John Granger
“The Dean of Harry Potter Scholars”
Described by TIME as the “Dean of Harry Potter Scholars,” John Granger has been writing and speaking about the artistry and meaning of Joanne Rowling’s Hogwarts Adventures since 2002. In all that time, he has consistently been ahead of the pack in understanding and explaining why readers love the Potter Saga. John is well known, for example, as the literary critic who spelled out the Christian content and value of Harry Potter within the tradition of English fantasy literature when others were burning the books because of their supposed “sorcery.” Seven years before Ms. Rowling’s alchemical scaffolding was revealed in an interview, too, John was explaining Shakespearean alchemical drama and its importance for understanding Harry to readers around the world. Most recently, in The Deathly Hallows Lectures, he has interpreted the predominant and extensive eye symbolism in the series finale in terms of the Romantic and Inkling traditions. If Harry Potter is a gateway to what’s best in English Literature, Granger is the gatekeeper for the Shared Text of this generation.
John’s insights about Harry Potter have been published by Tyndale, Penguin Books, and Zossima Press. In addition to How Harry Cast His Spell (Tyndale, 2008), the third edition and final update of his first book Hidden Key to Harry Potter, Granger is the author of Unlocking Harry Potter: Seven Keys for the Serious Reader (Zossima 2007), The Deathly Hallows Lectures: The Hogwarts Professor Explains the Final Harry Potter Adventure (Zossima, 2008), and Harry Potter’s Bookshelf: The Great Books Behind the Hogwarts Adventures (Penguin, 2009). He is currently writing Spotlight: A Close-Up Look at the Artistry and Meaning of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga.
He has been a Featured and Keynote Speaker at Harry Potter conferences in Boston, Orlando, Las Vegas, Toronto, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Illinois, San Francisco, and Ottawa in addition to giving talks and classes on symbolist literature and iconological criticism at schools and other venues around the US. Granger has been a guest speaker at Princeton, the Torrey Honors Institute (Biola), Pepperdine, Washington & Lee, La Salle, Cornell, Penn, Yale, the University of Chicago, Baylor, the New York C. S. Lewis Society, the New York Public Library (Mid Manhattan), and the Past Watchful Dragons C. S. Lewis Conference. He has given more than 100 radio, newspaper, and television interviews. With authors Travis Prinzi and James Thomas, John is a “Potter Pundit” on The Leaky Cauldron’s popular “PotterCasts.”
A dynamic and engaging speaker (can you say “Funny”?), John explains why we love reading our favorite books in a way everyone can understand and so that we want to read more books. Listen, for a sample of this magic, to his talk at Princeton in 2009 about Joanne Rowling as Hesitant Inkling or to his interview in this Hog’s Head PubCast about the Eyes of Deathly Hallows. You can schedule the “Dean of Harry Potter Scholars” for a ‘wow’ talk at your school, church, or library either by contacting him directly or through the Penguin Speakers Bureau and the Orthodox Speakers Bureau. Call or write today!
John can be reached by writing him at john at HogwartsProfessor dot com.
