Reading Harry Potter again: new critical essays

As was argued in Reading Harry Potter: Critical Essays (Praeger, 2003), interpreting the underlying messages and themes of the Harry Potter series is vital for understanding the ways that we perceive and interact with each other in contemporary society. The novels and corresponding film adaptations have broken records with their groundbreaking sales and widespread acclaim; they have also generated a plethora of writing-by critics, academics, and fans. These works could easily be called this generation's most formative narratives, and thus warrant critical attention. This new volume of essays covers the entire seven-book sequence. Contributors consider myriad themes from a variety of perspectives. Areas addressed include religion, morality, race, magic, and other themes popular in discussing the books. With this book in hand, fans of the series - indeed anyone interested in the Harry Potter phenomenon - will better appreciate and understand Rowling's work and the impact of her stories on our culture and on our times.

Harry the teenager: muggle themes in a magical adolescence / Lisa Damour -- The lightning bolt scar as a lightning rod: J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series and the rhetoric of the extreme right / Rebecca L. Stephens -- The Potterverse and the pulpits: beyond apologia and bannings / Peggy Lin Duthie -- Causation, prophetic visions, and the free will question in Harry Potter / Patricia Donaher, James M. Okapal -- Harry Potter and narratives of destiny / Lisa Hopkins -- The good, the bad, and the ugly: lies in Harry Potter / Chantel M. Lavoie -- Happily ever after: Harry Potter and the quest for the domestic / Ximena Gallardo C., C. Jason Smith -- The replication of Victorian racial ideology in Harry Potter / Giselle Liza Anatol -- A Marxist inquiry into J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series / Shama Rangwala -- Secret domination or civic duty: the source and purpose of magical power in Harry Potter / Margaret J. Oakes -- Hermione and the house-elves revisited: J.K. Rowling, antislavery campaigning, and the politics of Potter / Brycchan Carey -- (Dis)order and the phoenix: love and political resistance in Harry Potter / Tracy L. Bealer -- Militant literacy: Hermione Granger, Rita Skeeter,…