Watch: MTV News Visits
Class Studying Harry Potter

Bess Matlock '12 (left), from Atlanta, Ga., is one of 12 students in Visiting Assistant Professor of English Melinda Finberg's first-year seminar, "Battling Against Voldemort." The class recently hosted an MTV News crew, who came as part of their report on the growth and variety of classes around the country that study J.K. Rowling's popular novels. Watch more.

Finberg's course examines how the Harry Potter series compares to the tellings of the mythic hero's quest by Homer, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Phillip Pullman. She also  introduces writers on myth and the psyche, such as Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell, and other texts to understand why people are driven to invent stories about battling inhuman powers to learn what it means to be human.