Meaning making, sacred reading, and political engagement in the "Harry Potter and the Sacred Text" podcast

Authors

  • Cynthia Cheshire University of Aberdeen

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2019.1791

Keywords:

Politics, Religion, Religious nones, Sacred texts, Spirituality

Abstract

The cohosts of the Harry Potter and the Sacred Text podcast, Vanessa Zoltan and Casper ter Kuile, along with producer Ariana Nedelman, work chapter by chapter through the Harry Potter series, reading each chapter through randomly selected themes and applying sacred textual reading practices to find hidden layers of meaning within the text. This witches' brew of analysis invites their listeners to move from fandom-focused media consumers to promoters of fandom-inspired political engagement.

Author Biography

Cynthia Cheshire, University of Aberdeen

I am currently a PhD candidate at the School of Divinity, History, and Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. My dissertation, "The Road Beyond Null and Negation", advocates for an intersectional hermeneutic as an essential partner with the mainstream literary-, historical-, and rhetorical-critical approaches to the Baptismal Formula of Galatians 3:28, 1 Corinthians 12:13, and Colossians 3:11. My research interests include intersectional hermeneutics, Pauline scholarship, Graeco-Roman culture, modern applications of Biblical texts, and the intersection of religion and pop culture. 

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Published

2019-12-15

Issue

Vol. 31 (2019): Fan Fiction and Ancient Scribal Cultures

Section

Symposium

License

TWC Nos. 25 onward are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC by 4.0). For an explanation of the journal's reasoning, see the TWC editorial Copyright and Open Access. TWC Nos. 1 through 24 are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC 3.0) license, with TWC, not the author, retaining copyright.

Presses whose policies require written permission for reproduction should contact the TWC Editor; such permission is routinely given for no fee.