LONG BEACH -- Harry Potter is back by popular demand.

Not just at bookstores, where local Muggles are expected to line up tonight to secure their copies of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,' but also at Cal State Long Beach, where a course on the literary phenomenon was taught last fall.

The class generated so much interest that Professor Mimi Hotchkiss has been asked to reprise her role as instructor for a Potter sequel this fall and another in the spring semester.

"Initially, I guess a lot of students had mentioned that they enjoyed the class,' Hotchkiss said Thursday. "It was a word- of-mouth thing primarily.'

The original CSULB course that featured the fictional adolescent wizard was part of the University Honors Program, which analyzes a different literary work each year.

With author J.K. Rowling's saga as the chosen subject, Hotchkiss' class compared the Potter novels with other series such as "Lord of the Rings' and "The Chronicles of Narnia.' Lessons analyzed the central characters and examined essays by both fans and critics.

Now, with a fifth Rowling book set to hit the shelves on Saturday, Hotchkiss said she was delighted to hear the class will be brought back just as long as she doesn't get typecast as the Harry Potter professor. She is, after all, a Romantic-era scholar who teaches a four-unit Shakespeare course.

"I think that right now, the phenomenon in general is strong enough that, in terms of demand from the students, I could do nothing but Harry Potter,' Hotchkiss said. "As much as I love the class and I do love the class and the students I had last fall I want to teach Shakespeare as well.'

Duan Jackson, advising coordinator for CSULB's honors program, said university officials originally planned to slake the appetites of Potter-craving enrollees with just one more course section for the fall. But the section filled up so quickly, they asked Hotchkiss to teach another in the spring.

"We got some flak because it's a Harry Potter class, but Mimi does an excellent job,' Jackson said. "Any time you have a class where students get that excited, it's a great thing.'

Hotchkiss has some new lessons in store for her future stu dents, along with some concerns that the new class will lack the magical chemistry of the first crop.

"It was such an extraordinary group of students,' she said. "They did such good work in that class, and they were so engaged.'

As for the latest installment of the seven-book Potter series, Hotchkiss said she's expecting Rowling to strike a forbidding tone with the evil Lord Voldemort that's Harry's nemesis wreaking havoc in a world that has expanded beyond the Hogwarts castle.

"It has the potential for being very dark,' she said, "and we're certainly given the impression at the end of book four that it will be.'