The University of Memphis has a variety of organizations for students to participate in, from the French Club to the Hispanic Student Association to the Student Government Association, but there is one club that appeals to the literary heart and captures the interest of fantasy lovers on campus.
The Harry Potter Club is a club dedicated to the much loved, respected and adored series of books written by the author JK Rowling. It is safe to say that most people, if not everyone, knows the story about the young boy who suddenly finds out he is a wizard and is sent to a school called Hogwarts. It is also no little known fact that the films do immensely well in theaters, and, according to the Internet Movie Database, the first Harry Potter film became the second highest grossing film around the world, with only Titanic ahead.
So it is no surprise that this club would surface, even among the college crowd.
“It’s just a bunch of fans,” says English instructor Catherine Dice. “The current crop of college students is the perfect age group to have been about 10 or 11 years old when the books started, and of course Harry was 11 years old in the first book. So, it’s almost like this group of college students has grown up along with Harry.”
The club has not been here long, however. The founders even had some trouble starting it and getting people to come.
“They had tried to make a club last year, but I guess maybe it wasn’t advertised very well. So they had a meeting and only like six people came, and the people who organized it, they were just crushed. They really thought there would be more love for Harry Potter,” said English instructor Tammy Jones.
But this new year seems promising. As far as flyers go, advertising has gone well, with one flyer introducing itself, showing the words “no Death Eaters or Twilight fans allowed”. Another flyer advertises a “Death Day Bash” as a Halloween celebration, in which anyone who is coming has to wear a Harry Potter-related costume. This event appeared on Facebook, along with the club itself. With the act of placing advertisements where many students would be sure to see them, and using social media for making connections, the club has a greater chance of taking off and bringing in more Harry Potter fans, even more than the 80 or so members that are in the club now.
And indeed, this year, the club takes in many people. James M. Smith Hall is where the meetings take place, and the first meeting was a great surprise to many people.
“I think they were expecting maybe 20 or 30 people to show up, and lo and behold a hundred people show up and they’re crammed into the room and violating all kinds of fire codes, I’m sure,” says Dice. “And it’s just taken off.”
Perhaps the most interesting thing about the emergence of a Harry Potter club on campus is the possibility of a Quidditch team, among other possibilities such as a ball and Harry Potter trivia. In the world of Harry Potter, Quidditch is a sport played on flying broomsticks, and features balls that could knock one off of their broom and another ball that is small, quick, and could end the game in a second.
Obviously, Quidditch in real life is quite different, because of course there is not a possibility of flying brooms. The players are still required to keep brooms between their legs at all times. Dice describes it as being similar to soccer, but with brooms.
“I personally would not play,” says Jones, with a laugh. “But there are some really hardcore fans, and they want to express that athletically. It combines two things that they love.”
And for Quidditch players from other schools, it has become a very huge deal. The International Quidditch Association is a league of Quidditch teams from many areas. Countries such as the United Kingdom, of course, Argentina, South Africa, and Russia have teams devoted to this game. Close to three-hundred teams are found throughout the world, and one-hundred of them are official members of the league.
There is no mistake that the love for this series is very intense, enough to have clubs and teams created by people in adulthood. But what is it about this story that is so desirable?
“Every generation has its hero story. Its adventure story,” says Dice. She reads a quote from the author Stephen King, who compares Harry Potter to Twilight, a popular series about vampires and romance, and shows how the former is more appealing.
“‘Harry Potter is all about confronting fears, finding inner strength, and doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend.’” And this quote may be true. Harry Potter appeals and will keep appealing to more and more audiences of more and more generations, because of the magic and imagination that it brings.
For more information about the Harry Potter Club, go here. For more information about the International Quidditch Association, go here.
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