In my essay, I would like to show how addiction is present in the Harry Potter novels and how this connects with addiction within our society. Specifically, by showing the commonalities between magic and medicine, I want to show how addiction is created and how it can be best dealt with. What works with my draft currently is my personal approach and my need to bridge my two disciplines. What also works is qualifying the parallels between medical society and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. This step will allow me to start a conversation about addiction and how it is depicted in Harry Potter as a character’s yearning and how it too can manifest as a physical necessity. My challenge will be to show the implications of my research. It will be difficult to support my conclusions because this seems to be unexplored territory. I find it important to make these conjectures because it shows what can be done with literature and how it can serve as a medical application. I think that the solution may lie in connecting with my panel partner and exploring the big questions, such as “What can we do with literature?” and “Does art imitate culture?” By answering these, I will be able to establish and answer my thesis that addiction in literature and within society share many parallels and that the answers to addiction in literature may then offer solutions to addiction in Western society. This might be a stretch, but I find it necessary in terms of my personal goals previously stated.
After working together on the panel for the symposium, I think your project has come a long way. I suggest you continue to build the bridge between addiction and Harry Potter. You put forth your theories well but more fluid integration of the text couldn’t hurt. Perhaps there’s additional literature you can find? Overall, I think your other sources are effective. Your double major mirrors the Harry Potter literature and your question(s) regarding medicine nicely. In your final paper, I think you should elaborate on Professor Frank’s idea about addiction’s relation to reading the Harry Potter novels themselves. I wonder if you have since moved away from the question “Does art imitate culture?,” as you’ve elaborated so heavily on the medical side of things. What solutions to addiction in Western society does Harry Potter propose?
It was really cool to see your project develop further from the planning stages to our class presentation and then in its final (though brief) form at the symposium. Overall, I think you did a great job of bridging your two majors together, which made for an interesting concept that I never would have thought of. Having been a huge fan of Harry Potter myself, you definitely opened my eyes to the ways in which Rowling’s universe holds many similarities to the world of medicine. Perhaps in your final paper it would be interesting to address where the concept of adolescence would fit into your argument, since your project is based on young adult fiction. Professor Frank brought it up nicely in the symposium and I think it would be a very intriguing avenue to explore. Nice work!