Cooney on Larry Potter and the Deathly Canon @WMUcooleylaw @jmarkcooney

Mark Cooney, Western Michigan University Cooley Law School, has published Larry Potter and the Deathly Canon at 99 Mich. B. J. 48 (Sept. 2020). Here is the abstract.

This Michigan Bar Journal column discusses the ejusdem generis canon of statutory construction, using a courtroom-based Harry Potter parody as its vehicle.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Hidalgo on Due Process in Harry Potter @EmilyABishop2

Jessica Victoria Hidalgo, Loyola (NOLA) Law School, has published “Accio Due Process!” Solving the Due Process Crisis in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them at Loyola (New Orleans) Law Review Online, published May 16, 2018.

Pop Culture Profs and the Profs Who Love Them @chronicle

Images of pop culture professors: do real life academics see themselves on the screen? On tv? In novels? More here from Suhuana Hussain in The Chronicle of Higher Education. 

Cooper on Culpability for Curses in Jewish Law and Mystical Lore

Levi Cooper, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, has published Culpability for Curses in Jewish Law and Mystical Lore, in Wizards vs. Muggles: Essays on Identity and the Harry Potter Universe 168(Christopher E. Bell, ed., Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2016).

Would a court judging according to Jewish Law find Voldemort guilty for the murders of James and Lily Potter? Voldemort had the intention to kill, yet the legal question is: Would Jewish Law consider the Killing Curse to be an act of murder? This study explores legal aspects of three magical phenomena – incantations that kill, automatic writing like Tom Riddle’s Diary, and food with different possible tastes like Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans – as they are discussed in Jewish Law. In Jewish esoteric lore, magical phenomena have conventionally been the province of the mystically adept. Though laypeople may not have been proficient in magic, the mystical tradition dictated conduct. A by-product of this situation was that jurists considered legal implications of magic. Legal opinions on magical phenomena can therefore be found in Jewish legal literature, making this corpus fertile ground for analysis. Drawing on the fields of Comparative Law, Law and Literature, and Legal History, this article analyzes three phenomena and concludes with four contentions: First, the analysis speaks to the possibility of cross-fertilization in Comparative Law. Second, the study provides a unique window into the world of Jewish Law jurists, and thus is of interest to legal historians and judicial biographers. Third, the material presented here contributes to our understanding of the reaches of the Jewish legal system. Fourth, the present discussion may be significant for the contemporary challenge of charting a course in legal education.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.

The Exam Period Isn't Over: Harry Potter and the Human Rights Quiz

J. K. Rowling infuses the Harry Potter stories with many important human rights messages. In a short quiz (link below), RightsInfo blogger Natasha Holcroft-Emmess asks whether you can tell the difference between human rights language from the Harry Potter works and actual human rights documents or statements from human rights leaders around the world.

Here's the link to the quiz from the RightsInfo blog....


And below is a selected bibliography on Harry Potter and human rights.

Benjamin G. Davis, When Harry Met Martin: Imagination, Imagery and the Color Line, in The Law in Harry Potter (Carolina Academic Press, 2010), at 179.

Benjamin Loffredo, Harry Potter and the Curse of Difference, in The Law in Harry Potter, (Carolina Academic Press, 2010) at 167.

Alison McMorran Sulentic, Harry Potter and the Image of God: How House-Elves Can Help Us to Understand the Dignity of the Person, in The Law in Harry Potter (Carolina Academic Press, 2010) at 189.

Geoffrey R. Watson, The Persecution of Tom Riddle: A Study in Human Rights Law, in The Law in Harry Potter (Carolina Academic Press, 2010) at 103.

Have suggestions to add to the bibliography above? Send them along! Thanks.

A Website Devoted to Harry Potter and Law

If you're interested in Harry Potter and law (or law and literature) check out the website Harry Potter et le droit here. Site is in French. Clever, informative, interesting.

Harry Potter's "Hermione" and Color-Blind Casting

Noah Berlatsky weighs in on the controversy over a black Hermione in the play "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" here, for the Guardian. Says Mr. Berlatsky (in part):

If Hermione is black, then ... themes about racism become much more pointed. Hermione, remember, is the one person at Hogwarts who is horrified by the enslavement of the house elves. When she’s black, her sympathy inescapably becomes rooted in her racial identity – her knowledge of her own marginalised status, and of her own people’s history. Similarly, the racial epithets thrown her way by Draco Malfoy and others take on a greater weight and ugliness. When Malfoy calls her a “filthy little mudblood”, he’s referring to the fact that her parents are non-wizards, or muggles. But if Hermione is black, you have to read it also as a racial insult. If Hermione isn’t white, it can’t be coincidence that the “mud” in “mudblood” is brown.

More about color-blind casting here and about casting Hermione as black here.

Harry Potter à la mode

A new book on law and Harry Potter, this one in French:

Jean-Claude Milner, Harry Potter: A l’école des sciences morales et politiques (PUF, 2014) (the date of publication is listed as July 2014).

Here's the table of contents: Introduction

1 – Le Roman d’éducation

2 – Les leçons de la tante Marge

3 – La leçon d’Eton

4 – La leçon des humanistes

5 – La leçon de Voldemort

6 – La leçon des sorciers

7 – La leçon des moldus et le secret de Dumbledore

Conclusion

A tip of the sorting hat to José Calvo Gonzalez, University of Malaga

Harry Potter in the Law School Curriculum

Marc Roark of the Literary Table on using Harry Potter in the Law School curriculum.

Harry Potter and the First Year Curriculum

Nancy J.White, Central Michigan University, has published Harry Potter and the Denial of Due Process. Here is the abstract.

This paper is designed to be used to teach students the concept of due process using the book/move Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It contains an overview of due process and examples using due process violations from the book.

Download the paper from SSRN at the link.

Ever More Potter

J. K. Rowling has announced her new interactive website, Pottermore. Potter around it (a litter) here.  I'm sure Potter fans are already raven about it, even though it doesn't actually launch until October. The faithful, though, can sign up via email, to get sneak peeks on July 31st. 

More from the Daily Telegraph and the Hollywood Reporter.

Meanwhile, I direct your attention to these tomes:

The Law and Harry Potter (Jeffrey Snyder and Franklin Snyder, Carolina Academic Press, 2010).
The Ultimate Harry Potter and Philosophy: Hogwarts For Muggles (William Irwin and Greg Bassham, eds.; Wiley, 2010).
Want, Robert S., Harry Potter and the Order of the Court: The J. K. Rowling Copyright Case and the Question of Fair Use (NationsCourts.com, 2008).

Taking "Harry Potter" Seriously

A book by Shira Wolosky on the meaning of Harry Potter. From the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Higher Education: The Dumbledore Factor

From the Chronicle of Higher Education, why Dumbledore is a good administrator (but check out the comments--some folks don't agree).

A New Book on The Law and Harry Potter

New Collection: The Law and Harry Potter, edited by Jeffrey E. Thomas and Franklin G. Snyder (Carolina Academic Press, 2010). This volume considers the depiction of law and legal institutions in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels. It contains more than twenty chapters by legal academics from the U.S. and abroad. The chapters are organized in five sections: Legal Traditions and Institutions, Crimes and Punishments, Harry Potter and Identity, the Wizard Economy, and Harry Potter as an Archetype. Some chapters analyze the way law and legal institutions are portrayed, and what these portrayals teach us about concepts such as morality, justice, and difference. Other chapters illustrate or analyze legal issues, such as human rights, actual innocence, and legal pedagogy. The volume is suitable for undergraduate or law school courses, and will be of interest to those Harry Potter fans who also have an interest in law and the legal profession.

The Allure of Alcohol in the Newest Harry Potter Flick

The New York Times' Tara Parker-Pope discusses the flood of alcohol in the newest Harry Potter movie.

Previous Harry Potter movies have shown drinking, but this one takes it to a new level. In one scene, Harry, Ron and Hermione order butterbeers at the pub, and Hermione ends up with a frothy mustache. While it’s never been entirely clear whether butterbeer is alcoholic, it seems to have an effect on the normally uptight Hermione, who acts tipsy walking home as she throws her arms around the boys. As the mother of a 10-year-old Harry Potter fan, I was taken aback by the reaction of the young people in the theater. They snickered at Hermione’s goofy grin and, later, guffawed when an inebriated Hagrid passed out. While I don’t think my daughter fully understood what was going on, I wondered how other parents, educators and addiction experts would react.

Read the rest of her article here.

Does the image of teens quaffing booze present a teachable moment? Only, I'd suggest, if parents and guardians know about the moment to begin with. A good reason for them to go to movies with their children, and to interest themselves in their children's reading, movie-watching, videogame playing and other hobbies. But not too much. Nothing so uncool as an adult who's trying too hard. Remember your own tween and teen years. Heed the cardinal rule: Embarrass Them Not!

Fan Fiction and the RDR Books Decision

Megan L. Richardson, University of Melbourne Law School, and David Tan have published The Art of Retelling: Harry Potter and Copyright in a Fan-Literature Era as 14 Media & Arts Law Review 31 (2009). Here is the abstract.

Simple assertions that fans are harmless may be belied by the copyright cases threatened and launched by authors of popular fictional works, against fans who write secondary works based on distinctive elements of the original stories. On the other hand, it may be that authors are too possessive of their creations, seeking to control their imaginary afterlives. The story of Warner Bros v RDR Books - the Harry Potter Lexicon case - provides a vehicle to examine the conundrum. The decision of Patterson J in the US District Court seeks to navigate a fine line between original authorial control and literary activities of fans, in suggesting that, in the main, fan literature should be encouraged and protected as fair use for copyright law purposes. However, the judge faced an uphill battle in countering Rowling's insistence that she was entitled to exercise control over all products derived from her 'nominative genius'. In the decision's aftermath, Rowling has elected to support rather than challenge a new version of the Lexicon, which seeks to incorporate substantially more commentary than the original version. However, we wonder what breathing space will be left for fan fiction.

Download the article from SSRN here.

Harry Potter the Anglo-Saxon

Susan Liemer, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale School of Law, has published "Bot and Gemots: Anglo-Saxon Legal References in Harry Potter," forthcoming in Harry Potter and the Law (Carolina Academic Press). Here is the abstract.

In the popular Harry Potter book series, author J.K. Rowling obliquely references the legal world of the old Anglo-Saxon tribes. This article explains how she does so and offers explanations to help readers understand the parallels between legal institutions of the Anglo-Saxon world and the legal institutions in Harry's wizard world. This understanding may deepen readers' appreciation of the dynamics in each trial scene in the series.

Download the essay from SSRN here.

Fan Fiction, Harry Potter, and Copyright Law

Aaron Schwabach, Thomas Jefferson School of Law, has published "The Harry Potter Lexicon and the World of Fandom: Fan Fiction, Outsider Works, and Copyright," has TJSL Legal Studies Research Paper No. 1274293. Here is the abstract.

Fan fiction, long a nearly invisible form of outsider art, has grown exponentially in volume and legal importance in the past decade. Because of its nature, authorship, and underground status, fan fiction stands at an intersection of issues of property, sexuality, and gender. This article examines three disputes over fan writings, concluding with the recent dispute between J.K. Rowling and Steven Vander Ark over the Harry Potter Lexicon, which Rowling once praised and more recently succeeded in suppressing. The article builds on and adds to the emerging body of scholarship on fan fiction, concluding that much fan fiction is fair use under 17 U.S.C. section 107. But much is not, as well.

Download the paper from SSRN here.

Harry Potter, College Student

Patrick Lee, a freshman at Yale, writes for CNNU about Potter-themed courses at universities and colleges around the United States here.

More On Fan Fiction

Jacqueline Lai Chung, William and Mary School of Law, has published "Drawing Idea From Expression: Creating a Legal Space For Culturally Appropriated Literary Characters," in volume 49 of the William and Mary Law Review. Here is the abstract.

This paper examines the influx of secondary creativity involving culturally iconic literary characters (i.e. Harry Potter fan-fiction) and considers whether, and how, copyright law should account for the unauthorized appropriation of these protected literary characters. Traditionally, the courts have held that characters are independently copyrightable if they meet one of two tests: the distinct delineation test espoused by Learned Hand in the Seventh Circuit opinion, Nichols v. Universal Pictures Corporation (1930), or the story being told test put forward by the Ninth Circuit in Warner Brothers Pictures v. Columbia Broadcasting System (1954). These existing standards for character protection focus on the rights and the entitlements of the original author. This paper argues that copyright law should do more to focus on the creative rights of readers, who often seek to employ iconic characters as tools for cultural dialogue and artistic expression. This shift towards readers' rights may require more than just the expansion of fair use principles over a greater number of secondary uses. What is required, more fundamentally, is a re-conceptualizing of the idea of protectibility in the first place. Certain iconic characters, because they are imbued with so much cultural meaning, are no longer singularly-owned forms of authorial expression; they have become, instead, collectively-owned concepts - tools for expression - in a society constantly engaged in creative dialogue. Hence, on the idea/expression continuum that allows copyright protection for expressions but not ideas, culturally-appropriated characters should fall more appropriately into the realm of the unprotected idea, and in this way, allow greater freedom for secondary uses.

Download the paper from SSRN here.

Meanwhile, J. K. Rowling and Warner Brothers are suing Steven Van Ark and his publisher over the Harry Potter Lexicon, a book based on Mr. Van Ark's website, claiming copyright infringement. Ms. Rowling plans to release her own Potterpedia in future. Mr. Van Ark's position is that Ms. Rowling cannot claim to own all works that mention her characters or works. That would bring literary criticism or commentary to a halt. Read more here.