The Harry Potter series is without a doubt among the most popular and influential to have been released in recent decades and should be taught at U of T. The bildungsroman arc of the series chronicles the adventures of Harry and his friends at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and is of great artistic merit. The books have intellectual weight and deal with complex themes such as death, loss, and the line between good and evil. People discriminate against books like these because they are popular and easy to read, but so what? Many of the works now studied at universities and regarded as classics were intended for mass consumption when they were written (like Sherlock Holmes). The danger in shunning contemporary popular literature is that it creates a divide between what is pleasing to the academics and what is pleasing to everyone else. U of T should take a more open-minded approach to what has academic merit and give Harry Potter a chance.
