Phoenix Rising (convention)
| Convention | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Phoenix Rising |
| Dates: | May 17–21, 2007 |
| Frequency: | |
| Location: | New Orleans, United States |
| Type: | fan con |
| Focus: | Harry Potter |
| Organization: | Narrate Conferences, Inc. |
| Founder: | |
| Founding Date: | |
| URL: | Website |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Phoenix Rising was a fan-run Harry Potter symposium that was held in New Orleans in 2007.
Part of a Series
Book of Papers
The con generated a book. See it at Amazon.
Newsletter
The con newsletter, which functioned as the con's progress report, was called "Ash and Flame." [1]
About
Sadly, the website has password protected any information about it.
Phoenix Rising, a conference devoted to all things Harry Potter, will fuse the intensity of academic debate with the improvisation of exploratory dialogue, the rhythms of New Orleans with the colors and pageantry of art. The conference will examine the novels, the movies, and the extraordinary fan phenomenon during the day; then, attendees will revel with the beat of the Crescent City—herself rising from ash and flame—when evening advances.
As May 17–21, 2007, rolls around, we hope you are here with us. While we anticipate Harry's final chapter, we welcome you to a tumultuous five days of academia, innovation, artwork, writing and dialogue in a vibrant city that knows something about both celebration and heroes. Whether you are a scholar, a fan, an artist, a professional or another enthusiast of J. K. Rowling's indelible series, we invite you to experience five days of discussion, discovery and immersion in Harry Potter in the French Quarter.
You will find the details of our Harry Potter conference, from the exhilarating to the exotic, via the navigation bar to the left. Make sure to check out our theme and its reflection of New Orleans, as well as our Accepted Proposals, and our events, including our Borders Riverside Quidditch Classic. Please keep in mind that most of Phoenix Rising's programming, events and lagniappe are designed for adults. Our age restrictions are detailed in our registration section. Online registration closes April 10, 2007.[2]
Phoenix Rising was unusual in its approach. Rather than focusing solely on academics or fans, Phoenix Rising invited both to attend and participate—as well as educators, librarians, professionals, writers and artists from around the world. By including a wide variety of attendees, and encouraging all of them to lend their expertise and enthusiasm, Phoenix Rising created a collaborative, participatory conference unlike any other, one that enjoyed media coverage from The Today Show, Dateline NBC, MTV, The New York Times and Salon.com, among other outlets.[3]
A Canceled Panel
The Cassandra Claire Plagiarism Debacle was heavy on many, many Harry Potter fans' minds in 2006 and afterward, something that made tracks on the con planned for 2007.
On August 12, 2006, the Lead Event Organizer for the con posted:
Some of you are aware that an ethical issue concerning two of our guests of honor has come to light. Please know that the Phoenix Rising staff just learned of this issue this morning, when several people e-mailed us.Please also know that we invited these guests several months ago with no knowledge of possible plagiarism. We invited them, among a rather long list of other individuals, for their experience and creativity in forming Harry Potter community websites in 2000 and 2001. Our organization is taking this issue very seriously and we are looking into the matter as quickly as possible. We have not yet had a chance to speak with either of the two individuals [4] in question and we are unable to make any further statements at this point.
Thank you for your patience while we investigate. If you have questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to e-mail Amy and me at [email protected]. You may also leave a comment, which will be screened in case we are not available to respond immediately.
Hallie Tibbetts, Lead Event Organizer, Phoenix Rising [5]
On August 15, 2006, Heidi8 wrote that she was cancelling her panel at the con due to then-recently published The Ms.Scribe Story: An Unauthorized Fandom Biography.
I've heard that people have made death threats against me regarding my panel at Phoenix Rising next year, and I just can't handle subjecting myself to that kind of situation right now given everything that's happened, so I'm not going to be doing the panel anymore.
ETA on Thursday, Aug 17 at a little before 1 PM
Amy and I were both extremely upset about everything that's happened in the last few weeks when we spoke about Phoenix Rising on Tuesday night. She told me there were death threats regarding Phoenix Rising and my appearance on the Jenkins panel, and I assumed they were against me. Regardless of who they were against, the fact that anyone is being threatened with death if I appear on a panel - in other words, it doesn't matter if someone's threatening to kill *me* or to kill someone else - is enough of a reason for me to step down from the panel.[6]
On August 17, 2006, the Lead Event Organizer wrote:
As a follow-up to our post here, and as many of you are already aware, Heidi Tandy and Ebony Thomas have stepped down from our keynote presentation, Transformation: From Fan to Fandom. Please know that we are currently seeking replacement panelists -- and have several outstanding panel invitations issued prior to our last post on this community -- and that we intend, to the greatest extent possible, to maintain the current focus of the panel. We believe that the growth of individual fan experiences into a collective fandom one is an important and relevant topic, and we are pleased to include a keynote presentation that not only discusses the Harry Potter fandom, but includes fans as panelists.
We know that some attendees bought a ticket to this event hoping to see the original list of presenters, and we apologize for the unexpected changes. Once we have confirmed new panelists, we will e-mail those who have purchased tickets as of the time of this announcement with the opportunity to request a refund or a ticket exchange.
As always, please feel free to direct all questions or concerns to Amy and me at [email protected]. We are again screening comments to this post in case we are not able to answer immediately. Please let us know in your comment if you would prefer that yours remained screened following any replies.
Hallie Tibbetts, Lead Event Organizer – Phoenix Rising [7]
References
- ^ From ash and flame, the phoenix rises archive link
- ^ Website
- ^ Narrate Conferences
- ^ Heidi8 and Ebony Thomas
- ^ In Response to Inquiries, Archived version
- ^ untitled post; archive link page one; archive link page two by Heidi8, August 15, 2006
- ^ Guest Update; archive link, August 17, 2006