Annotated Bibliography

1. Douglas, Tracy. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Colonialism. Phoenix Rising: Collected

Papers

on Harry Potter. Edited by Sharon K. Goetz, Narrate Conferences, 2008, pp. 280-292.

Douglas essay focuses on how Harry is the embodiment of the British hero.

Harrys characterization as a typical British hero allows the concept of othering to occur

within the series. Douglas focuses only on the book Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,

but even within just that one book we see plenty of examples of othering taking place.

I think this article will be useful in showing that colonialism is not necessarily a

violent event. It will help show how colonialism involves racism, stereotypes, and

sexism. Douglas explains and provides multiple examples of othering taking place

within Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

2. Howard, Susan. Slaves No More: The Harry Potter Series As Postcolonial Slave

Narrative.

Harry Potters World Wide Influence. Edited by Diana Patterson, Cambridge Scholars,

2009, pp. 35-47

Susan Howards essay Slaves No More: The Harry Potter Series as

Postcolonial Slave Narrative talks about how the Harry Potter series works as a new

form of slave narrative. Howards essay focuses on the treatment of three house-elves:

Dobby, Winky, and Kreacher. Howard argues that Dobby is the first example the reader

sees of the slave narrative. The second novel introduces slavery in a way that is

synonymous to the life of black slaves. Despite the fact that house-elves are intelligent

and have magical abilities they are treated as beasts and are classified as such in the
 wizarding laws. Much in the same way black slaves were seen as subhuman. She notes

the lack of equality in the wizarding world that becomes evident with the Fountain of

Magical Brethren. The lesser beings and creatures are described as looking adoringly at

the wizard and witch, yet the novels make it clear that two of the beings in the statue

resent being considered inferior to witches and wizards.

Howards essay is extremely useful because it helps connect the theory of

colonialism to Harry Potter. The essay is full of examples within and outside of Harry

Potter that show how these two seemingly different topics come together.

3. Ostry, Elaine. Accepting Mudbloods: The Ambivalent Social Vision of J.K.Rowlings Fairy

Tales.

Reading Harry Potter: Critical Essays, edited by Giselle Liza Anatol, Praeger, 2003, pp.

89-101.

Ostry claims that Rowling uses the grand theme of fairy tales, good versus evil, to

combat two evils of our time: materialism and racism (89). The entire Harry Potter

series revolves around fighting these class wars such as pureblood versus mudbloods,

wizards versus muggles, wizards versus magical creatures, even the slavery of house

elves. However, Ostry notes that Rowlings social vision is ambivalent, in that, while it

seems to fight against the ideas of racism and slavery, it does not do it well enough. It

seems that Hogwarts, and even some of the characters, embrace some ideas of racism and

slavery. Ostry notes some examples such as when Ron finds out that Hagrid is part giant

he cringes away from Hagrid. Despite that Ron knows Hagrid and knows him to be kind,

he still suffers from this ingrained prejudice. She also notes that Hogwarts depends on the

enslavement of elves and Harry and Ron (two good characters) do not seem to have a
 problem with this. The focus of the race war is to defend muggle-born wizards and yet

most wizarding families look down on muggles. Being a wizard is, essentially, belonging

to a higher social class.

Ostrys article will be useful because it provides so many examples of latent

colonialism. The article, seemingly unknowingly, talks about the problems with

colonialism and the colonialist mindset. I plan on using some of her examples and talking

about how these examples express the colonialist ideology.

4. Young, Robert JC. Postcolonial Remains. Postcolonial Studies: An Anthology. Edited by

Pramod K. Nayar, Wiley Blackwell, 2016, Kindle edition.

The section of Youngs essay titled The Other talks about the concept of

othering. Young seems to be advocating the idea of abolishing the category of the other.

He notes that people considered outside of the West are considered as other. They are

outside of modern civilization. The legacy of othering is the existence of minorities

who, to this day, fight for the right to fully participate in society without this notion of

being other forced upon them.

This section of Youngs essay will prove useful simply because it talks about

othering and what othering consists of. I plan to use this concept to talk about the

othering we see happening in the Harry Potter series. We see it happening when Malfoy

called Hagrid a savage, when Ron flinches from Hagrid upon learning that Hagrid is part

giant, and with the concept of mud-bloods.