Shedding Light on His Dark Materials

Shedding Light on His Dark Materials

Author: Kurt D. Bruner

Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 191

ISBN-13: 1414315643

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The bestselling authors of "Finding God in the Lord of the Rings" team up again in a study of Philip Pullmans popular "His Dark Materials" fantasy series. Released to coincide with the feature film, this book equips parents, teachers, and readers to better understand Pullmans troubling work.


Beyond His Dark Materials

Beyond His Dark Materials

Author: Susan Redington Bobby

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2012-09-18

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 1476600813

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Beyond the His Dark Materials series lies a vast fictional realm populated by the many diverse character creations of Philip Pullman. During a more than 30-year career, Pullman has created worlds filled with quests, trials, tragedies and triumphs, and this book explores those worlds. The picture books, novellas and novels written for children, adolescents and adults are analyzed through the themes of innocence and experience. The journeys Pullman sets his characters on teach them that one must embrace change, loss and suffering to grow in wisdom and grace.


Philip Pullman

Philip Pullman

Author: Catherine Butler

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2017-09-16

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 1137336773

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Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy is a worldwide classic of modern literature for both children and adults. Challenging in its intellectual scope, ambitious scale and range of literary reference, it is also hugely controversial due to its critique of organised religion. This collection of original essays by an international team of distinguished scholars assesses Pullman's achievement and introduces readers to some of the key debates surrounding His Dark Materials. Covering topics such as religion, gender, childhood and scientific enquiry, the volume also discusses the Hollywood film of the first book and features a new interview with Pullman himself.


Transfiguring Transcendence in Harry Potter, His Dark Materials and Left Behind

Transfiguring Transcendence in Harry Potter, His Dark Materials and Left Behind

Author: Mike Gray

Publisher: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

Published: 2013-10-23

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 364760447X

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Three recent and commercially successful series of novels employ and adapt the resources of popular fantasy fiction to create visions of religious identity: J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books, Phillip Pullman's Dark Materials and Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins' Left Behind series. The act of creating fantasy counter-worlds naturally involves all three stories in the creation of what Mike Gray terms "transfigurations of transcendence": hopeful albeit paradoxical encodings of the ambiguous, non-observable reality whose primary locus in modern society is the societally extra-systemic human individual. Popular fantasy fiction turns out to involve acts of world-creation that are inherently religious and inherently paradoxical.A substantive examination shows that all three are involved in more or less intentional re-narrations of traditional Christian beliefs and narratives. The »atheist« His Dark Materials series does not deny but re-imagines the Christian visions of selfhood; the »traditionalist« Left Behind series does not simply replicate but modifies its own declared values; the apparent secularity of the Harry Potter series is shaped by its creative reception of Christian patterns and narratives. While the stories' visions of selfhood clearly clash, the basic paradoxes involved in their struggle to articulate transcendence expose significant parallels and a productive conversation with the Christian tradition.It is not simply that popular fantasy fiction is theologically relevant – the Christian Heilsgeschichte, too, proves to be highly relevant in popular culture. However, while far from obsolescent, models of religious identity in contemporary society require criticism and creativity – and, as evinced most powerfully in the Harry Potter stories, a flair for constructive engagement with paradox.


Dark Matter

Dark Matter

Author: Tony Watkins

Publisher: InterVarsity Press

Published: 2006-01-01

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 083083379X

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Uses a Christian perspective to interpret the popular trilogy, offering a look Pullman's life, an overview of the major dimensions of each book, and a critical evaluation of such major themes as sin and the death of God.


The Victorian Period in Twenty-First Century Children’s and Adolescent Literature and Culture

The Victorian Period in Twenty-First Century Children’s and Adolescent Literature and Culture

Author: Sara K. Day

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-01-19

Total Pages: 426

ISBN-13: 1351376268

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Victorian literature for audiences of all ages provides a broad foundation upon which to explore complex and evolving ideas about young people. In turn, this collection argues, contemporary works for young people that draw on Victorian literature and culture ultimately reflect our own disruptions and upheavals, particularly as they relate to child and adolescent readers and our experiences of them. The essays therein suggest that we struggle now, as the Victorians did then, to assert a cohesive understanding of young readers, and that this lack of cohesion is a result of or a parallel to the disruptions taking place on a larger (even global) scale.


Fantasy Literature and Christianity

Fantasy Literature and Christianity

Author: Weronika Łaszkiewicz

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2018-10-18

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1476671702

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The debate surrounding the Christian aspects of C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials and J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter has revealed not only the prominence of religious themes in fantasy fiction, but also readers' concerns over portrayals of religion in fantasy. Yet while analyses of these works fill many volumes, other fantasy series have received much less attention. This critical study explores the fantastic religions and religious themes in American and Canadian works by Stephen R. Donaldson (Chronicles of Thomas Covenant), Guy Gavriel Kay (Fionavar Tapestry), Celia S. Friedman (Coldfire Trilogy), and Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn). References to biblical tradition and Christian teachings reveal these writers' overall approach to Christianity and the relationship between Christianity and the fantasy genre.


The Victorian Era in Twenty-First Century Children’s and Adolescent Literature and Culture

The Victorian Era in Twenty-First Century Children’s and Adolescent Literature and Culture

Author: Sonya Sawyer Fritz

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-01-19

Total Pages: 267

ISBN-13: 1351376276

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Victorian literature for audiences of all ages provides a broad foundation upon which to explore complex and evolving ideas about young people. In turn, this collection argues, contemporary works for young people that draw on Victorian literature and culture ultimately reflect our own disruptions and upheavals, particularly as they relate to child and adolescent readers and our experiences of them. The essays therein suggest that we struggle now, as the Victorians did then, to assert a cohesive understanding of young readers, and that this lack of cohesion is a result of or a parallel to the disruptions taking place on a larger (even global) scale.


Hating God

Hating God

Author: Bernard Schweizer

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2010-11-04

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 0199780013

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While atheists such as Richard Dawkins have now become public figures, there is another and perhaps darker strain of religious rebellion that has remained out of sight--people who hate God. In this revealing book, Bernard Schweizer looks at men and women who do not question God's existence, but deny that He is merciful, competent, or good. Sifting through a wide range of literary and historical works, Schweizer finds that people hate God for a variety of reasons. Some are motivated by social injustice, human suffering, or natural catastrophes that God does not prevent. Some blame God for their personal tragedies. Schweizer concludes that, despite their blasphemous thoughts, these people tend to be creative and moral individuals, and include such literary lights as Friedrich Nietzsche, Mark Twain, Zora Neale Hurston, Rebecca West, Elie Wiesel, and Philip Pullman. Schweizer shows that literature is a fertile ground for God haters. Many authors, who dare not voice their negative attitude to God openly, turn to fiction to give vent to it. Indeed, Schweizer provides many new and startling readings of literary masterpieces, highlighting the undercurrent of hatred for God. Moreover, by probing the deeper mainsprings that cause sensible, rational, and moral beings to turn against God, Schweizer offers answers to some of the most vexing questions that beset human relationships with the divine.


The Twilight Phenomenon

The Twilight Phenomenon

Author: Kurt D. Bruner

Publisher: Destiny Image Publishers

Published: 2009-09-28

Total Pages: 100

ISBN-13: 0768496616

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The Twilight Phenomenon Forbidden Fruit or Thirst- Quenching Fantasy? equips parents and leaders to candidly discuss the Twilight series with teens who have been caught up in the romance of a human girl and a vampire boy. Much like Harry Potter caught the attention of millions of boys worldwide with spellbinding tales, the Twilight series is holding teenage girls captive with tempting fantasy stories that peak young impressionable minds. Readers of The Twilight Phenomenon will be shocked with the compelling truth behind why the Twilight series is so entrancing. It answers questions including:Do vampires have souls? What is immortality how is it lost or gained? What is the nature of evil? What sacrifices should be made for love?What is the nature of temptation? Veteran authors of books exposing the good and bad reality of popular books,Kurt and Olivia Bruner successfully help parents navigate the challenges and opportunities that emerge from pop culture by leveraging teen interests to drive dialogue about Christian orthodoxy. Other books by the Bruner s include Finding God in the Lord of the Rings, Shedding Light on His Dark Materials,Playstation Nation, and How to Mess UpYour Child s Life. Concerned parents, teachers, grandparents, youth leaders, and all adults who care about children and young adults will greatly value the wisdom and intelligent conversation shared in The Twilight Phenomenon Forbidden Fruit or Thirst Quenching Fantasy?