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Harry and Tarot: Reflections of the Major Arcana in the Harry Potter Books
Program Code:
190
Date:
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Time:
5:00 PM to 6:00 PM
EST
SPEAKER
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Barbara Purdom studied Classics and Anthropology at Temple University in Philadelphia, where she still lives with her husband, children and too many cats, and presented "Metaphorical Queerness in the Harry Potter Books" at The Witching Hour and "Maiden, Mother, Crone" at Lumos. She has been on the Board of Directors of HPEF since its inception and is working on a book about the underlying themes of power in Rowling's books as well as writing two fantasy novels and editing a collection of sermons written by clergy and lay preachers about Harry Potter.
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Description
Why is the name of the pub at the beginning of Goblet of Fire “The Hanged Man”? Why does Trelawney carry the sixteenth card in the Tarot deck? Why is the third book the one in which Hermione time-travels and in which Divination is introduced? Why does the sixth book have the most romance in it? What many readers may not know is that there is another hero’s journey (besides Campbell’s) through which the HP books may be analyzed: the Tarot Major Arcana. Carl Jung saw these twenty-two cards as the story of a person’s journey through life; examining the cards that “go” with each book will shed more light on why the author may have placed certain events in particular books, as well as illuminating Rowling’s use of symbolism, metaphor and structure. (No previous knowledge of Tarot is required.)