Harry Potter, St. Augustine, and the Confrontation with Evil
Google engEDU
59 min – Jul 10, 2007
Google Tech Talks
July 10, 2007
In the Latin West, explaining the origin, meaning, and response to evil has been a central theological and cultural project, beginning with the magisterial work of St. Augustine in the 4th-5th centuries. If a good God created the world, how did evil enter it? For centuries the greatest minds fretted with such matters. But in the last century, the vocabulary of evil has fallen out of favor with many cultural elites who prefer syndromes to sin and maladjustment to wickedness. Children’s literature had also backed off evil for years–too frightening for the young, it was believed. But evil plays a central role in the Harry Potter stories; in them, evil is named, personified and confronted. Is there a way to link the West’s cultural heritage of discourse on evil with the young wizard, Harry, and his adventures?
Speaker: Jean Bethke Elshtain
Jean Bethke Elshtain is the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics, at The University of Chicago and holder of the Leavey Chair in the Foundations of American Freedom at Georgetown University. She is the author or editor of over 20 books, including Democracy on Trial, a 1995 New York Times Notable book and, three years ago, Just War Against Terror: The Burden of American Power in a Violent World, named one of the best non-fiction books of 2004 by Publisher’s Weekly. Professor Elshtain has published nearly 1000 essays in a combination of scholarly journals and journals of civic opinion. She appears regularly as a commentator on NPR and in other forums.
video
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-973600302994767224
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