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Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by
THE DURSLEYS were so mean and hideous that summer that all Harry Potter wanted was to get back to the Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. But just as he's packing his bags, Harry receives a warning from a strange, impish creature named Dobby who says that if Harry Potter returns to Hogwarts, disaster will strike. And strike it does. For in Harry's second year at Hogwarts, fresh torments and horrors arise, including an outrageously stuck-up new professor, Gilderoy Lockhart, a spirit named Moaning Myrtle who haunts the girls' bathroom, and the unwanted attentions of Ron Weasley's younger sister, Ginny. But each of these seem minor annoyances when the real trouble begins, and someone-or something-starts turning Hogwarts students to stone. Could it be Draco Malfoy, a more poisonous rival than ever? Could it possibly be Hagrid, whose mysterious past is finally told? Or could it be the one everyone at Hogwarts most suspects...Harry Potter himself!
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by
For twelve long years, the dread fortress of Azkaban held an infamous prisoner named Sirius Black. Convicted of killing thirteen people with a single curse, he was said to be the heir apparent to the Dark Lord, Voldemort. Now he has escaped, leaving only two clues as to where he might be headed: Harry Potter's defeat of You-Know-Who was Black's downfall as well. And the Azkaban guards heard Black muttering in his sleep, "He's at Hogwarts . . . he's at Hogwarts." Harry Potter isn't safe, not even within the walls of his magical school, surrounded by his friends. Because on top of it all, there may well be a traitor in their midst.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by
It's the pivotal fourth novel in the seven-part tale of Harry Potter's training as a wizard & his coming of age. Harry wants to get away from the pernicious Dursleys & go to the International Quidditch Cup with Hermione, Ron, & the Weasleys. He wants to dream about Cho Chang, his crush (and maybe do more than dream). He wants to find out about the mysterious event that's supposed to take place at Hogwarts this year, an event involving two other rival schools of magic, & a competition that hasn't happened for a hundred years. He wants to be a normal, fourteen-year-old wizard. Unfortunately for Harry Potter, he's not normal -- even by wizarding standards. And in his case, different can be deadly.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by
The next volume in the thrilling, moving, bestselling Harry Potter series will reach readers June 21, 2003 -- and it's been worth the wait! We could tell you, but then we'd have to Obliviate your memory.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by
As the Harry Potter sequence draws to a close, Harry's most dangerous adventure yet is just beginning . . . and it starts July 16, 2005. We could tell you, but then we'd have to Obliviate your memory.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by
"'Give me Harry Potter,' said Voldemort's voice, 'and none shall be harmed. Give me Harry Potter, and I shall leave the school untouched. Give me Harry Potter, and you will be rewarded.'"
As he climbs into the sidecar of Hagrid's motorbike and takes to the skies, leaving Privet Drive for the last time, Harry Potter knows that Lord Voldemort and the Death Eaters are not far behind. The protective charm that has kept Harry safe until now is broken, but he cannot keep hiding. The Dark Lord is breathing fear into everything Harry loves and to stop him Harry will have to find and destroy the remaining Horcruxes. The final battle must begin - Harry must stand and face his enemy ...
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The Alchemical Harry Potter
When Harry Potter first boards the Hogwarts Express, he journeys to a world which Rowling says has alchemy as its "internal logic." The Philosopher's Stone, known for its power to transform base metals into gold and to give immortality to its maker, is the subject of the conflict between Harry and Voldemort in the first book of the series. But alchemy is not about money or eternal life, it is much more about the transformations of desire, of power and of people--through love. Harry's equally remarkable and ordinary power to love leads to his desire to find but not use the Philosopher's Stone at the start of the series and his wish to end the destructive power of the Elder Wand at the end. This collection of essays on alchemical symbolism and transformations in Rowling's series demonstrates how Harry's work with magical objects, people, and creatures transfigure desire, power, and identity. As Harry's leaden existence on Privet Drive is transformed in the company of his friends and teachers, the Harry Potter novels have transformed millions of readers, inspiring us to find the gold in our ordinary lives.
Critical Insights : The Harry Potter Series
Also available in print in COM Library. Over the last twenty years, J. K. Rowling has captured the hearts and imaginations of readers around the world with her inimitable Harry Potter series, an adventurous tale of a young wizard's coming of age. In the course of seven books, this epic fantasy saga tells the story of Harry Potter, a boy wizard at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Together with his friends, Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley, as well as other various modern-day wizards, witches, and Muggles, Harry fights an ongoing battle against Lord Voldemort, a dark wizard with an obsessive quest for power and immortality.
Critical Perspectives on Harry Potter
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 Editiondraws 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 Editionexamines 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.")
Harry Potter's World Wide Influence
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.
Harry Potter And Philosophy
In Harry Potter and Philosophy, seventeen philosophical experts unlock some of Hogwarts' secret panels, and uncover surprising insights that are enlightening both for wizards and the most discerning muggles.
Ivory Tower and Harry Potter : Perspectives on a Literary Phenomenon
In 2000, Forbes listed J. K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, as nineteenth in celebrity earnings, only two places behind another phenomenon, Michael Jordan. Translated into nearly three dozen languages, Rowling's books have both elicited praise and provoked controversy. In The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter, contributors from Great Britain, the United States, and Canada offer the first book-length analysis of 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. Rowling's use of folkloric devices is examined, particularly in terms of how these elements increase the books' appeal for children. The handling of British slang in U.S. editions and difficulties in translating Rowling's work for foreign-language editions are also addressed. The books' appeal for adolescent boys, not customarily a strong presence in the reading market, is explored within a cultural framework, and gender dynamics are discussed from the standpoint of contemporary feminist literary theory, focusing on the character of Hermione Granger. The concluding chapters survey the development of fan communities and the implications of the Harry Potter commercial empire -- books, motion pictures, action-figure toys, and other consumer goods -- for the series' literary standing. Written to ensure its accessibility to a broad audience, this volume will appeal to librarians, teachers, parents, and the general Potter reader, as well as to literature scholars. Book jacket.
Legilimens! : Perspectives in Harry Potter Studies
The current state of scholarship surrounding Harry Potter is both vibrant and varied. One of the reasons scholars continue to be attracted to the series as an artifact is the colossal range of disciplinary foci that can find treasures to unearth in its pages and films. In the Harry Potter series, legilimens is the spell that allows a wizard to see into another person's mind, reading the subject's thoughts. As such, it is an appropriate moniker for the attempt of scholars to see into the Harry Potter texts and search for greater meaning. Legilimens!: Perspectives in Harry Potter Studies contains the work of anthropologists and theologians, of historians and rhetoricians. The collection is a wide-ranging discussion of the Harry Potter texts (and the meanings contained within) among scholars from broadly disparate fields, coming together to deliberate over the greater scholarly significance of these rich and fertile texts.
Literary Wonderlands : A Journey Through the Greatest Fictional Worlds Ever Created
The Occasional Ethnicities of Lavender Brown: Race as a Boundary Object in Harry Potter in Critical Insights: Contemporary Speculative Fiction
Also available in print in COM Library. Speculative fiction has a long and progressive history, from the mythos of J.R.R. Tolkien to the radical alternativity of China Miéville and the ecofeminism of Suzanne Collins. The last twenty years has witnessed a surge in the critical reception of speculative and fiction, as more work continue to move beyond the Tolkien tradition and open up the pertinent discussion of the permeable boundary between fantasy and science fiction. This volume in the Critical Insights series addresses the crossover genre of contemporary speculative fiction through a diverse set of texts and through multiple methodologies. For readers who are studying and approaching the genre for the first time, four essays survey the critical conversation regarding speculative fiction, explore its cultural and historical contexts, and offer close and comparative readings of key texts. Readers seeking a deeper understanding of the theme can then move on to other essays that explore it in depth through a variety of critical approaches. Works discussed include Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy, Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, Stephenie Meyer's Twilight saga, Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, Nalo Hopkinson's Midnight Robber, and the Harry Potter series, as well as the works of China Mi#65533;ville, Lauren Beukes, and Margo Lanagan. Among the contributors are Sarah Margaret Kniesler, Janice M. Bogstad, Peter Dendle, and Justyna Deszcz-Tryhubczak. Rounding out the volume are a list of literary works not mentioned in the book that concern the topic as well as a bibliography of critical sources for readers seeking to study this timeless theme in greater depth. Each essay is 2,500 to 5,000 words in length, and all essays conclude with a list of ""Works Cited,"" along with endnotes. Finally, the volume's appendixes offer a section of useful reference resources: About This Volume Critical Context: Original Introductory Essays Critical Readings: Original In-Depth Essays Further Readings Detailed Bibliography Detailed Bio of the Editor General Subject Index
Ontological Humility : Lord Voldemort and the Philosophers
Explores ontological humility in the history of philosophy, from Descartes to contemporary gender and race theory.
Reading Harry Potter
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.
The Touch of Evil and the Triumph of Love in Harry Potter in Critical Insights: Good and Evil
Also available in COM Library. Great starting point for students seeking an introduction to the theme and the critical discussions surrounding it. Good and evil have existed throughout human history, and humanity has been attempting to come to grips with the idea of them for just as long. From allegorical morality tales to cathartic horror stories to all-to-real personal narratives of unspeakable events, literature has always provided an especially powerful medium for the study of good and evil. Profoundly concerned with the making and remaking of meaning, literature allows for the questioning, resisting, and refiguring of good and evil, and it does so on the levels of content and form. Literature's effects resonate: they are not only intellectual but also sensuous, and they can be immediate as well as long-lasting; unexpected and surprising. Literature engages us with ourselves, with each other, and with the world beyond us, and even when other means for understanding experience cannot. Accordingly, literature can provide a forum in which individuals can grapple with their personal questions on good and evil, experiencing them in scenes and characters they might never physically encounter. Literature - the telling of stories - also provides a crucial vehicle for memory, advocacy, and resilience. It can empower marginalised and oppressed groups, whose voices may well be silenced within other cultural and social contexts, with a crucial vehicle for the articulation of social justice issues. Edited by Margaret Breen, Professor of English and Associate Department Head at University of Connecticut, Storrs, this volume in the Critical Insights series presents a variety of new essays on the perennial theme. For readers who are studying it for the first time, a four essays survey the critical conversation regarding the theme, explore its cultural and historical contexts, and offer close and comparative readings of key texts in the genre. Readers seeking a deeper understanding of the theme can then move on to other essays that explore it in depth through a variety of critical approaches. Works discussed include King Lear; Paradise Lost; Maus; The Scarlet Letter; Jane Eyre; The Picture of Dorian Gray; The Farming of Bones; Train to Pakistan; Harry Potter and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Rounding out the volume are a list of literary works not mentioned in the book that concern the theme of good and evil and as well as a bibliography of critical sources for readers seeking to study this timeless theme in greater depth.
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