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MIT Wizard Henry Jenkin’s speaks on Teen Grid about Harry Potter and civic engagement

Posted on April 18, 2008 by

Henry Jenkins / Harry Potter Dance Party of Good and Evil

Interesting close of the day at Global Kids. I just finished helping Rafi and Barry with a Teen Grid event featuring MIT’s Henry Jenkins called the "Harry Potter Dance Party of Good and Evil."  Henry was speaking about the connections between Harry Potter and civic engagement, which apparently has more links than you might think.  Appropriately, Henry was kipped out in a lovely Dumbledore costume, while Barry was wearing a neat dragon avatar for the occassion.  I unfortunately did not have my act together, so just had on my standard steampunk outfit.

Henry talked about how lots of the fanbase around Harry Potter have used their community networks to organize all sorts of social and political actions, way beyond what was envisioned by J.K. Rowling when she wrote the novels. It’s a nice reminder that when you get a bunch of people together there are lots of unanticipated consequences. 

There was a nice turnout of teens at the virtual event, even when they realized that the dance party would be interspersed with a voice conversation between Henry Jenkins and Barry Joseph. The dance sections themselves were fun, since the DJ played a bunch of "Wizard Rock" — music inspired by the Harry Potter universe.  I think that it would be awesome if all intellectual lectures had dance sections interspersed at regular intervals.

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