The Ivory Tower And Harry Potter

Now available in paper, The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter is the first book-length analysis of J. K. Rowling's work from a broad range of perspectives within literature, folklore, psychology, sociology, and popular culture. A significant portion of the book explores the Harry Potter series' literary ancestors, including magic and fantasy works by Ursula K. LeGuin, Monica Furlong, Jill Murphy, and others, as well as previous works about the British boarding school experience. Other chapters explore the moral and ethical dimensions of Harry's world, including objections to the series raised within some religious circles. In her new epilogue, Lana A. Whited brings this volume up to date by covering Rowling's latest book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

In her follow-up to The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter, Lana A. Whited has compiled a new collection of essays analyzing the books, films, and other media by J. K. Rowling. This includes pieces on the Harry Potter books and movies, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (films), The Cursed Child (play), as well as her writing outside the wizarding universe, such as The Ickabog, The Casual Vacancy, and the Cormoran Strike series. Many of the chapters explore works that influenced the Harry Potter series, including Classical epic, Shakespearian comedy and tragedy, and Arthurian myth. In addition to literary comparison, the volume delves into topics like political authoritarianism, distrust of the media, racial and social justice, and developments in fandom. It’s fair to say that much has changed in regard to Harry Potter and J. K. Rowling scholarship in the twenty years since the first volume’s publication. While it was once considered a universally beloved book series, the relationship between HP and its fans has grown more complicated in recent years. As its readers have grown older and Rowling’s reputation has wavered in the public eye, Whited and her contributors consider the complicated legacy of Harry Potter and its author and explore how the series will evolve in the next twenty years.

This thoroughly revised edition includes updated essays on cultural themes and literary analysis, and its new essays analyze the full scope of the seven-book series as both pop cultural phenomenon and as a set of literary texts. Critical Perspectives on Harry Potter, Second Edition draws on a wider range of intellectual traditions to explore the texts, including moral-theological analysis, psychoanalytic perspectives, and philosophy of technology. The Harry Potter novels engage the social, cultural, and psychological preoccupations of our times, and Critical Perspectives on Harry Potter, Second Edition examines these worlds of consciousness and culture, ultimately revealing how modern anxieties and fixations are reflected in these powerful texts. ("DISCLAIMER: This book is not authorized, approved, licensed, or endorsed by J.K. Rowling, Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., or anyone associated with the Harry Potter books or movies.")

THE END OF HARRY POTTER is the perfect companion volume for all Harry Potter fans. Award-winning writer and Potter fan David Langford delves into the six Harry Potter books to explore J.K. Rowling's universe and characters, and shows in detail how cleverly J.K. Rowling has woven her world. This is the book for you if you are one of the gazillions of readers who find themselves wondering about horcruxes and Deatheaters and Dark Lords ... Langford looks at questions like: *What are the remaining horcruxes, the places He Who Shall Not Be Named has stashed his soul so he can never die? *Does Harry himself bear a part of the Dark Lord's soul in his scar? *Is that why Harry understands Parseltongue - and if not, why does he speak the language of the serpentssss? *What will happen when Harry is technically a grown-up, and no longer under the protection of his Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia? *Is Albus Dumbledore really dead? *Whose side is Severus Snape really on? *Will Hogwarts survive the final, apocalyptic battle between Harry and You-Know-Who? Don't know the answers? Then read THE END OF HARRY POTTER!

Originally published as the author's dissertation (doctoral)--Philipps-Universiteat Marburg, 2006.

The study combines theories of myth, popular culture, structuralism and poststructuralism to explain the enormous appeal of »Star Wars« and »Harry Potter«. Although much research already exists on both stories individually, this book is the first to explicitly bring them together in order to explore their set-up and the ways in which their structures help produce ideologies on gender and ethnicity. Hereby, the comparison yields central insights into the workings of modern myth and uncovers structure as integral to the success of the popular genre. It addresses academic audiences and all those wishing to approach the tales from a fresh angle.

The Harry Potter series forms a single epic story that has been published in nearly 70 languages, and has been examined in a large number of disciplines. This collection of essays contributes to the scholarly discourse that forms Potter Studies. These essays take on the consideration of Rowling's work as being worthy of study as a phenomenon and influence, as well as a work of literary value. They add genuine statistical information about the reasons for the books' popularity, consider their effects on child readers, and examine some deep-rooted reasons for their having been manipulated in American publishing, in film adaptations, in musical complements, and in their thingification in popular culture around the world. Some of these essays take on the critics of the books' religion and considerations of psychological, as well as philosophical good and evil, and well as some stylistic anomalies. The fact that scholars from China, Germany, Poland, Romania, and Israel, in addition to English-speaking nations, have felt compelled to examine these books in detail testifies in part to Harry Potter's world-wide influence.