The Ivory Tower, Harry Potter, and Beyond: More Essays on the Works of J. K. Rowling

by Lana A. Whited (Editor)

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826274960
Publisher:	University of Missouri Press
Publication date:	02/26/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	434
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Lana A. Whited is Professor of English and Director of the Boone Honors Program at Ferrum College. She is the author or editor of four books, including Critical Insights: The Harry Potter Series and The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter: Perspectives on a Literary Phenomenon.

Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction. J. K. Rowling: The First Twenty-Five Years | Lana A. Whited

Section 1: Magical Directions and Misdirections

1. Muggle Worthy: Deceptive Exteriors and Outsized Interiors in the Wizarding World | Elizabeth Baird Hardy

2. London as a Magical Location in the Harry Potter Series | Madison McLeod

3. Secrecy and Segregation in the Wizarding World’s Hidden Histories | Kathryn N. McDaniel

Section 2: Intertextual readings

4. Harry, Aeneas, and the Foundational Text | Mitchell H. Parks

5. From Sword to Sorcery: The Medieval(ist) Juxtaposition of Magic and Might in Harry Potter | Laurie Beckoff

6. Shakespearean Romantic Comedy and Hogwarts Couples | Heather Murray

Section 3: Social and Psychological Applications

7. Why S.P.E.W. Was Doomed to Fail: Exploring Systemic Inequity through Rowling’s Racialized House-Elves Alyssa Lowery

8. “The Ghost of His Last Laugh”: Evolving Humor in Harry Potter | Louise M. Freeman

Section 4: Narratological readings

9. Pensieve Lessons in Critical Reading | Leslie Bickford

10. Quidditch as Narrative Mirror in the Harry Potter Series | Caitlin Elizabeth Harper

11. Eye Wonder? Reflecting Harry in Animal Eyes | Catherine Olver

12. The Otter and the Stag: Narration and Objectification in Harry Potter | Patrick McCauley

13. “Perfectly normal, thank you very much”: Exploitation of Hybridity in the Borderlands of Harry Potter | Molly L. Burt

Section 5: HARRY POTTER and Beyond

14. Literary Alchemy in “The Fountain of Fair Fortune” from The Tales of Beedle the Bard | Kris Swank

15. Hopelessness and Hope in The Casual Vacancy: The Cost and Joy of Discipleship | M. Katherine Grimes

16. Parenting Models in the Potter Saga and Cursed Child: Human and Divine | Emily Strand

17. The Snake Woman in Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts | Beatrice Groves

18. Politics of Suppression and Violence in Fantastic Beasts | Carsten Kullmann

19. The Story Turn: Parallels in the Pivotal Texts of Harry Potter and Cormoran Strike | John Granger

20. The Ickabog, Monsters, and Monstrosity | Lana A. Whited

Section 6: The Fandom, 25 Years On

21. “Accio Jo!” Woke Wizards and Generational Potter Fandom | Rebecca Sutherland Borah

Bibliography

Contributors

Index

Editorial Reviews

"A very strong collection. The essays engage effectively in contemporary debates regarding media, identity, and childhood.”—Gwen Athene Tarbox, Western Michigan University, author of Children's and Young Adult Comics

“Lana Whited’s new collection of essays is a valuable follow-up to her previous groundbreaking Ivory Tower volume. This anthology not only offers readers fresh perspectives on the Harry Potter novels, but also features exciting insights into materials that have heretofore received little attention. The outstanding scholarship testifies to the variety and continued vitality of Rowling studies.” —Beth Sutton-Ramspeck, Ohio State University at Lima, author of Harry Potter and Resistance

 

“In 2002, editor Lana A. Whited established the field of Harry Potter studies with the first scholarly anthology on the subject, The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter: Perspectives on a Literary Phenomenon; now Whited pioneers a new and challenging era of J. K. Rowling studies with a second volume that both builds on decades of fruitful discourse and reevaluates critical positions relating to the expanded canon of texts and their divisive author. Across six fascinating sections, twenty-one experts from diverse disciplines and perspectives provide compelling proof of the depth and breadth of today’s academic conversations surrounding Rowling’s writings. Tackling weighty subjects from secrecy and segregation to parenting models, critical reading to suppression and violence, the thought-provoking essays in this volume illustrate the ongoing timeliness and relevance of the field.”—Amy H. Sturgis, Signum University, co-editor of Star Trek: Essays Exploring the Final Frontier and Star Wars: Essays Exploring a Galaxy Far, Far Away

From the Publisher