West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences to offer law course based on Harry Potter

West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences will soon offer a new course based on JK Rowling’s Harry Potter, where students will be encouraged to investigate legal aspects of Potter’s fictional world and the real life lessons that they may have. [caption id=“attachment_4176053” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] JK Rowling’s Harry Potter[/caption] An article in The Telegraph states that the course will be titled ‘An interface between Fantasy Fiction Literature and Law: Special focus on Rowling’s Potterverse’ and will be offered as an elective to the 4th and 5th year students of the B.A.+LL.B (Hons) programme. The course has been designed by Assistant Professor Shouvik Kumar Guha and has been introduced in the form of a ‘breather’ amidst the orthodox law school curriculum. “In law schools, people get a very specific set of subjects. The curriculum revolves around the hard letter of the law, case laws etc. Given the fact that this course lasts about five years, students also get bored,” Guha said about the conventional course that the university is known to follow. Students will be asked to apply legal principles into the Potter world with the help of insights of world of wizardry which is continuously under government surveillance. “I could have designed the course based on our real political situation but it is not necessary that all my students will share my political leanings,” Guha said. A fictional universe gives the students a controversy-free space to apply the laws, the excitement lies in applying it in complete alien scenarios.