[AngieGal]

"Cat Terrell, a student in Yale's Harry Potter course, told CNN that "the lens of the Harry Potter books actually makes theology ... easier to understand."

This person is a divinity student at Yale and he/she needs a secular novel to explain theology??? Unbelievable! Some universities have used the Harry Potter books in curriculum, but a whole course??? in a divinity school??? Are they planning to preach Harry Potter from the pulpit, because it is so much easier to understand than the Bible?

Awful.

[FormerACLUmember]

Yale Divinity School is a sick joke.

[FormerACLUmember]

The fact that Dumbledore was recently declared gay was the new found precipiation for this dreadful course.

[shibumi]

"But to what extent are the stories about the fictional boy wizard a religious allegory? "


Only in the sense that Magick is a religion, but certainly NOT in a Christian context.



(.....where's my copy of "God and Man at Yale"???)

[r9etb]

This person is a divinity student at Yale and he/she needs a secular novel to explain theology??? Unbelievable!

Not what she said. I think her point was that it puts certain theological issues into a context that makes them easier to address.

You couldn't substitute this class for one on the works of Barth or St. Augustine -- nor do I imagine that Yale Divinity School is planning to do so.

OTOH, I can easily see this approach as being a useful means of engaging certain theological issues in a way that makes sense to a modern American.

[Tax-chick]

Everyone should demand their tuition back.

[Cecily]

I sure want to pay $30K to $40K a year to study this and other useless pop religion courses at Yale. Don’t you?

/s

[thefrankbaum]

Most people agree that the wildly popular Harry Potter series has a religious following. But to what extent are the stories about the fictional boy wizard a religious allegory?

Danielle Tumminio, a Yale Divinity School graduate student who instructs a course called "Christian Theology and Harry Potter" at Yale would say, "Yes."

Is that even English? Isn't the question "But to what extent are the stories about the fictional boy wizard a religious allegory?" How the HECK is "yes" an answer to that question?

I'm so glad I avoided the Ivys.

[Little Ray]

I’ve read the Harry Potter books. There is NO theology in them. No God or gods and darn little in way of spirits (mostly ghosts).

I guess that is what makes it easy...

[KosmicKitty]

It’s YALE

Atheists welcome here! God, they don’’t need no God in their divinity school

(I know a lot of Yale Divinity School grads)

[Billthedrill]

It does bring up an interesting little in-house fight within the field of literary criticism. Presumably, with Rowling still alive, they could simply ask her what she meant by the use of certain symbols and themes. And assuming she wished to be open about the matter (and there are very good reasons not to be, as the "Dumbledore is gay" kerfuffle illustrates) then she could provide what many of us would regard as the final word on the matter.

Not everyone, of course. One of the tenets of postmodern literary criticism (specifically Derrida) is that the author is irrelevant; later, even non-existent. That required a bit of stretching of the definition of "author" but the point was that the meaning of the thing is purely a process between text and reader. (And the corollary, that this might be different and equally valid between readers, which is also questionable). What went into that dynamic was, in the incredibly opaque interpretations of most of the pomos, a blend of two-penny sociology and some wand-waving that makes Harry look like an amateur.

And so, under these circumstances, any interpretation of the theology, or anything else, within the Potter books is perfectly debatable regardless of what us intellectual muggles might consider, and that includes Rowling herself. It is the litcrit equivalent of angels dancing on the head of a pin, IMHO, but you might stretch it to a few easy 300-level credits, and that's the point, after all. ;-)