ABSTRACT
Harry Potter’s world is a fascinating land of wonderment, magic, imagination, and exploration. Like good fantasy stories, the Harry Potter series draws its readers in and allows them to imagine and experience unfamiliar places, through the eyes of people they do not know, facing dangers they cannot imagine, and for this, the stories of Harry and his friends are loved. Through her detailed descriptions, J. K. Rowling vividly creates an immersive, persistent, alternate world through which we can explore possibilities that the natural laws of our non-magical world do not allow. More than entertainment, the adventures of Harry Potter give the critical reader opportunities to reexamine old problems in new ways. By creating a rich world for her readers to enjoy, Rowling’s work speaks directly to a number of problems we face in the non-magical world. This chapter examines Rowling’s treatment of technology and media, technology’s marriage to magic, and the relationship between technology and identity in these books. I begin by describing the thoroughly technological nature of Harry Potter’s world, arguing that technology is at the center of the storyline.
