We're revisiting pedagogy, Witches! We first tackled this topic to kick off Season Three by defining the term and considering the teaching methods of various Hogwarts professors (using a D&D Alignment Chart, of course). In this episode, however, we get a bit more granular and look closely at the teaching style of Barty Crouch Jr. and his impersonation of Professor Moody. Ultimately, we get to ask the question: Is Professor Moody AKA Barty Crouch Jr. a great teacher? Can he be one despite his...
Aug 31, 2021•1 hr
This is a must-listen, Witches! Guest Taylor Allgeier-Follet joins Hannah and Marcelle for a conversation on Trans Studies and The Goblet of Fire. Taylor (they/them) is a PhD candidate at University College Dublin who brings their expertise as both an academic and a person who has read the Harry Potter series over forty times. In this episode, Taylor, Hannah and Marcelle dive into transcoding and transphobia as it relates to the characterization of Rita Skeeter. If you're interested in the evolu...
Aug 17, 2021•56 min
What happens when Marcelle asks Hannah to do an episode on gay whimsy? We get an episode on post-critique! Dive into this theory with Hannah and Marcelle as they discuss what post-critique offers readers and its downfalls in a world where critique has real, material value. In other words, come for the theory and stay for the discussion about Blast-Ended Screwts. Ron's love of Viktor Krum, and the Prefect's bathroom (all whimsical, pleasurable details of The Goblet of Fire!). Hosted on Acast. See...
Aug 03, 2021•42 min
You don't want to miss this episode, Witches! Guest K. Alexandra joins Hannah and Marcelle for a conversation about Critical Race Theory and The Goblet of Fire. Noted by some as a Harry Potter trivia queen, K. Alex is also an educator, activist and member of communities such as Black Girls Create, Black Hotties at Hogwarts, Fandom Forward, and Wizards in Space Literary Magazine. She's basically a badass who swooped in to catch us up on this academic discipline and how we can use it to think thro...
Jul 20, 2021•52 min
Imagine this... imagined communities! In this episode, Hannah and Marcelle talk all about the Triwizard Tournament and the Goblet of Fire's relationship to nation states and nationalism. If you've read this book and thought, "Huh... why are they all rooting for Ireland?" you may finally find yourself with some answers. And if you've just celebrated Canada Day or the Fourth of July or you're just thinking about borders and patriotism (as one does), you won't be disappointed – Hannah and Marcelle ...
Jul 06, 2021•58 min
Guess what Witches, it's time to jump on the Hogwarts Express because we're back with our fourth season — all about Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire! In this episode we get down and dirty with the structuralists. You may be thinking, aren't those a bunch of old white guys who thought everything could be reduced to the same component parts? To which we say, yes kind of. But as we begin a book that's all about tasks, quests, and our "hero's journey" towards victory in the Triwizard Tournament, ...
Jun 22, 2021•1 hr 1 min
Well Witches, it’s time to hop on the back of the nearest hippogriff and fly into the sunset, because we’re officially wrapping up Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Oh how time flies when you’re examining disability, metaphor, and the prison industrial complex! It's almost as if time is... a construct? (Kidding, kidding, physicists please don't come for us.) We spend this episode sorting Harry Potter characters into Dungeons and Dragons classes, interrogating the magic of boggarts, and b...
Jun 08, 2021•52 min
Special guest, poet and educator Mercedes Eng, joins us to take a closer look at Azkaban, the carceral logic of the wizard world, and how it reflects our own ideas about monstrosity, punishment, and innocence. We take a look at restorative and transformative ideas of justice and debate whether the nightmarish portrayal of Azkaban is a radical call for prison abolition or an insidious device meant to make our own prison system look reasonable. Content warning: this episode discusses trauma linked...
May 25, 2021•1 hr 6 min
Greetings, Witches! Our last two episode on Animal Studies and Disability Studies laid the groundwork for this week's episode all about how to read Remus Lupin and his Lycanthropy. In an ebook released on Pottermore, J.K. Rowling stated that she meant Lupin's werewolf condition to be a metaphor for AIDS. This week we look at the way that metaphors of illness circulate ideologies about those who are ill - implying certain truths about their worthiness, deviance, and threat to society. We discuss ...
May 11, 2021•1 hr 7 min
Greetings, Witches! In this episode, we're once again applying a disability studies lens to the wizarding world. This time, we're looking at questions of access, accommodation, and community support for characters we might read as disabled in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. We're joined by disabled poet and visual artist, Tea Gerbeza, who is an MFA in Writing candidate at the University of Saskatchewan. With Tea, we dive deep into the interpretation of Remus Lupin as a disabled charact...
Apr 27, 2021•55 min
Witches, meet us at the edge of the Forbidden Forest. We're returning to the rich territory of animal studies to understand the limitations of human vs. animal hierarchies. We'll spend some time with marginal figures in the wizarding world who cross the human/animal divide, challenge social and political norms, and invite us into new ways of being. In particular, we'll be spending quite some time with Remus Lupin and his fellow marauders. We'll also discuss how systemic dehumanization, or the re...
Apr 13, 2021•58 min
Greetings, Witches! As always, we're eternally grateful for the time you spend listening with us. In this episode, we're unpacking the mechanics of time and time- travel as they play out in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. We identify the connections between western time -travel narratives and the industrial revolution and the infinitely insidious force of capitalism. We plunge into the philosophical implications of this book's particular kind of time- travel narrative, which desires to...
Mar 30, 2021•51 min
Attention, class! This is the episode all of you superbly studious witches have been waiting for! We draw upon our own expertise as longtime students and educators to discuss the, frankly, wild and unpredictable pedagogical approaches of Hogwarts faculty. Have any Hogwarts faculty managed to create affirming and generative learning environments, even within a school that routinely places students in dangerous circumstances, wields discipline unevenly, and lacks student support services of any ki...
Mar 16, 2021•1 hr 12 min
Greetings, Witches! We’re excited to bring you a special something from our partners at Not Sorry Productions. The Real Question is a new podcast from Vanessa Zoltan and Casper ter Kuile, the magical minds behind Harry Potter and the Sacred Text . Like us, they’re two friends who like to put their heads together and pour over their favorite texts as they navigate life’s questions. In every episode of The Real Question , Vanessa and Casper will investigate one of their own questions through the l...
Mar 10, 2021•47 min
Well, Witches, we've reached the end of another book together. We spend this episode, among other things, revisiting the tragic squandering of Hermione's talent and expertise as part of the adventure squad, detailing Gilderoy Lockharts' luscious wardrobe and its implications, tearing up at another round of Marcelle's Devastating Fun Facts from the Harry Potter World, and digging deeper into the Weasley's class status and other lingering questions we have about the series. Be sure to follow Witch...
Mar 02, 2021•52 min
Beloved bookish witches, join us for a discussion of print culture as it appears in the wizarding world. We'll unpack our own biases and beliefs about the significance of books as physical objects and how capitalism and commodification created the sentimental, coveted idea of the book many of us hold in our hearts. We will page through Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in search of printed matter and the ways it circulates in wizarding society, how it intersects with notions of class and i...
Feb 16, 2021•57 min
This week we've brought together the Who's Who of the Wizarding World for the event of the season you won't want to miss – an episode on Celebrity Studies! Notable guests include the winner of Witch Weekly 's Most Charming Smile Award (five times in a row!) and Poor Famous Harry Potter, who can't even go into a bookshop without making the front page. With a little help from Colin Creevey's camera, we focus our critical lens on how celebrity is constructed in the Wizarding World and our own, what...
Feb 02, 2021•1 hr•Ep. 12
Special guest, Jes Battis PhD, joins us to unpack the history of disability studies and help us understand both the characters in Harry Potter and the world they inhabit as affected by ableism. As mentioned in the episode, Jes wrote a book on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and chosen family! You can check it out here . Be sure to follow Witch, Please on Twitter and Instagram @ohwitchplease and let us know what you think of the episode through a review on Apple Podcasts. As always, you can join our Pat...
Jan 19, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 11
Beware, Witches! Deep in the belly of a dark and chilly castle lurks an abundance of secrets! In case you hadn't noticed, the Harry Potter books are chocked full of Gothic literary devices. Unraveling the mysteries of the Hogwarts castle and the cast of characters inside reveals new insights about the concepts of monstrosity, disgust, and the boundaries of social acceptability. Be sure to follow Witch, Please on Twitter and Instagram @ohwitchplease and let us know what you think of the episode t...
Jan 05, 2021•1 hr•Ep. 10
Season's Greetings Witches! In this most magical of seasons, we are bringing you a bright star from our archives—a holiday special featuring Neale Barnholden! We hope this fun, slightly chaotic episode brings some warmth and joy to your hearts. As this episode comes from an earlier era of Witch Please, there are some things you should know: 1. Recorded back in 2015, this episode is a goofy mix of genuine and deeply ironic commentary. For example, our remarks about The Fellowship of the Ring bein...
Dec 22, 2020•45 min
We have an episode for you that, in our professional opinion, is very gay . And by gay we mean inviting expansively, radically, resistantly queer readings of a text that is trying very very hard to perform heterosexuality and binary gender! We breeze by the obvious details—like Lockhart's character flaws as coded within his failure to correctly perform masculinity or Harry & Draco's flagrant obsession with each other—and into some of this text's more subversive queer potentials. This episode...
Dec 08, 2020•57 min•Ep. 8
Greetings Witches! We're so excited to be moving on to Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets with you! Break out your feminist reading glasses, because we're approaching this text with the tried and true (but also ever evolving) principles of feminist theory. We're returning to the origins of Witch Please and pulling from feminism's foundational texts to guide us through this second Harry Potter installment (which, by the way, contains several issues—including: parental neglect and abuse, star...
Nov 24, 2020•55 min•Ep. 7
We've arrived at the end of our journey though Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, but before we dig into the Chamber of Secrets, we have a few loose ends to tie up! This episode is full of some brand new segments that help us work through questions, concerns, musings, and future directions for discussion. We bring back a much beloved segment: Granger Danger (!!!!!!!!) in order to give some airtime to the greatest witch of her age. We spend some time unpacking a metaphorical suitcase full ...
Nov 10, 2020•54 min•Ep. 6
Special guest, Lucia M. Lorenzi, PhD, joins us to unpack trauma theory and helps us understand both the characters in Harry Potter and the world they inhabit as affected by traumatic events. We also explore the narrative form of the text itself—its gaps, inconsistencies, and unreliable narration as sites where trauma lives. Content warning: this episode, broadly, discusses various experiences and consequences of trauma throughout. Of particular note are discussions around child abuse and neglect...
Oct 29, 2020•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 5
Dearest Witches, gather round for some lessons in class solidarity! In this episode, we'll discuss the formation of class structure in Western society, the inherent relationship between race and class, and the ways in which the Harry Potter books reach for but don't quite deliver a vision for a cross-class uprising against the powers that be. How do some characters occupy complicated or shifting class positions? What would it take for Harry, or other characters of privilege to be true class trai...
Oct 13, 2020•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 4
Snuggle up to your familiars, Witches, because today's episode is all about animals (and critical animal studies!). What distinguishes the "animal" from the "human" and why did Western society come to arrive at that distinction? How does separating humans from their fellow animals work to enforce destructive social, political, and ecological power dynamics? What do we make of the way magical and non-magical creatures (and the humans who care for them, commune with them, or use them) are portraye...
Sep 29, 2020•58 min•Ep. 3
In this episode, we unravel the many layers of Orientalist tropes that permeate the Harry Potter world. How do some not-so-subtle visual and narrative cues--turbans, hooked noses, and mysterious powers from the "East" tell readers who to fear, dislike, and distrust in these books? How can we heighten our awareness of tropes like these and call out these negative portrayals when we see them? Be sure to follow Witch, Please on Twitter and Instagram @ohwitchplease and let us know what you think of ...
Sep 15, 2020•58 min•Ep. 2
It’s FINALLY HERE! In honor of Hogwarts day, September 1st, we present to you the first day of class you’ve always dreamed of from your two favourite lady scholars: Witch, Please | Ep. 1, The Chosen One. Our first episode goes back to the very beginning–to the concept of origin stories themselves–to explore how and why Harry Potter fits into a long tradition of “chosen one” narratives. Harry, we learn, is a very special boy in all the ways English literature tells us special boys ought to be. Ha...
Sep 01, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 1
BIG NEWS, WITCHES! Through a brand new partnership with Not Sorry Productions (the brilliant team behind Harry Potter and the Sacred Text ), we’re coming back! New and better than ever, which is to say, produced by somebody else and not actively losing money. W O W. Speaking of not losing money, if you’d like to support this reboot, check out our new Patreon ! Rewards include unedited audio from the first season, bonus interviews, Q&As, and movie watch-alongs! Enjoy our extremely goofy tease...
Aug 24, 2020•8 min
WE ARE GETTING ROGUER EVERY EPISODE TBQH So this one’s on time, but witches? It is pretty. silly. We sat down, in the same room, with our favourite guy-with-a-film-degree, and we talked about the fan-made prequel film Voldemort: Origins of the Heir . If you don’t mind spoilers, this Telegraph review will set the tone for the episode. This episode contains fewer sound effects than usual because it was too hard to fit them in between all the laughter. It also contains an above average amount of us...
Sep 04, 2018•50 min
