Harry Potter and the Philosophers' Conference at St Andrews University The Harry Potter novels are simply the most important and influential children's books of the late-twentieth and early-twenty-first centuries. For very many people, this is their first experience of literature, and of literary art. It's important because people care about it, and care very deeply. The conference will also deal with the influence of literary figures such as Chaucer, Shakespeare and Jane Austen. Mr Pazdziora added: "J.K. Rowling has put so much detail, so many literary and folkloric and cultural references, it's a tangle or a puzzle picking it all out. The series opens up new worlds to its readers, and this is also partly why it's so imaginatively and culturally important. Mr Granger, described by TIME magazine as the dean of Harry Potter scholars, said ahead of the event that the Hogwarts saga was "the most loved story in the history of publishing by quite a margin" and a natural subject for study. He added: "I take exception to the unexamined and misinformed assumption that the books are 'light on literary merit'. The seven books are each and taken together a remarkably intricate ring composition for one thing, with every chapter having a parallel analogy with another in the same book. Hogwarts, we're told, is hidden somewhere in Scotland, the author lives here, too, and Ms Rowling's mother was half-Scot. It's somehow appropriate and fitting that the first academic conference of any size be held at Scotland's oldest university, St Andrews.