As I sat down to write a Harry Potter fanfiction for class this past term, I drew both on my experiences reading the seven canonical novels as well as my engagement with the best fanfiction that I鈥檝e read. I was reminded of how developed my own imagination was at 12 when I started reading fanfiction and writing some of my own; this began right after the book series ended, when I feared a loss of mystery and discovery in the secondary world that helped me make sense of my own experiences more than any other fiction work had before. In the hundreds of new stories that I devoured then, these writers suggested that the discovery journey was just beginning.

The onset of my fanfiction engagement coincided with great turmoil in key relationships. For a number of reasons, I became disenchanted with my own life and felt more like a stranger in many of the circles I occupied. Here, fanfiction in the Wizarding World was a healing balm for me. In a beautiful reversal, the stage became my life, and I could act out my adolescent frustrations and fears. Before I had the language to detail the grief and disorientation of personal trauma, I could lead the wizards and witches in my story to engage pain on my behalf.

Seeing their ability to persist in the face of mortal peril and acknowledging that their success was at my demand as their creator, I learned to consider my own power to do the same in my own life. Harry Potter offers a unique sense of agency here. The richness of its world makes the story as accessible for a young child as it is for any adult. The characters of Harry Potter are people to meet and know well, and fanfiction in the world of Harry Potter allows a writer to be themselves alongside original inhabitants, just transported to a new magical country. I didn鈥檛 naively assume that my influence stretched very far past the page; I was still 12 and still unsure of my place in the world. Rather, I noticed that my ability to hope and imagine could endure in the face of a world that seemed to indicate that the exact opposite was true. Not only that, but I could also create hope in another, even if that other was a fiction from my own head. I credit the nameless authors whose work inspired me to become a co-creator in my own life story. I consider them collaborators in my personal world as much as that of the Wizarding World.

Fanfiction can even synthesize micro-zeitgeists that those close to a secondary world share deeply. For those who want to imagine redemption for evil, there are stories detailing Voldemort鈥檚 ownership of his wrongdoing and subsequent penance, while others allow Draco Malfoy to overcome his cowardice to become the man that we all hoped he could be. For those who are used to being relegated to the background of their own lives, Colin Creevey tales represent a centering of any unexpected and unnoticed voice. Indeed, fanfiction can enable representation in areas where it is currently missing.

As beloved as J.K. Rowling鈥檚 created world is, it is often lambasted for its lack of effective diversity of characters. Everyone, primary to tertiary, is a straight, cisgender, White person, with the occasional, heavy-handedly written BIPOC. Even in these few instances of representation, we see nothing meaningful in Cho Chang鈥檚 Asian heritage or Dean Thomas鈥� Blackness. Our only known queer characters were identified after the series鈥� publication and still remain defined only by the tragedy in their stories. They all read as stand-ins to satisfy a white gaze, or to comfort heteronormativity without disrupting the typical world order. Fanfiction reimagines stories like these through subversion, where Hermione isn鈥檛 white, Ron isn鈥檛 straight, and our Wizarding community migrates from the mountains of Scotland. Imagination here becomes a recursive phenomenon; as new ideas are generated, they encourage and produce other novel stories, which invite more readers to create their own as well, all in the same shared secondary world. This is the 鈥渇irst fruits鈥� of any liberative work, where people need to see themselves living rich and full lives before creating them; they can rehearse fostering hope in the safety of a fictional secondary world before returning to our primary world to put it to practice.

Far from being the immature musings of uninspired fans, fanfiction invites readers to consider themselves as co-creators in their spiritual stories rather than consumers or spectators. For children and adults alike, it offers a chance to create a world within a world, to break and make rules of engagement, and to prepare the courage they need to confront despair and anguish in their own lives. A rich tool for capturing goodness and injecting often anemic hope with vitality, fanfiction asks us to hope that our primary world, the personal and the communal, might one day be just as magical.

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The main work of the course involved a three-part Art Theology project, for which students chose an artist whose work they already found meaningful but wanted to explore further. That artist鈥檚 body of work became their main text for the term as they fully immersed themselves in the art, guided by course instruction, culminating in a final presentation where they shared their theological findings with the class. The chosen artists represented a spectrum from painters to poets, singer/songwriters to stand ups and the presentations unearthed theological insights touching on pneumatology, spiritual pilgrimage, the doctrine of Imago Dei, and more.

And although we鈥檇 planned an expanded class day to hear everyone鈥檚 presentations in person, the move to online teaching due to March鈥檚 shelter-at-home order meant the presentations were recorded in a way that could be viewed beyond just our class. I鈥檓 pleased to share two of those with you here, a small sampling of the theological insights, cultural readings, and creative connections brought forth through these students鈥� work.
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A Theology of Life in the Worlds of Miyazaki Hayao

by Lori Bailey, an MATC student

“I had the privilege of sitting beneath the work of someone who has been a creative muse of mine for many years, the Japanese animator, filmmaker, and master storyteller Miyazaki Hayao. Best known as the co-founder of Studio Ghibli, his films have unquestionably altered the very shape of the animation industry and captivated the hearts of millions of viewers. A man of deep thought and nuanced feeling, Miyazaki’s keen perceptions of our complex world鈥攁nd how he translates these into story and visual artistry鈥� guided me as I spent 13 weeks reconsidering his films and what they have to say about humanity, nature, death, and life.”

A Reckoning of History & Our Place in It: Kara Walker

by Mercedes Robinson, an MATC student

“Kara Walker is an African American artist most notable for her detailed silhouettes and elaborate sculptures. As an artist, Walker aims to challenge, critique, and re-envision historical narratives and cultural norms that exist in society pertaining to race, injustice, sexism, and violence. The most important lesson I have learned since engaging Walker’s work is the importance of my body and my narrative as a biracial womxn alive in such a complex and challenging time in our collective history. My body, my truth, and my selfhood are whole, complete, and deeply sacred, regardless of the subtle and not-so-subtle ways the outside world attempts to invalidate that fact.”

The post Theology Through Art: Student Work on Miyazaki Hayao and Kara Walker appeared first on 天美视频 of Theology & Psychology.