). But there is, as the saying goes, something about Harry--something else besides the monomyth--that makes the books not only a favorite of readers but also a useful tool for teachers. In their 2011 assessment of learning and engagement, A New Culture of Learning, Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown identify the Harry Potter books in particular as a doorway to learning; without teachers, "readers engaged in deep, sustained learning ... through discussions and other interactions.... Kids learned the story of Harry Potter by reading the books. They learned the meaning of Harry Potter by engaging with the material on a much deeper level. Just as important, they followed their passion" (44-45). While Thomas and Brown focus their argument on children's learning, these same elements of interest and passion make the series a useful part of an honors education at the collegiate level. A prima facie argument for this usefulness is the sheer variety of honors-related courses, seminars, and clubs built around the series; a Google search on "Harry Potter" and "honors" in the .edu domain yields nearly 24,000 hits. As Thomas and Brown point out, the Harry Potter series resonates with its readers because they, along with Rowling, participate in the ongoing co-creation of a fictional world. …