Harry Potter Day

On Sunday, 22 November 2009 the Penn Museum was transformed into a magical place—a meeting ground for the fan culture of Harry Potter aficionados as well as for those interested in celebrating the worldwide fascination with magic.

Visitors experienced the Ordinary Wizarding Level (O.W.L.) exams, with cram classes and “tests” conducted by Hogwarts (and University of Pennsylvania) professors on such essentials as Potions (with Professor Snape presiding), History of Magic (with a scavenger hunt through the galleries), Defense Against the Dark Arts (with Wii Dueling and an opportunity to sign up for Dumbledore’s Army), Latin for Wizards, and Divination. Elmwood Park Zoo’s traveling wizards presented a “Cabinet of Curiosities” and some magical creatures, at an ongoing O.W.L. exam program. A special end-of-the-world lecture, “2012: Maya Divination” was offered for extra credit.

Visitors toured a life-sized recreation of the storefronts and props of Diagon Alley, created by Harry Potter enthusiasts Betsy Coe and Jeannine Ginsburg, who offered a talk on the history of their project, including the recent use of the Alley in a Women’s Center for Montgomery County fundraiser.

Led by Penn Anthropologist Louise Krasniewicz—who teaches “Mythology and the Movies” through the Anthropology and Cinema Studies Departments—the day’s festivities take place throughout the Museum’s classrooms, auditoriums, and galleries. Besides providing visitors with fun opportunities to meet Harry Potter characters (as depicted by Penn and Museum faculty, staff, students, and volunteers) and participate in Harry Potter activities (house sorting, bean and butterbeer tasting, potion and wand making, and wizard chess), the goal for the day is to create an environment where Museum visitors can experience “fan culture” and learn something about the importance of myth, magic, and belief systems in cultures around the world through a series of presentations by Penn faculty and docent-led tours.

Louise Krasniewicz notes, “the wizarding world of Harry Potter . . . also lives on in the fan culture that has grown up around the characters and ideas about magic that J. K. Rowling developed. In order to understand, as anthropologists, what Harry Potter means to viewers and readers, I want my students to experience a part of that fan culture by developing and participating in a fan event . . . . By bringing an event to Penn Museum, I hope my students—and our visitors—can see how important such active participation can be to understanding the mythological stories that govern our understandings of the world.”