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The Harry Potter novels written by J.K Rowling have been popular since the first book was released in 1997. Rowling has written seven books about Harry and the first four together with the Swedish National Agency for Education constitute the primary sources of this essay. The essay discusses how these supposed children’s’ novels can be used to construct a lesson for students in the Swedish upper secondary classroom. The lesson plan created is based on the analysis of the possible themes of the novels using Postcolonial and Marxist critical perspectives. The theories are used to show how discrimination and suppression can be seen in the Harry Potter novels. Previous research has shown that the occurrences in Harry Potter is similar to the occurrences happening in the real world and the lesson plan is created to compare these fictional happenings with the ones happening in our real society. The lesson plan constructed consequently focuses on how the Harry Potter novels can be used to discuss discrimination and suppression takes place in English speaking societies as required by the rules and guidelines provided by the Swedish National Agency for Education.

The books about Harry Potter have been read by people all over the world, but is there some-thing more to them than just the magical adventure novels they first appear to be? Many have discovered the multiple layers of understanding that the author J. K. Rowling has put in her famous books, and since I was curious about a few features in the story that reminded me of certain elements which can be found in the Bible, I decided to find out more. The following essay investigates which specific features in the books about Harry Potter that can be traced to which specific parts of the Bible. The main focus is the comparison between the character Harry Potter and Jesus Christ. I use a comparative analyzing method and secure my theory with quotes from both Harry Potter and the Bible. In the end, I found a wide range of similarities between the two characters, and in my discus-sion, I raised the question whether or not the likenesses were intentional by Rowling. I reached the conclusion that the authors intention is not as important as the reader’s interpreta-tion and what they can learn from it.

The objective of this thesis is to study how the use of movies can enrich the educational platform. Movies: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001) and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005) have been analyzed using a hermeneutic method and postcolonial theory to identify stereotypes and religious and mythologicial motives. This thesis shows that the presentation of religiosity in both movies can be useful in the classroom setting although the presence of stereotypes need to be further discussed with the students. There are plenty of ways to work with both movies in the classroom setting though the teacher has a great responsibility to make it work.

Criticism of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series has maintained that its popularity stems from a well-marketed, repetitive and simple structure. However, this essay considers that this success derives from recognizable mythological heroic structures. The essay traces the protagonist’s development from the perspective of two different theories that contrast and complement each other in various ways, Otto Rank’s theory of the myth of the birth of the hero and Joseph Campbell’s theory of the monomyth. Campbell and Rank both hypothesize that hero myths are repetitive because they emerge from the subconscious of human kind. It can be seen in the tracing of the heroic development in Harry Potter that— although various aspects and features in the hero’s journey are followed in the narrative — the series does not strictly fit these theories. The result is a combination of different features from both theories, which modernizes the heroic myth that has pervaded human culture and history since time immemorial.

Uppsatsen studerar porträtt av ondska i poulärkultur, genom att titta på filmerna Star Wars- och Harry Potterfilmerna. Både manus, ljud och bild utgör fokus för uppsatsen.

This is a study about adaptation, focusing on the first book in the series about Harry Potter and the movie version of the book. The study examines whether any of the characters change when the book is adapted to another type of medium. For example, are there any character traits that are revealed differently in the book versus the movie? The materials that have been used are works of reference, the first book about Harry Potter and also the film of the book. Some of the literature has already been read prior to the study but will still be needed as the study continues.By the end of the study there should be some results to be shown. The primary purpose of the study is to clarify the differences and similarities that can appear when a work is transferred, for example, from book to film.

In this essay, the Harry Potter series will be analyzed in three different sections. I will use African American criticism and Critical Race Theory (CRT) in the discussion of ‘race’ and segregation that occurs between three different groups. This section will explain along what lines the world of Harry Potter is segregated and to what extent. Further, it will contain a case-study of house-elves through the lens of postcolonial criticism, that shows how certain groups are relegated to the status of “subaltern”, what form their oppression take and how they respond to it. I have chosen the elves, who are at the very bottom of the social ladder, because the extent of their oppression has been cut out from movie adaptions, and Rowling herself has liquidated the house-elf plot from the last novels. They provide the clearest example of differentiation between the groups of magical creatures, even though as a group they do not play an important part the series. The main concepts that will be used in this section are the issues of subaltern, mimicry and anticolonialist resistance. Finally, I will look at the novels through a multicultural perspective to see how Rowling has portrayed contemporary multicultural England and how it connects to the racial divisions in the magical world.

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Thesis advisor: Lisa Cuklanz / For my Communication Honors Program thesis for Boston College, I plan to analyze gender roles and how gender is constructed in recent children’s films produced by Disney. Since the Disney Corporation is so prominent in today’s culture and thus influential to its audience, this topic of study is very important. It impacts many people including its main target audience—children. Existing research proves that children develop their gender schemata early in life. Furthermore, the media they interact with influences children and their concepts of gender. Therefore, the way that Disney portrays gender in its children’s movies is worth analyzing since it can impact the way children develop and view gender and stereotypes. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Communication Honors Program. / Discipline: College Honors Program. / Discipline: Communication.