Incantations and Indignation: Religious Reception of Magic in the Harry Potter Series REL203

Assignment 3: Essay

Assignment Instructions

Consider at least FOUR (4) quality sources in your answer, one (or more) of which should be a primary source.

Topic: The curses and spells used in the [Harry Potter] books are actual curses and spells; which when read by a human being risk conjuring evil spirits into the presence of the person reading the text" (The Guardian, 2019).

Critically discuss the reception of the Harry Potter stories amongst religious groups. How have their views on magic shaped their responses?

Students are to present their assignment in the form of a traditional essay totalling 2000 words. Your response should be evidence-based, well- researched, well-argued, well-referenced and free of grammatical errors.

Referencing Guidelines

AGPS (Harvard)

Potential References:

Prescribed Readings

Rowling, J. K. (2014). Harry Potter and the philosophers stone. Bloomsbury.

Ostling, M. (2003). Harry Potter and the Disenchantment of the World. Journal of Contemporary Religion, 18(1), 323. https://doi.org/10.1080/1353790030549

Soulliere, D. M. (2010). Much Ado about Harry: Harry Potter and the creation of a moral panic. Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, 22(1), 137.

Flood, A. (2019, September 2). Harry Potter books removed from Catholic school on exorcists advice. The Guardian; Guardian Media Group.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/sep/02/harry-potter-books- removed-from-catholic-school-on-exorcists-advice

Recommended Readings

Apostolides, A., & Meylahn, J.-A. (2014). The lived theology of the Harry Potter series. Hervormde Teologiese Studies, 70(1), 16.

https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v70i1.2713

Ishizuka, K. (2003). Pastor shreds Harry Potter books. School Library Journal, 49(1).

Branley, A. (2012, August 24). Harry Potter banned by Christian school. The Sydney Morning Herald; Nine Entertainment.

https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/harry-potter-banned-by- christian-school-20120824-24q7i.html

Natov, R. (2001). Harry Potter and the extraordinariness of the ordinary. The Lion and the Unicorn, 25(2), 310327. https://doi.org/10.1353/uni.2001.0024

Heilman, E. E. (2008). Critical perspectives on Harry Potter (2nd ed.). Taylor & Francis.

Feldt, L. (2015). Harry Potter and contemporary magic: Fantasy literature,

popular culture, and the representation of religion. Journal of Contemporary Religion, 31(1), 101114. https://doi.org/10.1080/13537903.2016.1109877

Van den Berg, M., Dircksen, M. (2008). Mandrake from antiquity to Harry Potter. Akroterion, 53, 6779.

Whited, L. A. (2002). Ivory Tower and Harry Potter perspectives on a literary phenomenon. University of Missouri Press.

Anatol, G. (2009). Reading Harry Potter again: New critical essays. ABC- CLIO.

Jacobs, A. (2000). Harry Potters magic. First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, 99, 3538.

Alderton, Z. (2014). Snapewives and Snapeism: A fiction-based religion within the Harry Potter fandom. Religions, 5(1), 219267. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel5010219

Zoltan, V., Kuile, C., Nedelman, A., Ursin, C., Kelly, M., & Needham, M. (n.d.). Our methodology. Harry Potter and the Sacred Text; Harry Potter and the Sacred

http://www.harrypottersacredtext.com/

Dunne, J. A. (2023). Harry Potter and the Aims of Transhumanism: A Magical Critique of Technological Immortality. Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, 35(2), 5571.

https://doi.org/10.3138/jrpc.2021-0048

DeMitchelle, T. A., & Carney, J. J. (2005). Harry Potter and the public school library: is Harry Potter, boy hero, a scourge of evil or a promoter of evil? To many adults, he is the latter, and the books about him are seen as corrupting and dangerous. Mr. DeMitchell and Mr. Carney discuss the implications of a case in which a school board holding these views voted to restrict student access to the Harry Potter books in the school library. Phi Delta Kappan, 87(2), 159159.

Feldt, L. (2016). Contemporary fantasy fiction and representations of religion: playing with reality, myth and magic in His Dark Materials and Harry Potter. Religion (London. 1971), 46(4), 550574.

https://doi.org/10.1080/0048721X.2016.1212526

Heilman, E. E. (2008). Critical Perspectives on Harry Potter (2nd ed.). Florence Taylor and Francis.

Anatol, G. (2009). Reading Harry Potter Again New Critical Essays. Westport ABC-CLIO.

Butler, R. R. (2018). Harry Potter: Summoning the dead. The New Review of Childrens Literature and Librarianship, 24(1), 6775.

https://doi.org/10.1080/13614541.2018.1430012

Mazzocca, M. (2021). The Laws of Magic and the Magic of Laws: A Study of the Unbreakable Vow from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince from a Legal and Ontological Perspective. Cognitio (Luzern), 2021(1), 112.

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4767583

Wygant, A. (2006). The meanings of magic : from the Bible to Buffalo Bill. Berghahn Books.

Kosmyna, N., Scheirer, C., & Maes, P. (2021). The Thinking Cap: Fostering Growth Mindset Of Children By Means Of Electroencephalography And Perceived Magic of Harry Potter Universe. CHI EA 21: Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1, 16.

https://doi.org/10.1145/3411763.3451732

Kruk, R. (2005). Harry Potter in the Gulf: Contemporary Islam and the Occult.

British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 32(1), 4774. https://doi.org/10.1080/13530190500081626

Cusack, C. (2020, January 1). Harry Potter and the Sacred Text.

academia.edu.

https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/66568156/Cusack_Harry_Potter_2 019-libre.pdf?1619137265=&response-content- disposition=inline;+filename=Harry_Potter_and_the_Sacred_Text_ Fiction.pdf&Expires=1727402814&Signature=R5UCVqHdKumSLYMzEoorIV ficqNG~r4Y5G~DvErVA-FPnEs- t57h9ecepvNoeygkJr9t4GsVcSdDhj5WFunRXjQbZIpXvgfBoZn3V4Jv7xQyX 09gmLmVUX6pStNk18v92VLKZ0maVoTjewHYFhY4b-hTKFqKu2- ZLtcjbRXsC8kln9jgBr8wxTzqdi5u9rA2rVpwt0Xcw1~-W1rL9S2Q56- MBjlWcuArH4-

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Larsson, G. (2020, January 1). Its all about magic: a fatwa on Harry Potter. researchgate.net; University of Gothenburg.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Goeran-Larsson- 3/publication/347773588_Its_all_about_magic_- a_fatwa_on_Harry_Potter/links/5fe3c1fda6fdccdcb8f71aed/Its-all-about- magic-a-fatwa-on-Harry-Potter.pdf

Cohen, S. (2018). The Two Alchemists in Harry Potter: Voldemort, Harry, and Their Quests for Immortality. Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, 30(3), 206219. https://doi.org/10.3138/jrpc.2017-0038