BY ALEXANDER ROLLE

In print | September 25, 2008

On Thursday, Sept. 18, Professor of English Literature Melinda Finberg’s first-year seminar “Battling Against Voldemort” was filmed by MTV as part of a segment on the phenomenon of Harry Potter books appearing in college curricula.

The class, which studies J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series in addition to a number of other related texts such as J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, attempts to “understand why we are driven to invent stories about battling inhuman powers to learn what it means to be human,” according to its course description. It was filmed as an example of the use of Harry Potter in an English literature class. At other schools MTV filmed the books being used in other academic disciplines like Religion and History.

Only one cameraperson stayed in the room with the students while they discussed the fifth book of the series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. “The filming was as smooth as could be,” Finberg said.

While most students agreed that being filmed while participating in class was strange at first, they didn’t feel that it was a real disruption. “It was kind of awkward to begin with, but once we really started our discussion it was good. We had a really good class — it was intense,” Owen Masters ’12 said.

While some were surprised that the college allowed MTV to film on campus given the administration’s reputation for avoiding media attention, Vice President Maurice Eldridge ’61 said that he “didn’t have anything against the opportunity to display a lively intellectual pursuit to the wider world.” However, he did go on to say that “the impression that we shy away [from media attention] is correct, we’re very careful about that. We’ve been burned a couple of times over the years … and our philosophy is fluid enough to surprise people,” Eldridge said.

It was brought to the attention of Eldridge and others that the MTV crew had placed a sign over one entrance to Kohlberg Hall, where the first-year seminar meets, stating that entering the building gave MTV permission to use their images in the spot they were filming.

 “The only people who were filmed were students in the class,” Finberg said, speculating that the sign over the entrance to Kohlberg (which she never saw) was to protect MTV legally in case the film crew accidentally captured someone who was not a member of the seminar in a shot.

Eldridge, who was not made aware of the sign until after it had been placed, admitted to being uncomfortable with its presence in an academic setting. “Had they consulted with us we would have advised them to find a different way to get that message across,” Eldridge said. Although the matter was brought to his attention after the fact, Eldridge said he was not aware of anyone who had been made particularly uncomfortable by the sign.

The students in the first-year seminar, despite an initial awkwardness, had no complaints about being filmed. “The students had to sign a release … I had told them about the possibility that MTV would be filming us on the first day of class, to make sure they were all comfortable with it, and they were all very excited,” Finberg said.

First-year seminars, which are designed to help introduce first-year students to college level courses, often facilitate this transition by featuring texts or subjects to which students can easily relate, allowing them to better focus on writing at the college level and carrying on meaningful discussions with their peers.

“Battling Against Voldemort,” which Professor Finberg taught last year as well, is very popular, and is consistently lotteried. Asked about why she was interested in teaching this course, Finberg said that “I’ve always been fascinated by myths and why we feel we need to tell stories over and over again.” While she said that the first semester she taught the class she was “very ambitious” and used a wide variety of related texts, the course now focuses primarily on 20th and 21st century myths, which enables the class to think more easily about the socio-historic context of the Harry Potter books.

“It’s been great fun,” Finberg said. “I think the students have learned an awful lot.”

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