Current mood:	interested
Entry tags:	programming

programming -- panels
In recent posts, we highlighted a few of our roundtable discussions and fanart portfolios. Today, we'd like to feature a few panels. Panels are a discussion between several participants, and led by a moderator. The moderator and panelists may or may not take questions from the audience, depending on the direction of their presentation.

Becoming Your Enemy: Ethics in Harry Potter
Kenneth L. Schneyer, Anthony Buenning, Rob Smith, Karen Morris
In the final three books--Order of the Phoenix, Half-Blood Prince, and Deathly Hallows--we gain an increased awareness of how much Rowling’s heroes must sacrifice in vanquishing evil. This panel will discuss the ethics of playing by your enemy’s rules in order to defeat them. From Dumbledore’s Army, devised initially to provide alternative Defense Against the Dark Arts instruction and transformed to a complex resistance movement, to Deathly Hallows’ revelation of Dumbledore’s own past, the characters’ pursuit of the greater good is shown to follow some rather dark paths. Does wartime create exceptions to acceptable behavior, and if so, how far do they stretch? What are the moral and ethical costs? If you act like your enemy, have you already lost?

I Was a Teenage Potterhead: How the Chosen One Helped Us Through College
Megan Kowalski, Shaelynn M. Wolfe, Melissa Kliemann, Bailey Wellman, Joshua Benson
This presentation will focus on the use of Harry Potter in academia. As undergraduate or graduate students of Central Michigan University, all of the panelists have had varying experiences with Harry Potter, both formally in the classroom and informally on campus. Their experiences include (but are not limited to) a graduate-level seminar focusing on the Harry Potter series, academic discussion using aspects of literary theory as part of a book club, making new friends and meeting new people thanks to participation in class or book clubs, and using knowledge of Harry Potter to help further their education in specialized fields, including English, broadcasting, psychology, music, and computer science.

Writing in the Margins: Characterization and the Art of Navigating Between Canon and Fanon Snape
Femme (femmequixotic), Djinnj, Go Seaward, Beth H.
Fans interpreting canon create a wide spectrum of characterizations. Rarely has the spectrum been so broad as it is with Snape. Using Snape as a test case, the panelists will discuss the limits of what we can consider a canon characterization and whether fanon interpretations contradict or align with canon. The panelists will discuss specific varieties of Snape, in otheir own fanfiction and in others’, and the effect of community and genre on authors’ Snape choices.