Matthew Lewis plays Neville Longbottom in the "Harry Potter" films.A Harry Potter conference in Dallas had some panelists who considered the disability themes in the JK Rowling books. The Dallas Morning News reports July 9:
Millie Gore is a special-education professor at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls. As a former board member of the Texas ACLU, she started reading the series because of attacks on the books by some conservative Christians. She discovered plenty of plot points relating to how society treats people with disabilities.
"As soon as I encountered Neville Longbottom early in the first book, I recognized him as the prototypical child with a learning disability, whether in the real world in which I exist, or in the fantasy world of Harry Potter," she said.
Next term, she'll allow her special-education students to study a Potter book. "They will then analyze the disabilities in the book and how wizard society 'others' people with disabilities and therefore handicaps them," she said.
In addition, Karen Brown in the UK has written a book called Prejudice in Harry Potter's world, which includes a chapter on disability called "On Squibs and Werewolves: A Closer Look at the Disability Issue."
