The Politics of Harry Potter


Rowling removes the technological complications of the contemporary world not out of nostalgia for cultural stability, but to reveal that, without the veneer of technology, the world wrestles with the same social and political questions in the 1990s as it did in the 1790s. Rowling returns to the ideals of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution to re-examine issues of social and political justice, which she clearly believes have not been solved, and may have been complicated by, technological developments of the twentieth century. In place of the false positivism offered by technological progress, Rowling offers a kind of positivism that is built on the ideals of the English Jacobins: on what was believed by some to be the dawn of a new millennium, the final rout of the evils caused by the ancien regime and endorsed by the structures of oppression and authority, appeared to be underway. The Harry Potter novels offer a similar vision at the dawn of the present millennium.

Chevalier, Noel. (2005). Political Justice, Magical Science, and Harry Potter. The Lion and the Unicorn, 29(3), 402.


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