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As the publishing sensation of the last half-century, Harry Potter dominates early education in politics. Children, tweens, teens, and adults love it; and most students come to college knowing at least some of it. This dark fantasy analyzes politics in strikingly practical and institutional ways. Like ancient Sophists, modern Machiavellians, and postmodern Nietzscheans, the Potter books treat politics as dark arts and our defenses against them. The Potter saga overflows with drama, humor, and insight into ours as dark times of terrible troubles. These reach from racism, sexism, and specism to fascism, terrorism, autocracy, and worse. Harry and his friends respond with detailed, entertaining takes on many ideologies, movements, and styles of current politics.Defenses Against the Dark Arts argues that Potter performances of magic show us how and why to leap into political action. This includes the high politics of governments and elections, and especially the everyday politics of families, schools, businesses, media, and popular cultures. It explores Potter versions of idealism, realism, feminism, and environmentalism. It clarifies Potter accounts of bureaucracy, nationalism, and patronage. And it analyzes Potter resistance through existentialism and anarchism. The emphasis is on learning to face and defend against dark arts in dark times.
List of contents
Chapter 1: Political Theories for Dark Times
Chapter 2: Dark Arts for Dark Times
Chapter 3: Defenses Against Dark Arts
Chapter 4: Potter Magic as Perfectionist Politics
Chapter 5: Perversions of Perfectionist Politics
Chapter 6: Rules and the Philosopher's Stone
Chapter 7: Kinds and the Chamber of Secrets
Chapter 8: Friends and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Chapter 9: Peoples and the Goblet of Fire
Chapter 10: Institutions and the Order of the Phoenix
Chapter 11: Patrons and the Half-Blood Prince
Chapter 12: Fools and the Deathly Hallows
About the author
John S. Nelson is professor of political theory and communication at the University of Iowa.
