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Here’s the first word on the new Harry Potter film. It opens November 18.

Mixed reviews for new Potter film

The latest Harry Potter movie, The Goblet of Fire, has received mixed early reviews from critics.
It is the fourth film adaptation of JK Rowling’s book series and the first to have a UK director - Mike Newell.

US entertainment magazine Variety said the “excellent” film was “the darkest Potter yet” with “a climactic scene that does not disappoint”.

Harry Potter Books

BBC NEWS | UK | England | Cornwall | Harry Potter’s ‘flying’ car taken

The “flying” Ford Anglia used in the Harry Potter films has been stolen from studios in Cornwall.

Police said the rusting Ford Anglia, registration 7990 TD, went missing from the South West Film Studios in St Agnes on Wednesday night.

The car, which could not have been driven, could be seen from the road.

Pottermania 2005: A Harry Potter Conference Friday October 14, 2005 Co-sponsored by UC Riverside’s English Department and the Center for Ideas and Society

Call for Papers

Pottermania 2005 will be a one day conference for scholars and fans of the Harry Potter novels. Given the broad interest in all things Potter, our aim is to hold a conference open to the general public and the press, creating a forum for scholarly analysis of the books as well as a forum for open discussion between scholars and fans of these works. Our hope is that we will be able to provide a space for scholarly discussion that is at the same time welcoming to a more general reading audience. In order to accomplish this goal, we are asking for shorter presentations, of approximately 10 minutes, and are encouraging the use of more creative and interesting presentational methods. We are also building in more time for open discussion than that found at many conferences.

Proposals are sought for papers on any topic relating to the Harry Potter novels, the films, the general Harry Potter phenomenon, or the fan community. Potential topics include but are not limited to:

Harry Potter and Issues of Translation and Adaptation Philosophical, Political, and Ethical Issues: May include the depiction of evil or the issues of slavery, sexism, and racism Harry Potter seen through the lens of ethnic or gender studies, anthropology, sociology, psychology, folklore, etc.
Harry Potter and Its Influences
Harry Potter and Genre Considerations
Harry Potter and Audience Expectations
Harry Potter and Educational Theory
Harry Potter in the Context of Young Adult or Children’s Literature Harry Potter and Fanfiction Harry Potter and Its Reception: May explore the varied responses and political controversies surrounding the books

Proposals should take the form of an approximately 500-word abstract, as well as a 50-100 word summary for the program book and a 50-100 word biography. All proposals must be received by email by September 1, 2005. Please send all abstracts and questions to Craig Svonkin at svonkco@netzero.com

This symposium is an unofficial event and is not endorsed by Warner Bros, the Harry Potter book publishers or J. K. Rowling and her representatives.
PERMISSION TO COPY, FORWARD, OR POST PUBLICLY IS GRANTED

This is exactly how I feel when I read Harry Potter, I feel like I am 10 discovering a new book…

‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’: Her Dark Materials

To read Rowling’s novels as an adult is to sink into a half-remembered state of childhood rapture, the trance produced when you gobbled up fantasies for the first time. In the series’s fourth volume, ”Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” Dumbledore lets Harry stumble across the Pensieve, a collecting dish for excess memories. To extract a memory, a wizard holds a wand to his temple, draws a silvery strand of thought from his head and taps it into the basin. Any wizard who touches the swirling contents of the bowl drops into the visions it contains, reliving them as if he had been present at their inception. Dipping into the fiction that is Rowling’s Pensieve, adult readers tumble into an eerie but familiar realm, containing not only Rowling’s images of Harry but their own memories of books they loved when they were Harry’s age and younger.

Before we get into deconstructing Harry Potter, let me define phenomenology:

According to The Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory by J. A. Cuddon, Phenomenology is:

A method of philosophical inquiry which lays stress on the perceiver’s vital and central role in determining meaning.

The Phenomenology of Harry, or the Critique of Pure Potter - New York Times

Leafing through the other academic essays in this collection, one discovers that the Harry Potter series also embodies many of the 10 basic elements of Otto Rank’s ”hero myths,” not to mention the 31 ”functions” or characteristics of classic folktales as delineated by the Russian structuralist Vladimir Propp.

And what are fairy tales if not allegories of real life? ”The Harry Potter novels are among the most politically engaged novels to have been written for children in recent years,” writes Brycchan Carey, a lecturer at London University, providing ”a site for discussion of a democratic society’s response to elitism, totalitarianism, and racism.”

Harry Potter has been released! Last night at 12:01 a.m., fans got their hands ALL over the world on the newest Harry Potter book. I guess the Canadians can keep reading now.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Potter fans snap up latest book

Author JK Rowling was at Edinburgh Castle where she read to 70 young fans who won the chance to be at the launch and interview her.

Ten million copies were expected to be sold worldwide within 24 hours, including two million in the UK.

NYTimes.com reports that Scholastic is making sure the new Harry Potter book will not be distributed prematurely. In fact, Amazon has a special stockroom that is manned by security guards and restricted access. J.K. Rowling wants kids to have an experience. It was Rowling’s idea to have the book go on sale at 12:01 a.m. on July 16.

Test for Security Efforts: Next Harry Potter Book

Steve Riggio, the chief executive of Barnes & Noble, said the company expected to sell 50,000 of the new Harry Potter book per hour in the first 24 hours after its release. “Less than 1 percent of all books published sell that many copies in a lifetime,” he said.