Transformative Readings: Harry Potter Fan Fiction, Trans/Queer Reader Response, and J. K. Rowling

The politics of children’s literature and the actors surrounding it have never been more visible than they are now, in the digital age. As one of the first children’s series to gain widespread popularity concurrently with the spread of the internet, the Harry Potter septet arrived on the global stage at the perfect moment to develop an avid, connected fandom. But the fandom has laid bare the many conflicting ideologies of the fans themselves and of the actors surrounding the texts. This article examines the contentious issue of gender nonnormativity and its relation to the Harry Potter texts, the queer/trans reading practices and political resistance common to the fandom, and the ongoing disagreements over gender, made visible on social media, between Rowling and the fans of her series. The article discusses the Harry Potter novels’ varied and conflicting ideologies; queer/trans readings of the Potter septet, including both invitations and resistances to queer/trans reading by Rowling herself; how gender is queered and queried in and through fan fiction; and finally, the recent hostilities between Rowling and her fans. It concludes by discussing the worsening relationship between Rowling and her fans and highlighting how fans are using their collective power to undermine Rowling’s gender politics through fan fiction. By doing so, the article traces the complex politics of the reception of books for young people in the digital age, demonstrating that authors’ powerful voices continue to shape readers’ responses to texts long after their publication but showing, too, that readers often resist authors’ attempts to influence not only their textual interpretations but their politics.

Exploring the Metaphors of Loyalty, Courage and Friendship in Harry Potter Novels and their Turkish Translations

In studies on Conceptual Metaphor Theory and the Metaphor Master List scholars have come up with over the years, the metaphors (target domains) of loyalty, courage, and friendship figure among very important ones. In this study, we undertake to explore these three metaphors in the Harry Potter series, as these three conceptual domains also happen to constitute three underlying themes in these novels. Cross-linguistic work in this regard is in its infancy and would benefit from ongoing research, because our knowledge of metaphors is only useful insofar as we can determine if a domain is universally and cross-linguistically also used to conceptualize a given target concept similarly in another language, or if it is found to be subject to some variation between the two languages being compared. We look at how these three generic-level concepts are conceptualized in English and their translations into Turkish, and if the cross-domain mappings are similar/different in the two languages, offering further insights into how far cognitive reality and its metaphorical realization differ between English and Turkish from a Cognitive Linguistics vantage point.

KESANTUNAN TINDAKTUTUR DIREKTIF DALAM NOVEL TERJEMAHAN HARRY POTTER TAHUN 1 DAN 2 KARYA J. K. ROWLING SERTA RELEVANSINYA SEBAGAI BAHAN AJAR DI SMP

<em>The purpose of this study is to describe (1) the form of directive speech acts in JK Rowling's Harry Potter novels year 1 and 2, (2) the form of language politeness, (3) the relevance of the Harry Potter novelsyear 1 and 2 in Indonesian language learning to students in middle school. The data collection technique used in this study was purposive sampling and data analysis used an interactive analysis model. The results of this study indicate that the form of directive speech acts and compliance with the principles of politeness contained in the Harry Potter novels year 1 and 2 by J. Rowling are as follows: (1) speech acts; requests, questions, rules, prohibitions, granting permits, and directive forms of counseling which numbered 419 data; (2) compliance with the principles of teacher and student politeness during the learning process is found as many as 118 data; (3) Harry Potter novels year 1 and 2 by J. K. Rowling are related to literary learning in junior high schools.</em>

Visual Interpretation of Harry Potter Novels

This article seeks to explain the nature of visual interpretation which is an inseparable part of visual linguistics. Within the frames of this article we intend to study and illustrate the techniques that are used for making any kind of visual interpretation. To be more practical, illustrations and movie images have been used. The article focuses on the study of the two main characters of Harry Potter novels. The characters have been thoroughly analyzed with the method of triangle analysis.

« Ce n’est pas un livre, mais une pièce de théâtre… » : la lecture de Harry Potter et l’enfant maudit par les utilisateurs du réseau social littéraire Babelio

“It’s not a book, it’s a play… ”: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Read by the Users of Babelio, a Social Network for Book Readers. On the 31st of July 2016, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, a play written by Jack Thorne in collaboration with J. K. Rowling and John Tiffany, was performed for the first time at the Palace Theatre in London. On the same day, the bookshops of Great Britain were literally invaded by the young wizard’s fans, whom were curious to know what happens next to their favorite heroes. Thereby, The Cursed Child is a play, not only to be performed, but also – and mostly – to be read. Whereas the Theater Studies, at least in France, consider the drama text mainly as a scenic performance element and thus, limits the drama text reading to text analysis, the reception of Thorne’s play allows to ask about the possibility of reading the drama text as a self-sufficient fictional text and invites us to investigate the specificities of this kind of reading. In order to do this, I have analyzed three hundred Cursed Child readers’ reviews, which are located on the babelio.com website, one of the biggest French social networks for book readers. It appears that the Cursed Child’s readers tend to read that drama text by comparing it to the seven Harry Potter novels. The main two differences perceived within the scope of this comparison (and which the readers often tend to attribute to the dramatic form specificities) are the so-called lack of descriptions and the rapid reading rhythm. However, these differences may receive a completely opposite evaluation, depending on the reader’s openness to the dramatic form. In this way, for the “reluctant” readers, it constitutes an obstacle which prevents the fictional immersion and therefore the pleasure of reading, whereas for the “enthusiastic” readers, it allows them to go through a new and pleasant experience. Moreover, it is not unusual to see that the reading of The Cursed Child markedly reduces the reader’s reluctance towards the dramatic form. In fact, the reader reviews analysis proves that The Cursed Child text activates the reader’s imagination, regardless of his reluctance. Consequently, the Thorne’s drama example demonstrates that a drama text can be considered as a self-sufficient fictional text which is able to arouse the pleasure of reading and we can therefore conclude that the reluctance or the pleasure is led by the reader’s own readiness to accept the alterity of the dramatic form.