At the New York City stop on J.K. Rowling’s Open Book Tour, J.K. Rowling announced (in response to a question from the audience) that Dumbledore was gay.  For various reasons, this has caused quite a stir.  How does this change, if at all, how we perceive Dumbledore, how we view his childhood pursuit of power?  Does this change the nature of the books, their appropriateness for children, or their religious character?  All these questions, and a few others, are discussed in this week’s episode.

A few relevant links:

• Report from an eye-witness.
• Wikipedia article on “Death of the Author.”
• Wikipedia article on “Reader response theory.”
• Blogdigger blog search for dumbledore gay.

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This week’s poll:

How do you feel about Dumbledore being gay?

Survey by Quibblo

You can listen to the podcast with the player below, or download it directly as an mp3.

J.K. Rowling has begin her Open Book Tour, with stops in Los Angeles, New Orleans and New York City. At the press conference at the LA appearance, J.K. Rowling spoke for the first time at length on the religious themes of the Harry Potter books, speaking openly about the Christian themes and references in Book 7. She also spoke about Snape, Dumbledore, the Harry Potter Encyclopedia and how she broke the news of the fate of the trio to the actors who portrayed them.

• Details from the Open Book Tour LA press conference - Religion. (MTV News)
• More from MTV on Snape and Dumbledore.
• J.K. Rowling talks to the movie stars (MTV Movies Blog).
• More from the NY Post.

For reference, check out our original post on the religion of Harry Potter.
In other news:

• Video Games Live concert features music from the Harry Potter games.
• Filming for Half-Blood Prince movie begins next week.

If you have a few minutes, please vote for HPProgs for Best Podcast in the 2007 Weblog Awards!

This week’s Top 5! Vote for your most memorable character from the Harry Potter novels:

Who is the most memorable character in the Harry Potter series?

Survey by Quibblo

You can listen to the podcast with the player below, or download it directly as an mp3.

One of our most favorite characters from the Harry Potter series is the one and only Neville Longbottom.  From a shy, sheepish kid in the first book, to Snake-Killer, Neville goes through one of the most noticeable transformations of any other character in the book.  In this episode, we take a look back at Neville, the significant moments in his life, both before and at Hogwarts, and how he progressed from less than a wizard to a full-fledged Wizard Hero.  In particular, we examine how J.K. Rowling uses Neville to show how cultures and societies reinforce images of acceptable traits and tacitly punish or stigmatize those that fail to embody those traits; also, we discuss Neville’s character as a mirror of Harry’s character.

I had to resist the urge to entitle this episode “Neville Longbottom: From Zero to Hero.”

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As always, please rate and review us on iTunes and don’t forget to vote for us on podcast alley! We appreciate it.

In the news:

• Daniel Radcliffe is one of Moviefone’s “25 Hot Actors Under 25 List”.
• Did you win the JK Rowling book reading sweepstakes? Scholastic and Raincoast have both announced the winners.
• National Braille Press has announced a new Harry Potter auction.
• Nepotism alive and well in the HP franchise. Ralph Feinnes’ nephew MIGHT be playing a young Tom Riddle in HBP. Take this news as rumor until it is confirmed by WB.
• JKR and Emma Watson attended the Pride of Britain awards.
• Emma Watson attending Nickolodeon’s Kids Choice UK awards.
• The OoTP DVD will include downloadable digital files which will allow users to download to PC or portable devices.
• New Harry Potter merchandise available.
• Prague publishing house IN TROUBLE.
• Harry Potter is the new wizard of the month on JKR’s site.

You can listen to the podcast with the player below, or download it directly as an mp3.

Hey Everyone. I wanted to give an update on episode 53. Very unfortunately, we are going to have to postpone the episode until next week. There is a heck of a lot going on around hpprogs headquarters this week and if we would sit down to record, it wouldn’t do justice to the topic (which we have already picked and are quite excited about, incidentally).

Please stay tuned for Episode 53 and in the meantime, feel free to go back and listen to some of the “best of” episodes and feel free to laugh at how incorrect some of our prognostications were.

Penny