Certainly, I’ve found plenty on the above mentioned Prof T, Firefly, Star Trek, Star Wars, and eastern philosophy (rubbish, but light years ahead of western theology). I’m just not sure how to define it. Here goes: a podcast is like a radio show (indeed, you can get podcasts of radio shows), except it’s only available on yon internet and, while there are professional efforts by the BBC and so forth, the kind I’m... If you go on iTunes and key in, say, “Tolkien”, you’ll get different categories coming up: books, films, audiobooks, music and podcasts. The selfless makers of most podcasts are enthusiasts, and enthusiasts are usually Good Eggs. I’m not sure if podcasts, as such, are geeky-nerdy, or if that’s just me. What’s indisputable is that they define themselves as “community”, and bring together folks who might otherwise just be disparate consumers of popular culture. Under podcasts, you find, for example, The Tolkien Professor, a series of lectures on Middle Earth matters, recorded from a university course in yonder United States.

In “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2,” Daniel Radcliffe’s young wizard receives advice from the ghost of his mentor, Albus Dumbledore: “Do not pity the dead, Harry. From the first entry to the eighth, the tone of Potter’s adventures grew with the audience, seamlessly transitioning from the realm of innocuous children’s fantasy to first-rate gothic horror for young adults. Considering that it began with genial formula of spell-casting and flying broomsticks, the phantasmagorical imagery and violence in the eighth installment is fairly grown up: A bloody fetal version of Voldemort looks like something out of the... Dumbledore’s words also apply to the would-be conclusion of this hulking franchise—which, despite appearances to the contrary, has only just begun its commercially lucrative timeline.