The Harry Potter Generation

The generation of readers most heavily impacted by J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series—those who grew up alongside “the boy who lived”—have come of age. They are poised to become teachers, parents, critics and writers, and many of their views and choices will be influenced by the literary revolution in which they were immersed. This collection of new essays explores the many different ways in which Harry Potter has shaped this generation’s views on everything from politics to identity to pedagogical spaces online. It seeks to determine how the books have affected fans’ understanding of their place in the world and their capacity to create it anew.

Emily Lauer is an associate professor of English at Suffolk County Community College on Long Island. She has written about young adult dystopia, Spider-Man, maps in genre fiction, and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Her current research centers on adaptations into and out of the comics form.

Balaka Basu is assistant professor of English literature at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She won a best edited book award by the Children’s Literature Association in 2015 for her co-edited collection on contemporary dystopian fiction.

Edited by Emily Lauer and Balaka Basu

Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 218
Bibliographic Info: notes, bibliographies, index
Copyright Date: 2019
pISBN: 978-1-4766-7003-4
eISBN: 978-1-4766-3552-1
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments  vi
Introduction: Learning from the Harry Potter Generation (Emily Lauer and Balaka Basu)  1
Prologue: Reading Harry Potter in Context (Emily Lauer and Balaka Basu)  6

Part I: The Phenomenon
Yours to Keep: Owning Harry and Hermione (Isaac Vayo)  21
Loony Lovegood and the Almost Chosen One: Harry Potter, Supporting Characters and Fan Reception (Dion McLeod and Elise Payne)  35
Harry Potter and the Book Burners’ Mistake: Suppression and Its Unintended Consequences (Emily Lauer)  53
The Disenchantment of Harry Potter: How Magic Died and the Wizarding World Became Modern (Marian Yee)  69

Part II: Cultural Memory and Identity
Cloaked in History: Magical Heritage Sites in the Harry Potter Series (Emily Lohorn)  81
Wizarding World Tourism: Numinous Experiences of the Harry Potter Generation (Dennis J. Siler)  95
Filling in Memory Gaps with Love: Harry Potter on Tumblr (Heather Urbanski)  114
Magic from the Margins: Harry Potter and the Postcolonial Experience (Balaka Basu)  128

Part III: Pedagogy
Fandoms as Classrooms: Harry Potter Online Communities as Social Intellectual Spaces (Amber B. Vayo)  143
Harry Potter and the Male Student Athlete (Julia D. Morris)  162
Lumens and Literature: Teaching Harry Potter in the College English Classroom (Christina A. Valeo)  175
“Harry Potter changed my life”: Students and Educators Reflect on the Harry Potter Generation (Lauren Hammond and Linda Pershing with Allison Bianco, Rachael Dohrn, Cathy Gutierrez, Shelby M.M. Kacirek, Harmony Owen, Angelo John Reyes and Erin L. Southam)   186

About the Contributors  205
Index  209

• “The essays in each section of the collection complement one another nicely and will hold wide appeal…excellent—Children’s Literature Association Quarterly