Northwestern’s own Renaissance woman – in the form of English (she specializes in medieval literature, get it?), classics and religion professor Barbara Newman – was part of a five-professor panel Tuesday night that discussed British author J.K. Rowling’s rabidly popular Harry Potter series. Seeing as how the fourth movie installment, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, will be out Friday, PLAY sat down with Newman to talk about the genre’s literary traditions and whether Hogwarts professor Severus Snape is a hero or evil incarnate.

PLAY: When and how did you first become interested in Harry Potter?

Barbara Newman: It was a couple months after the first book came out. We got the first book in paperback and all the others we got in hardcover. My husband and I have read out loud every single word of every book to each other without the excuse of a child. They’re great for reading out loud. Since then we’ve gotten them the day they came out.

PLAY: How do you classify the series? Has it expanded beyond its original “children’s literature” label?

BN: It falls into three broad genres. One, of course, is magic and fantasy literature. There’s another tradition – (visiting English assistant professor) Carrie Wasinger talked about this (at the panel) – of the British school story, which is really an English Victorian genre, not an American one; Rowling is very much playing off that. And then I talked about how the whole fantasy genre is really an outgrowth of the medieval quest romance, which I teach. So I talked about how the stories match up to some of the earlier bits of the King Arthur story. I think the best children’s literature always appeals to adults.

PLAY: What is it specifically about Harry Potter that makes college-aged students and adults so fond of the series?

BN: Rowling is a good prose stylist, and the plots are interesting, and there’s a mix of humor and seriousness. (English lecturer) Liz Trubey talked about how one of the reasons why adults like children’s books is that we can feel like children again when we read them. We recreate that experience of the child who’s totally absorbed in a fantasy world.

PLAY: How did the idea for this week’s panel come about?

BN: It was organized by the Undergraduate English Association. (Weinberg sophomore) Kate Pomeroy and (Medill sophomore) Theresa Bowman recruited professors – they sent a message to the whole English department faculty asking who would like to be on the panel. And four of us volunteered; then I volunteered my husband (Richard Kieckhefer), even though he’s in the religion and history departments, because he’s a historian of magic.

PLAY: The fourth movie comes out Friday. Do you feel the movies have done justice to their respective books? Are you seeing the movie this weekend?

BN: I feel they’ve gotten better as they’ve gone along. The third one was the best of the three. It’ll be interesting to watch them develop because, of course, the books get darker and more troubling as they go along. This weekend is pretty busy, but I’ll probably see the fourth movie over Thanksgiving weekend.

PLAY: In your opinion, is Dumbledore really dead? And who’s side do you think Snape is on?

BN: (In the panel discussion) we assumed Dumbledore is really dead, but we did argue about Snape. My husband expounded the theory that in the scene where Snape kills Dumbledore, Dumbledore says, “Please.” And we both think that Dumbledore is telling Snape, “Please go ahead and kill me.” Snape does this at Dumbledore’s request, because Dumbledore is sacrificing himself. My husband went on to say that Snape is kind of like Judas in the gospel story – the deed he does is evil, but it has to be done for the greater good. Liz Trubey said, however, that Snape really is evil – that this time, Harry is right; Snape isn’t just mean, he’s evil.

PLAY: Do you have any predictions for the final book?

BN: Not very confidently, but I think the power of good will will win. I don’t think Rowling would violate the conventions of the genre so far as to kill off the hero. I think Voldemort will be killed and Harry will be victorious – but that’s not to say there won’t be any shadows. There will be some losses.

PLAY: A lot of people don’t get the fascination with Harry Potter. How would you answer the skeptic who asks, “Why should we care?”

BN: Why should we care about any fiction or literature? The question always is why people care more about the suffering of fictional characters more than the suffering of real people. You could ask the same thing about why people enjoy Hamlet. They’re good books