Spiritual Education

Notes

   The function of fantasy

Harry Potter

-       Establishes itself my word of mouth at this point

-       Published by Scholastic

-       Work of a single editor David Levine

-       Paid a fairly big amount

-       JK Rowling J.K stands for nothing)- they were afraid that boys wouldn’t buy the book so they hid the gender by making it an initial

-       Welfare mom

-       Good student

-       Her mother was sick and died when she was reasonably young

-       Teaching English to foreign students

-       Met her first husband in Portugal

-       Single mom and becomes a secretary

-       Waiting in a train because it breaks down and that is where she gets the whole story

-       Her friends believed in her- one of them cashed in her retirement funds to pay for her to live while she wrote the book

-       Book is auctioned off

-       Harry Potter becomes larger than the books

-       More people have seen the movies than have read the books

-       Embeds values that are relevant

-       Moral education

-       Leads you to the kinds of understandings you get when you are 18: shows societal norms in an absurd way (muggles etc.) 

The Magicians

-       Different kind of college experience

-       Harvard in a way (where the author went)

-       What are the real things you have to watch out for (binge drinking)

-       Mentions Harry Potter
-       Conceived of prior to harry potter but he writes it after
-       How it really is going to school in the magical world-not a façade
-       Darker- not so “nice”