Sylvester Spirituality Series

The Holy at Hogwarts: Treating Harry Potter (and all your favorite books) as Sacred with Vanessa Zoltan

On Thursday, February 23, 2023 at 7:00 p.m., we invite you to join us in Ukrop Auditorium in the Robins School of Business as we welcome Vanessa Zoltan to the University of Richmond to offer her lecture: The Holy at Hogwarts: Treating Harry Potter (and all your favorite books) as Sacred. This event is free and open to the public and no tickets are required. A dessert reception and book signing will follow. 

Vanessa Zoltan is the CEO and Founder of Not Sorry Productions, which produces the popular podcast Harry Potter & the Sacred Text. A graduate of Harvard Divinity School, her research considers the overlap between the sacred and the secular with a focus on popular books such as the Harry Potter and Twilight series. She is the author of Praying with Jane Eyre: Reflections on Reading as a Sacred Practice.

Her lecture, The Holy at Hogwarts: Treating Harry Potter (and all your favorite books) as Sacred, will focus on the sometimes arbitrary line often drawn between sacred and secular texts, utilizing the Harry Potter series as a case study. Zoltan will explore how we treat texts as sacred, considering the roles of faith, rigor, and community in our engagement with both sacred and secular works. Finally, she will offer a demonstration of engaging in a sacred reading of a secular text through a close reading of a line from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, “their presence was his courage.”

Past guests of the Sylvester Spirituality series include Dr. Kate Bowler, Lama Rod Owens, Fred Bahnson and Bree Newsome. The series is generously supported by the Sylvester family. 

Please contact Jamie Lynn Haskins, Chaplain for Spiritual Life & Communications Director, with any questions at jhaskins@richmond.edu.