Learning outcomes:
This course has been designed to enable you to:
- Put the Potter phenomenon in context and perspective
- Reassess Rowling’s hero(in)es and villains in the light of the series as a whole
- Assess Rowling’s moral uses of her writing and profits
Course sessions:
Session 1. The Potter Phenomenon
1.1 What is Harry Potter in the 2020s?
1.2 Some Quasi-Magical Real-World Effects
He began in 1997 as ‘the Boy who Lived’, but a quarter-century on, and seven books, eight films, one play, and a prequel series later, he is at least also a franchise, and needs to be recognised as such. But as boy and brand to inspire commercial wonder he has also had some unexpected real-world effects beyond muggle quidditch, particularly affecting publishers’ practices with children’s and Young Adult fantasy and wider fiction.
Session 2. Opening Moves
2.1 Rowling’s Style and Sources
2.2 Harry Potter 1–3 and the Tyrannies of Prejudice
What is it about Rowling’s writing that occasioned such extraordinary success? She had some clear literary sources, notably in Enid Blyton’s 'Malory Towers’ series, but also some very clever tricks of her own; and unlike Blyton, Rowling caters both for a readership growing up year by year as her protagonists do, and younger readers bingeing on everything at once. Hence the defusing humour – but even the first three books also show horrors and vileness, with a relentless exposure of prejudice fearsomely encapsulated in the hissed derogation ‘Mudblood!’
Session 3. Mid-Game
3.1 Harry Potter 4–5 and the Dark Arts of Escalation 1
3.2 Harry Potter 4–5 and the Dark Arts of Escalation 2
The two middle novels occupy more than 40% of the total wordcount, and matters deteriorate nastily, with the three forbidden curses of enslavement, torture, and murder, and two awful, highly accessorised women with quills whom only fantasy writing could accommodate – paparazzo Rita Skeeter with her illegal bugging as an unregistered animagus and her Quick Quotes Quill, relentlessly transforming everything into the yellowest journalism, and Dolores Jane Umbridge with her proud invention, the torture quill (straight out of Franz Kafka) that she uses on Harry.
Session 4. End Game
4.1 Harry Potter 6–7 and the End Game 1
4.2 Harry Potter 6–7 and the End Game 2
As events reach their extended climax, the complicated and divisive figure of Severus Snape takes centre stage for a while, but with the sixth title and its open use of ‘Half-Blood’ the fundamental anti-racism that animates the whole series also steps forward. Rowling is of the generation for whom Anti-Apartheid was a major cause, but to a far greater degree than is commonly realised she was also addressing continuing and serious racisms in the UK.
Session 5. Plenary : More Real-World Effects
5.1 Fanfic
5.2 A Force for Good?
In closing, we return to the real world of readers, Harry Potter has become the largest fandom for fanfic, which while of variable quality is an unparalleled archive of reader responses and a phenomenon to ponder, as well as a source of continuing Potteriana that is not part of the franchise. And there are claims that the series has philosophically, even spiritually, bettered its readers – which do need to be taken with a salt-shaker handy, but cannot be dismissed.
Non-credit bearing
Please note that our Virtual Summer Festival of Learning courses are non-credit bearing.
Certificate of Participation
A certificate of participation will be sent to you electronically within a week of your Summer Festival course(s) finishing.
