A Postmodern Wizard: The Religious Bricolage of the Harry Potter Series Signe Cohen University of Missouri Abstract: The Harry Potter series is rich in allusions to Celtic, Greek, Roman, Norse, and Hindu mythology, Arthurian legends, and Christianity. These religious and mythological elements are taken out of their original context and re-combined in a postmodern bricolage, reflecting the series’ emphasis on cultural diversity and the forging of individual meaning. Keywords: Harry Potter, popular culture, religion, mythology, postmodernism By 2013, an estimated record-breaking 450 million copies of the seven Harry Potter novels had been sold worldwide (‘‘Because It’s His Birthday’’ 2013), and the last four books in the series have the distinction of being the fastest-selling books in history. The books have been translated into more than sixty languages, including Latin and Ancient Greek. The Harry Potter books are read by children, teens, and adults, by elementary school students and by college professors, by Christians, Jews, Muslims, Wiccans, Buddhist, Hindus, and atheists. Reviewers never tire of referring to the success of the Harry Potter series as ‘‘magical.’’ What can account for the fantastic commercial success of the bespectacled boy wizard? What is it about the series that appeals so strongly to contemporary readers of all different backgrounds? The novelist A.S. Byatt, noting the many parallels between the Harry Potter books and other well-known works of literature, religion, myth, and fairy tales, refers derisively to the universe created by J.K. Rowling as ‘‘a secondary secondary world’’ (Byatt 2003). And Harry’s world is indeed populated with many familiar characters; Odin/Gandalf sits in the headmaster’s office at Hogwarts and dispenses sage advice, a hook-nosed black-clad Loki, eternally wavering between good and evil, teaches potions, while young Perseus/Frodo/ Cinderella slays the dragon and rescues the maiden, 1 triumphs in spite of the wicked step- family, 2 and defeats the Dark Lord. However, is Harry’s world, with its familiar archetypes, merely a derivative one? Or does the series draw its strengths precisely from its reinterpreta- tion of mythical material? The Harry Potter series weaves together disparate religious and cultural elements in an intriguing manner. Harry attends a traditional British boarding school with staff named after Greek and Roman mythological figures like Argus, Minerva, Quirinus, Remus, and Pomona 3 and students named after both Biblical figures and Hindu goddesses; 4 and he re-enacts the classical Arthurian grail quest during the Triwizard Tournament, 5 encounters magical creatures from classical mythology, 6 British folklore, 7 and Scandinavian folktales, 8 and faces an enemy partly modelled on the Christian devil, 9 whose serpent bears a Sanskrit name, 10 before returning home to the suburbs where his cousin is playing videogames. Ancient mythology and modern pop culture are blended in seamless postmodern fashion when Harry and his friends trade commercial chocolate frog cards bearing the names of historical alchemists, Celtic goddesses, and Merlin himself. The series collapses the boundaries between the past The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture 28:1, Spring 2016 doi:10.3138/jrpc.28.1.3426 http://www.utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/jrpc.28.1.3426 - Signe Cohen <cohens@missouri.edu> - Friday, October 14, 2016 10:01:44 AM - University of Missouri-Columbia IP Address:128.206.104.27