Your "syllabus" items had hardly anything to do with Harry Potter, so I don't see how you can call it a "Harry Potter-style" course. Sure, you can extract college-level topics like you were doing from anything, even G.I. Joe or My Little Pony. But that doesn't mean they are worthy of college study, or that you should offer entire courses about them. Heck, there are even (disturbed) adult men who love My Little Pony - they're called "Bronies".ursamajor said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:What you're describing doesn't resemble a "Harry Potter course" so I'm not sure exactly what it is you're arguing.ursamajor said:I think you probably got my point about the Bible: just because you read something when you were younger doesn't mean you got everything you could out of it.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:The comparison with the Bible is patently absurd. There's quite a bit of a difference between:ursamajor said:I'm not really sure that makes a difference. I'd read much of the Bible and certainly knew most of the stories by the time I was in 5th grade. I also think many 5th graders could grasp the basics of marketing and investing if they had any interest in them.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:The salient difference is that it would be highly doubtful that books about Sam Walton's entrepreneurial techniques, Warren Buffet's investment strategies, or Steve Jobs' marketing would be read by 5th graders.ursamajor said:
As Osodecentx says, a liberal arts education alone justifies engaging with any piece of literature. I don't understand the idea of mocking a class you haven't taken.
And what of the fact that JK Rowling is one of the wealthiest people in Britain? Would you mock a class studying Sam Walton's entrepreneurial techniques or Warren Buffet's investment strategies or Steve Jobs' marketing?
Then how about secondary education majors? Should they not have the opportunity to study critically the most significant piece of youth literature in half a century before going to teach 12-18 year olds?
That doesn't even take into consideration that HP has many explicit Christian themes. It even culminates in a death/resurrection/sacrifice scene set at King's Cross. Not overly subtle.
Then what about the idea Garrett specifically addresses on twitter?: the ethical quandaries involved in the separation of the product from the producer, especially in a politically charged environment.
Lots of educational fodder there. Certainly not an embarrassment.
I don't think I can name a single college course where the entire course text(s) had already been read by the students back when they were in elementary school.
But that's also not really my point. There are many ways to view literature. I was simply naming some of those ways: as a good used for profit, as a tool for studying the sociology of teenagers, as a quasi-Christian narrative, as a focal point in the question of how to separate the art from the artist. Those are all real and relevant parts of life.
No one's suggesting majoring in Harry Potter, but one (optional) course? Why not?
- an anthology of books written by about 40 divinely inspired authors over a 1,500 year period that details Hebrew history and the history of the Jewish religion as well as the rise of early Christianity, and which contains densely rich and beautifully poetic and symbolic language that is didactic, philosophical, and prophetic in nature, and which has been exquisitely preserved for millennia through countless number of copies and language translations, and which has been the sole source of inspiration and authority for at least three of the world's major religions, and over which entire conflicts and wars have been fought over throughout history, and about which entire schools, academic disciplines, and vocations have been built around, and for which countless martyrs have literally given their lives......
- .....and a series of fictional books aimed at children, written by a modern day feminist for immense profit.
And let's be honest - you didn't read the bible by the 5th grade. Even if you did, I highly doubt you really understood what you were reading. The bible wasn't written for 5th graders. It's too difficult even for many educated adults to read and understand fully. I suppose if you happen to be the one in 10 million children who is precocious enough to engage in readings of the bible or entrepreneurial, marketing, or financial strategies and truly understand them, still, this doesn't mean that a college course should be built around what is aimed at average, everyday children like the Harry Potter books.
Your points about how such literature can be utilized to derive college-level subject matter is valid, but it'd be better as part of a broader survey course involving a meta analysis of different literature instead of as a standalone focusing on one book. For example, "Children's Literature and the Sociology of Teenagers" or "Religious themes in Children/Adolescent Literature". Or, alternatively, a course on the author herself (Rowling), much like courses on Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. Except there, I'd argue that Rowling isn't anywhere near the status of those two so it'd be unjustifiable, but I guess that's a different argument.
Your point seems to be that everything there is to get out of HP you could get out of it in 5th grade. Or that it is only for "average, everyday" fifth graders.
But that's clearly not true. It's not written at a fifth grade level, it spans several thousand pages with intricate plot and character development, and it touches thoughtfully on major literary themes. Why not couple that with all the topics I named in my last post in a single course (instead of splitting them up into topical courses)? Plus, in a TikTok world, throw in a week studying how this one book series did what no other series has done: it became a massive cultural phenomenon for young people, centered on reading. Heck, I feel like we're halfway there to a syllabus already.
Making Money with Literature
Rowling vs Lewis/Tolkein
A Cultural Phenomenon of Reading
Sociology of Teenagers in Literature
Christian Themes in HP
The Product vs the Producer of an Item or Artwork
Children's Literature vs Adult Literary Fiction: Where to Draw the Line?
And the point was not that 5th graders are the only target for Harry Potter, or that they are able to get everything out of it. But clearly the audience that is drawn to those books is virtually only adolescents and children. What do you expect from a story about 11 year olds at a magical witchcraft school?
What I'm describing is precisely a Harry Potter-style college course. The question is can you find educational value from HP worthy of college students. There are lots of ways to do that.
To your second point, clearly there are people older than adolescents who enjoy these books. Which is not to say that things targeted to adolescents cannot be worthy of study in their own right.
And we're talking about what, 20 of 14,000 undergraduates who are taking this course? There are very few topics that wouldn't be of interest and worthy of study for 20/14000.
At the end of the day I just don't understand the animosity towards this or any course.
Is anyone surprised that 20 students at a university would like HP? Is anyone surprised that a department would offer the occasional course designed to appeal to student interests? Did anyone on this board not take at least one class in college just because it seemed interesting or fun or less-intense?
If the objection is to costs of college, then I'm right there. But that's not the professors' fault. That's a systemic failure based on an impossible government program simultaneously being exploited by loan organizations.
Look, a glorified book club like a Harry Potter class might be okay for community college. But for a college that wants to be elite? You say you don't see the problem - can you REALLY not see why people might not look too favorably on a college course dedicated entirely to a book geared towards children? Might you have some idea? I think you do, you're just playing the role of the defiant apologetic here.
