This year’s Harry Potter and the Sacred Text class starts September 14th at 7PM.

Classes are every Wednesday from 7-8:30; starting September 14th and ending April 26th. We will NOT be meeting: November 23rd, December 21, December 28th of March 15, but will otherwise meet every Wednesday. Click here to see our most updated reading assignment list.

Please sign up here for our newsletter, as any changes to reading assignments or weather updates will be sent that way.

The class is directed by our Assistant Chaplain, Vanessa Zoltan and is facilitated by Jenn Stark, Carl Merrigan, Judith Giller-Leinwohl and Emily Colgan.

If you have any questions about the class, please email Vanessa at vzoltan@humanisthub.org

THE PROJECT

What if we read the books we love as if they were sacred texts?

What would we learn? How might we change?

The Harry Potter series is the best-selling series of all time. The books have captured the hearts of a generation of readers – and they have, for many, become an important source of moral guidance and inspiration. Indeed, as we learn in her Harvard Commencement speech, J.K. Rowling’s own experience of hardship and work with Amnesty International should mean we’re not surprised to learn that Harry Potter is the most requested novel amongst people detained in Guantánamo Bay.

We’ve decided to spend eight months (re)reading all seven novels to explore what they can teach us about life, love,  justice, death, friendship, evil, family – and we’d love to do this with you!

Each week we’ll read a handful of chapters in our own time. Then, on Wednesday evening, we’ll gather at the Humanist Hub to talk through the passages that struck us the most. We’ll share what we learned and how these issues might apply in our own lives.

You can drop in or you can join us every week – sign up to make sure you know what chapters to read.

We believe that what makes a text sacred isn’t the text itself, but the community that reads it with attention, commitment and a never-ending desire to mine it for meaning.

Will you join us? We look forward to reading with you!