Harry Potter and the enchanted professor
June 20, 2003 - As the fifth volume in the wildly successful Harry Potter series hits bookshelves Saturday, U of A English professor Dr. Raymond Jones will be gauging the reaction of child and adult readers alike.
"I truly believe that these books will have legs for a while," said Jones, who lectures in the Faculty of Arts' Department of English and has taught graduate and undergraduate courses that examine the Harry Potter books in depth.
The series has catapulted author J.K. Rowling into the superstar league, evidenced by her October 2000 appearance at Toronto's Sky Dome in front of thousands of pint-sized fans who came to hear her read from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
"Whether these books will go down in history as classics or as cultural objects is the subject of much speculation," Jones said. "There is no doubt they are getting more complex and hitting more issues," he added.
Jones began teaching graduate and undergraduate classes that looked at the Harry Potter series in early 2002. The courses have been over-subscribed, and while no one has yet written a dissertation on the topic, Jones said the subject was ripe for research.
"There is great potential and interest in Harry Potter," he said. His undergraduate course was called "Harry Potter and the Watchful Dragons: Moral and Social Values in Fantasy Literature for Children."
"They were very stimulating courses that looked at Harry Potter in context, understanding history and attitudes towards magic and the literary representation of neophyte magicians," he added.
"We also looked at things like Harry's moral status and the question of whether he was a bad role model or not, and the way in which adults were portrayed in the novels. Harry was both powerful and victimized, and as an orphan he had to earn his own identity."
"Where the story might go in the next installment of Harry Potter," Jones said, "is the subject of much speculation, although the author has dropped some hints.
"Harry is becoming a young adult, and along with the other characters, is evolving and facing many of the same issues people reading the books are. J.K. Rowling really is playing around with people's expectations."
The fifth volume of the Potter series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, is 38 chapters long, a third longer than Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which broke records when released in July 2000. The latter became the fastest-selling book in history on the first weekend of its publication.
Jones will be on sabbatical during the coming academic year, so students will have to wait until the following year if they wish to take his Harry Potter courses.
Related links - internal
U of A Faculty of Arts' Department of English website:
http://www.humanities.ualberta.ca/english/
Related links - external
Harry Potter website:
http://harrypotter.warnerbros.com/home.html
