Critical Perspectives on Harry Potter

Elizabeth E. Heilman is Associate Professor in the Department of Teacher Education at Michigan State University.

Introduction: Fostering Insight through Multiple Critical Perspectives, Elizabeth E. Heilman

I. Perspectives on Identity and Morality

1. Controversial Content: Is Harry Potter Harmful to Children?, Deborah J. Taub and Heather L. Servaty-Seib

2. Harry Potter and Christian Theology, Peter Ciaccio

3. Harry Potter's World as a Morality Tale of Technology and Media, Nicholas Sheltrown

4. Is Desire Beneficial Or Harmful in the Harry Potter Series?, Taija Piippo

5. The Great Snape Debate, Peter Appelbaum

II. Critical and Sociological Perspectives

6. Schooling Harry Potter: Teachers and Learning, Power and Knowledge, Megan L. Birch

7. Comedy, Quest, and Community: Home and Family in Harry Potter, John Kornfeld and Laurie Prothro

8. From Sexist to (sort-of) Feminist: Representations of Gender in the Harry Potter Series, Elizabeth E. Heilman and Trevor Donaldson

9. Monsters, Creatures, and Pets at Hogwarts: Animal Stewardship in the World of Harry Potter, Peter Dendle

10. Harry Potter, the War against Evil, and the Melodramatization of Public Culture, Marc Bousquet

III. Literacy Elements and Interpretations

11. Playing the Genre Game: Generic Fusions of the Harry Potter Series, Anne Hiebert Alton

12. Harry Potter and the Secrets of Children’s Literature, Maria Nikolajeva

13. Harry Potter and the Horrors of the Oresteia, Alice Mills

14. Philosopher’s Stone to Resurrection Stone: Narrative Transformations and Intersecting Cultures across the Harry Potter Series, Kate Behr

IV. Cultural Studies and Media Perspectives

15. Lost in Translation?: Harry Potter, from Page to Screen, Philip Nel

16. The Migration of Media: Harry Potter in Print and Pixels, Anna Gunder

17. Writing Harry's World: Children Co-Authoring Hogwarts, Ernest L. Bond and Nancy L. Michelson

18. Pottermania: Good, Clean Fun or Cultural Hegemony?, Tammy Turner-Vorbeck