Harry Potter provides cultural potency across Michael Schudson's 5 dimensions of analysis. It works as evidenced by extensive sales and translations. It offers safe culture and addresses issues like literacy and ethics. The books are highly retrievable in stores and online. While some critics find the language lacking, it taps into discussions of fantasy and reading. Institutions like schools and religion have complex relationships with it. Fans engage through extensive fiction, websites, and merchandise, ensuring the franchise's continued resolution.

1. Harry Potter and the 5Harry Potter and the 5
Dimensions of CulturalDimensions of Cultural
PotencyPotency

2. Does it Work?
• If we were conducting an analysis of Harry
Potter using Michael Schudson’s 5 R’s, we
would have to start with the question of
whether the book works.
• To make the case, we need evidence:
– Earnings from sales, number of books in print,
number of language that the book has been
translated into
– What else? What other evidence would you
want to see to convince you that the book
works?

3. Sociological Significance
• There are a number of sociologically
significant issues we could address using
Harry Potter (perhaps surprisingly)
• I want to focus on the question of safe
culture. I assert that Harry Potter is an
example of safe culture, meaning simply that
it is not implicated in the inequalities of race,
class, gender, sexuality, or disability status
that have plagued so much of the culture we
have examined this semester.

4. Sociological Significance
• I may be wrong in my claim
• From your reading so far, would you agree
that this is an example of safe culture?
– Does it contribute to the Dreamworld? Is it
a merchant of cool? Reproduce a dominant
ideology? Contribute to class antagonisms?

5. Sociological Significance
• Some other issues we might consider as
forms of sociological significance in Harry
Potter include:
– Literacy and its role in social mobility
– Ethics, such as the clarity of good and evil vs.
the relativism of our time
– The role of leisure reading in shaping our sense
of identity, perhaps as compared to school-
assigned novels
– What else?

6. Retrievability
• The books are featured prominently in stores
• Around times of new releases, the books can often be
found at the front of the store
• At other times, they are given special displays at eye-
level
• There’s usually a heavy supply
• Like many books, you can find these novels online, but
unlike most other books, you can usually get to the HP
novels in just a few clicks.
– At Amazon and similar sights, until recently, you could often find
an HP section right on the front page, rather than having to
search for the books

7. Retrievability con’t
• The language of the books is very
accessible
– You do not need to have special knowledge or
specialized vocabulary prior to reading these
novels
• The price of the books, especially when
they are first released in hardback, is not
so retrievable—generally about $30/copy
• The length of the books, especially the
more recent volumes, can be daunting

8. Retrievability con’t• Internet piracy is helping to offset the effects of price, as well as
the frightening task of sifting through a Barnes & Noble that might
be crowded with young HP fans
• As reported in the NY Times, “JC, a 36-year-old Harry Potter fan in
Kansas City, Mo., decided he was too old to go chasing after the fifth
book in the popular series when it came out last month. Instead, he
downloaded the book Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
from the Internet, conveniently avoiding both bookstore crowds and
the $29.99 cover price.” …
• “’What is unusual for us as people who deal with piracy of books is
that these are people who are not directly making money for having
put them on the Internet,’ said Ian Taylor, international director of
the Publishers Association in Britain. ‘That is obviously what’s been
happening with peer-to-peer music, but it’s not something we’ve had
to deal with before.’”

9. Rhetorical Force
• The issue of rhetorical force directs us towards
the language of the novels, as well as the actual
events of the novels.
– Is the language striking?
– Do the experiences of Harry and his friends (the plot)
sear themselves in your mind?
• This is a tough question to answer. We are safer
ground when we do this by way of comparison to
something else.
• In lieu of a comparison, let’s turn to an expert…

10. Rhetorical Force con’t
• Harold Bloom is an English professor
at Yale. He is the author such books
as The Western Canon and How to
Read and Why?
• Seems to be a good expert on English
language literature, so let’s see what
he says about HP

11. Rhetorical Force con’t
• From The Wall Street Journal, July 11,
2000 – “Can 35 Million Book Buyers Be
Wrong? Yes” by H. Bloom
• “Though the book is not well written, that
is not in itself a crucial liability. It is much
better to se the movie, ‘The Wizard of
Oz,’ than to read the book upon which it
was based, but even the book possessed an
authentic imaginative vision. ‘Harry Potter
and the Sorcerer’s Stone’ does not.” …

12. Rhetorical Force con’t
• “One can reasonably doubt that ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s
Stone’ is going to prove a classic of children’s literature.”
• Rowling’s “prose style, heavy on cliché, makes no demand upon her
readers. In an arbitrarily chosen single page—page 4—of the first
Harry Potter book, I count seven clichés.”
• “How to read ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone? Why, very
quickly.”
• “Can more than 35 million book buyers, and their offspring, be
wrong? Yes, they have been, and will continue to be so for as long as
they persevere with Potter.”
• The cultural critics will, soon enough, introduce Harry Potter into
their college curriculum, and the New York Times will go on
celebrating another confirmation of the dumbing-down it
exemplifies.”

13. Rhetorical Force con’t
• Obviously Bloom ranks HP fairly low
in Rhetorical Force
• Counter-arguments?

14. Resonance
• The dimension of resonance requires that
we ask questions about the ways that the
cultural content taps into on-going social
conversations about related issues
• Those conversations may also be located
within the realm of popular culture
• What would HP resonate with?

15. Resonance con’t
• A bit of resurgence in sci-fi/fantasy has
been underway
– Return of Star Wars
– Lord of the Rings films
• Commodification of nerd culture
– HP, like many protagonists in film and
literature, is a big nerd. Nerds are replacing
Rambo and Terminator.

16. Resonance con’t
• New discussions about issues of literacy
and a surge of books and book clubs that
get Americans reading
– Oprah’s book club, which began with Toni
Morrison’s Song of Solomon, a book that was
published in the late 70s but then suddenly
became a best-seller in the late 90s
– Similarly HP was, perhaps unexpectedly, a novel
that got people talking about books again

17. Resonance Con’t
• The publishers have also worked hard to increase
the resonance for specific readers
– The original novel was published as Harry Potter and the
Philosopher’s Stone in Britain
• The word “philosopher” has connotations of alchemy in
Britain that really are not present within American English.
So publishers worried that the title would fail to resonate.
So they changed “Philosopher” to “Sorcerer” for the
American release
– Also for the American release, many words that were
deemed overly British were Americanized…

18. Resonance con’t
British American
Crumpets English muffins
Rounders bat Baseball bat
Trainers Sneakers
Jumper Sweater
Sellotape Scotch tape
Bobble hats Bonnets
Roundabout Carousel
Cine-camera Video camera
Football Soccer

19. Resonance con’t
• In France, the books were published
with separate cover illustrations for
adults and children
• In China, Harry Potter’s name was
changed to Ha-li Bo-te
– A chapter of the book was distributed
in schools and a Chinese website was
established to promote the book

20. Institutional Retention
• Initially the books were frowned upon by
schools (a logical institution to begin with
for books)
– More recently, however, many teachers have
taken a stance in favor of the books
– The publishing company actually released a
sourcebook for teachers, designed to help
teachers teach English language and literature
using the HP novels

21. Institutional Retention
con’t
• Religion, another logical institution to
explore, has also offered contradictory
stances towards the novels
– On the one hand, many religious (esp. Christian)
groups have frowned upon the novels because of
the presence of magic
– On the other hand, many religious groups have
embraced the novels because of their affirmation
of good and evil (in contrast to what these
churches view as a heretical embrace of strict
relativism in which there is not clear good or evil

22. Institutional Retention
con’t
Awards for HP and the Sorcerer’s Stone
• Nestlé Smarties Book Prize 1997 Gold Medal 9-11 years
• FCBG Children’s Book Award 1997 Overall winner and Longer
Novel Category
• Birmingham Cable Children’s Book Award 1997
• Young Telegraph Paperback of the Year 1998
• British Book Awards 1997 Children’s Book of the Year
• Sheffield Children’s Book Award 1998
• Whitaker's Platinum Book Award 2001

23. Institutional Retention
con’t
• Harry Potter Porn
– In 2001, MSNBC produced a report on a surge of online fiction
that eroticizes the HP characters
– “Produced and consumed almost entirely by young women,
naughty Harry Potter stories belong to the larger online
phenomenon called slash fiction (“slash” refers to stories that
pair male characters like Captain Kirk and Spock, or like Starsky
and Hutch; a much smaller category about male-female sex is
called simply het).”
– The HP slash fiction focuses especially on a romantic/sexual
relationship between Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy

24. Institutional Retention
continued
• Slash: refers to / that appears between 2 characters
names: Harry/Draco
• Shippers: Slash writers who focus on relationships
• Canon: The material from the original novels, and details
from other releases by Rowling, from her blog and from
associated books
• Fanon: The material produced by fans
• Mpreg: Stories that focus on male characters who are
pregnant (Snape bearing Dumbledore’s baby)
“I’m committed to Harry and Ginny in canon, but I’m a
Harry/Draco shipper in fanon.” A recent high school grad
speaking at a Harry Potter Studies conference.

25. Institutional Retention
con’t
• In terms of informal institutional
retention, readership of these novels is so
high (they consistently top the best seller
lists) that to not read them is to be unable
to participate in many cultural
conversations. There is a sense, although
you may have resisted it up til now, that
you just have to read these novels.

26. Resolution
What do these novels give you to do?
• Read the next novel—promised to be a series of 7, perhaps more will follow
• See the movies—there’ve been 4 so far, and presumably at least 3 more
• Read the companion books—Quidditch through the Ages and Fantastic
Beasts & Where to Find Them
• Buy the collectibles (see HP Collectibles)
• Play the Game: Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup
• Log on to the website/s:
– http://harrypotter.warnerbros.com/
– http://www.jkrowling.com/
– http://www.leakymug.com/index.php
– http://www.scholastic.com/harrypotter/home.asp
– http://www.hp-lexicon.org/
– Many more

27. Resolution con’t
• Read the books about the books
– Unauthorized Harry Potter Book Seven News: "Half-Blood Prince" Analysis and Speculation
– Ultimate Unofficial Guide to the Mysteries of Harry Potter (Analysis of Book 5)
– Ultimate Unofficial Guide to the Mysteries of Harry Potter (Analysis of Books 1-4)
– Mapping the World of Harry Potter (Smart Pop series)
– Fact, Fiction, and Folklore in Harry Potter's World: An Unofficial Guide
– The Wisdom of Harry Potter: What Our Favorite Hero Teaches Us About Moral Choices
– Harry Potter and Philosophy: If Aristotle Ran Hogwarts
– Looking for God in Harry Potter
– The Sorcerer's Companion: A Guide to the Magical World of Harry Potter
– Muggles and Magic: An Unofficial Guide to J.K. Rowling and the Harry Potter Phenomenon
– The Hidden Myths in Harry Potter : Spellbinding Map and Book of Secrets
– The Science of Harry Potter : How Magic Really Works
– Harry Potter's World: Multidisciplinary Critical Perspectives (Pedagogy and Popular
Culture)
– The Magical Worlds of Harry Potter : A Treasury of Myths, Legends, and Fascinating
Facts
– God, the Devil, and Harry Potter : A Christian Minister's Defense of the Beloved Novels
– Many, many more

28. Resolution Con’t
• Believe in magic
• Don’t be afraid
• Trust your friends
• Persevere
• What else?

29. Overview
• Retrievability: Very high, especially by cf.
to other books
• Rhetorical Force: Arguable
• Resonance: Fairly high, but not striking,
esp. in cf.
• Institutional Retention: Under negotiation,
but already high
• Resolution: Very high

30. But have we explained
Harry Potter?
• In July 1997, the first printing was
made of Harry Potter and the
Philosopher’s Stone—only 750 copies
• When book 6 was first released, 6.9
million copies sold in the first 48
hours
• Book 7 sold 11.5 million copies in the
first 10 days