Rowling Studies The Hogwarts Professor Podcast

57:29

A Lake and Shed Reading of Troubled Blood (Part Two)

Rowling Studies The Hogwarts Professor Podcast ·

2025/07/19

Today’s Lake and Shed framed conversation is once again about the fifth Cormoran Strike novel, Troubled Blood. Nick discusses Rowling’s history with the Clerkenwell neighborhood. John talks about Troubled Blood as a double re-telling of The Faerie Queene, Book One, with Strike and Margot as the Redcrosse Knight and Oonaugh and Robin as Una.New to the Lake and Shed Kanreki Birthday series? Here’s what we’re doing:On 31 July 2025, Joanne Murray, aka J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, will be

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64:42

A Lake and Shed Reading of Troubled Blood (Part One)

Rowling Studies The Hogwarts Professor Podcast ·

2025/07/18

Today’s Lake and Shed framed conversation is about the fifth Cormoran Strike novel, Troubled Blood. Nick discusses Rowling’s history with the divinatory art of astrology and the occult resources and reference works she brought into play in writing a novel whose primary embedded text is a murder scene’s astrological chart. John talks about the astrological clock structure of twelve houses in which Galbraith tells this remarkable story.New to the Lake and Shed Kanreki Birthday series? Here’s what

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71:03

A Lake and Shed Reading of The Ickabog

Rowling Studies The Hogwarts Professor Podcast ·

2025/07/17

Today’s Lake and Shed framed conversation is about Rowling’s remarkable “fairy-tale” and the history and meaning of its release during the “pandemic” hysteria of 2020. The Ickabog, along with Casual Vacancy and Ink Black Heart, is not only one of Rowling’s most autobiographical works, but, with the Lake and Shed interview, the Solve et Coagula tattoo, her RFK Award speech, and the Trans Tweet Heard Round the World, a key to her self-understanding in the critical year 2019-2020. Nick takes the

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64:19

A Lake and Shed Reading of Crimes of Grindelwald, the...

Rowling Studies The Hogwarts Professor Podcast ·

2025/07/16

Nick and John take a Lake and Shed long look at the second screenplay for the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them film series. On the Lake side of things, Nick explores the Johnny Depp casting scandal and the lead-up in 2018 to the 2019 Tweet Heard Round the World. John explains that the cut scenes from this dog’s mess of a movie point that the shooting script, i.e., what Rowling wrote and approved before David Yates butchered the film in the editing room, was all about Leta Lestrange. More

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85:17

A Lake and Shed Reading of Lethal White

Rowling Studies The Hogwarts Professor Podcast ·

2025/07/15

Today’s Lake and Shed framed conversation is about the fourth Cormoran Strike novel, Lethal White. Nick discusses the embedded class struggle in the book and its roots in Rowling’s background before dropping the bomb of the real world identity of Jack O’Kent and his unhappy family. John is so taken aback by this revelation that Nick has to prompt the Shed portion of the conversation with a fun history of the Sonia Friedman production of Ibsen’s Rosmersholm on London’s West End, a show starring Thom

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58:33

A Lake and Shed Reading of Fantastic Beasts and Where...

Rowling Studies The Hogwarts Professor Podcast ·

2025/07/14

Today’s Lake and Shed framed conversation is about J. K. Rowling’s first “original screenplay,” Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Nick does his signature deep dive into the history of the Fantastic Beasts film franchise’s origins in Warner Brothers’ determination to keep the Wizarding World profit-pillar in their portfolio alive after the last Harry Potter adaptation — and Rowling’s equal determination that they not use their copyright privilege to muck up her legacy with an Indiana Jones

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48:54

A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the...

Rowling Studies The Hogwarts Professor Podcast ·

2025/07/13

Today’s Lake and Shed framed conversation is about the Jack Thorne play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Nick reviews the history of how Rowling was sold on the idea of a Wizarding World stage production via a bit of bait and switch marketing and John reads the review of the Jack Thorn script by Pepperdine English Professor James Thomas. Neither John nor Nick is a big fan of the play but their back and forth about the several controversies connected with it and the question of its being “the

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48:01

A Lake and Shed Reading of Career of Evil

Rowling Studies The Hogwarts Professor Podcast ·

2025/07/12

Today’s Lake and Shed framed conversation is about J. K. Rowling’s third Cormoran Strike novel, Career of Evil. Nick and John debate whether Rowling crossed the line of “violence porn” that she worried she had approached and they discuss why, in one of the few surveys of Serious Strikers, Career seems unique among these mysteries in being considered the best or the very worst of the set. The ‘Lake’ point that Nick explores is Rowling’s personal experience of violence against women and her

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56:02

A Lake and Shed Reading of The Silkworm

Rowling Studies The Hogwarts Professor Podcast ·

2025/07/11

Today’s Lake and Shed framed conversation is about J. K. Rowling’s second Cormoran Strike novel, The Silkworm. Nick and John discuss the date Rowling claims to have had her Lake inspiration for Silkworm, the first book idea she had for the series, and what that would mean, if true. The ‘Lake’ point that Nick reveals is the probable identity of ‘Jenkins,’ the mystery person to whom Strike 2 is dedicated, a revelation consequent to no little detective work (and a very close reading of Louisa May

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44:05

A Lake and the Shed Reading of Cuckoo's Calling

Rowling Studies The Hogwarts Professor Podcast ·

2025/07/10

Today’s Lake and Shed framed conversation is about J. K. Rowling’s first Cormoran Strike novel, The Cuckoo’s Calling. Nick and John debate the degree of Rowling’s dishonesty about writing a detective series before she was outed as ‘Robert Galbraith’ to include whether she really had any other plan than for the book to be published by the company and edited by the editor who handled Casual Vacancy. The ‘Lake’ point that Nick explores is the identity of the real Deeby Mac, namely, Di Brooks, Rowling’s

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75:12

A Lake and Shed Reading of Casual Vacancy

Rowling Studies The Hogwarts Professor Podcast ·

2025/07/09

Today’s Lake and Shed framed conversation is about J. K. Rowling’s first adult novel and one Nick and John think she may have been writing before she was inspired to write Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. It’s that autobiographical, a transparency of sorts for the several unhappy women Jo Rowling Murray has been. Nick explains all the projects we now know she was working on between 2007 and 2012, the dates of Deathly Hallows and Casual Vacancy’s respective publication dates, as well as the

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66:30

A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the...

Rowling Studies The Hogwarts Professor Podcast ·

2025/07/08

Today’s Lake and Shed framed conversation is about the seventh and final Harry Potter novels Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. John and Nick discuss the ‘Deathly Hallows’ symbol, a triangulated and vertically bisected circle, from both its biographical point of inspiration to its anagogical or sublime depths. Nick reveals Rowling’s story about how she was watching the 1975 John Huston film ‘The Man Who Would Be King’ the night her mother died and that believes the “Masonic tag” of the story-line

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52:14

A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the...

Rowling Studies The Hogwarts Professor Podcast ·

2025/07/07

Today’s Lake and Shed framed conversation is about the sixth of the seven Harry Potter novels, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Nick reveals the real life model for Severus Snape, Rowling’s Chemistry teacher at Wydean Comprehensive, and his remarkable story and melancholy end. John reviews Rowling’s version of the so-called ‘Hero’s Journey,’ how she re-makes it into a life-after-death ‘Harry’s Journey’ ten step dance we see in every book — except for Half-Blood Prince with its two chapters

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49:07

A Lake and the Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the...

Rowling Studies The Hogwarts Professor Podcast ·

2025/07/06

Today’s Lake and Shed framed conversation is about the fifth Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Nick talks about the darkest period in Jo Rowling’s life, namely, her return to the UK from Portugal as a single mother in Edinburgh. John reviews Rowling’s tagging Goblet as a “crucial” and “pivotal” part of the seven book series and introduces how the ‘story turn’ in a ring composition reflects the beginning and end of the story. This involves, believe it or not, an

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44:53

A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the...

Rowling Studies The Hogwarts Professor Podcast ·

2025/07/05

On 31 July 2025, Joanne Murray, aka J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, will be celebrating her 60th birthday. This celebration is considered a ‘second birth’ in Japan or Kanreki because it is the completion of the oriental astrological cycle. To mark JKR’s Kanreki, Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery, both Nipponophiles, are reading through Rowling’s twenty-one published works and reviewing them in light of the author’s writing process, her ‘Lake and Shed’ metaphor. The ‘Lake’ is the source of her

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44:27

Rowling's Kanreki Episode 4

Rowling Studies The Hogwarts Professor Podcast ·

2025/07/04

The second of our daily examples of the lake and shed inspiration withing all of J. K. Rowling’s work. In this episode Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Read about the parallels between Prisoner of Azkaban and Career of Evil here. And listen to the Reading Writing Rowling team talk about the parallel series idea here. Get full access to Hogwarts Professor at hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

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60:19

Rowling's Kanreki Episode 3

Rowling Studies The Hogwarts Professor Podcast ·

2025/07/03

The second of our daily examples of the lake and shed inspiration withing all of J. K. Rowling’s work. In this episode Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Check out Harry Potter and the Sexual Innuendos a Mugglenet Academia podcast here, and all about Sean Harris here. Get full access to Hogwarts Professor at hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

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43:15

Rowling's Kanreki Episode 2

Rowling Studies The Hogwarts Professor Podcast ·

2025/07/02

The first of our daily examples of the lake and shed inspiration withing all of J. K. Rowling’s work. In this episode Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Check out Dr John Granger’s work on Rowling’s Molesworth inspirations here. Don’t forget to watch our introduction to this work and an explanation of Kanreki and the lake and shed inspiration here. Get full access to Hogwarts Professor at hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

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55:51

J. K. Rowling's Kanreki

Rowling Studies The Hogwarts Professor Podcast ·

2025/07/01

Dr John Granger and I will begin our Lake and Shed reviews of the twenty-one stories written at least in part by J. K. Rowling. In this introduction to our month long project to celebrate Mrs Murray’s 60th birthday, we explain the Japanese concept of Kanreki, 還暦, or calendar re-birth.Join John, in his shed in Oklahoma, and me, by my lake in Wales as we kick off this exciting new series. Get full access to Hogwarts Professor at hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

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149:43

'Pregnancy Traps' in the Works of J. K. Rowling

Rowling Studies The Hogwarts Professor Podcast ·

2025/01/03

Dr. John Granger and Nick Jeffery explore the theme of pregnancy traps and coercive love as a golden thread running through all the published works of J. K. Rowling. After detailing the number and importance of this plot point in everything from the Harry Potter series to the latest Cormoran Strike novel — even the Christmas Pig and The Ickabog! — John and Nick explore the possibilities of what this means for understanding Rowling’s artistry and meaning from a ‘Lake and Shed’ perspective.The seven

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