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Reading Harry Potter Critical Essays
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Giselle Liza Anatol
Book Code: GM2067
ISBN: 0-313-32067-5
ISBN-13: 978-0-313-32067-5
248 pages
Praeger Publishers
Publication: 5/30/2003
List Price: $49.95 (UK Sterling Price: £27.95)
Availability: In Stock
Media Type: Hardcover
Also Available: Ebook
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects:
Series Title: Contributions to the Study of Popular Culture
Series Number: 78
Reviews:
  • This book is a valuable addition to any library....Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above.
    —Choice     November 2003
  • eading Harry Potter adds to the growing analysis of the series by offering essays about the first four novels from child development and moral and social values perspectives in addition to literary and historical treatments....[a]dd provocative ideas to a growing discussion of the series that is underway even as Jo Rowling writes at her desk in Scotland creating the final two installments of Harry's story.
    —Children's Literature Association Quarterly     Winter 2003-2004
  • Reading Harry Potter: Critical Essays is an impressive anthology of literary criticism draw from a variety of learned authors who all of whom regard J.K. Rowling's popular Harry Potter fantasy series as far more than mere popular culture pablum. Examining the Harry Potter works with regard to theories of child development, literary influences and historical contexts, and morality and social values,Reading Harry Potter is a multifaceted exploration of the Potter books as literature with lasting potential influence on both developing and mature minds today.
    —Library Bookwatch     March 2004
  • Endorsement From Virginia A. Walter
    Associate Professor and Chair, UCLA Department of Information Studies:     Here is more proof that almost everybody is wild about Harry--academics as well as the hundreds and thousands of children, parents, teachers, and librarians around the world who have been charmed by this young wizard-in-training. This sampling of scholarly essays will inform a thoughtful adult reader's appreciation of the Harry Potter books as literature and as a publishing phenomenon.
Description: J. K. Rowling achieved astounding commercial success with her series of novels about Harry Potter, the boy-wizard who finds out about his magical powers on the morning of his eleventh birthday. The books' incredible popularity, and the subsequent likelihood that they are among this generation's most formative narratives, call for critical exploration and study to interpret the works' inherent tropes and themes. The essays in this collection assume that Rowling's works should not be relegated to the categories of pulp fiction or children's trends, which would deny their certain influence on the intellectual, emotional, and psychosocial development of today's children. The variety of contributions allows for a range of approaches and interpretive methods in exploring the novels, and reveals the deeper meanings and attitudes towards justice, education, race, foreign cultures, socioeconomic class, and gender. Following an introductory discussion of the Harry Potter phenomenon are essays considering the psychological and social-developmental experiences of children as mirrored in Rowling's novels. Next, the works' literary and historical contexts are examined, including the European fairy tale tradition, the British abolitionist movement, and the public-school story genre. A third section focuses on the social values underlying the Potter series and on issues such as morality, the rule of law, and constructions of bravery.
Table of Contents:
  • Introduction by Giselle Liza Anatol
  • Reading Harry Potter through Theories of Child Development
  • Archetypes and the Unconscious in Harry Potter and Diana Wynne Jones' Fire and Hemlock and Dogsbody by Alice Mills
  • Harry Potter and the Magical Looking Glass: Reading the Secret Life of the Preadolescent by Lisa Damour
  • Harry Potter and the Acquisition of Knowledge by Lisa Hopkins
  • Safe as Houses: Sorting and School Houses at Hogwarts by Chantel Lavoie
  • Harry and Hierarchy: Book Banning as a Reaction to the Subversion of Authority by Rebecca Stephens
  • Literary Influences and Historical Contexts
  • Harry Potter's Schooldays: J. K. Rowling and the British Boarding School Novel by Karen Manners Smith
  • Accepting Mudbloods: The Ambivalent Social Vision of Rowling's Fairy Tales by Elaine Ostry
  • Hermione and the Houses Elves: The Literary and Historical Contexts of J. K.Rowling's Anti-Slavery Campaign by Brycchan Carey
  • Flying Cars, Floo Powder, and Flaming Torches: The Hi-Tech, Lo-Tech World of Wizardry by Margaret J. Oakes
  • Morality and Social Values: Issues of Power
  • Cruel Heroes and Treacherous Texts: Educating the Reader in Moral Complexity and Critical Reading in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter Books by Veronica Schanoes
  • Harry Potter and the Rule of Law: The Central Weakness of Legal Concepts in the Wizard World by Susan Hall
  • The Fallen Empire: Exploring Ethnic Otherness in the World of Harry Potter by Giselle Liza Anatol
  • Class and Socio-Economic Identity in Harry Potter's England by Julia Park
  • Cinderfella: J. K. Rowling's Wily Web of Gender by Ximena Gallardo-C and C. Jason Smith
  • Selected Bibliography
  • Notes on Contributors
LC Card Number: 2002032973
LCC Class: PR6068
Dewey Class: 823
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