Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins

The best discussion to be found about the artistry and meaning of Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy is hiding in the archives of HogwartsProfessor.com, especially the posts written soon after the publication of Mockingjay. For the complete set of those posts just scroll down but the ‘Greatest Hits’ from that flood include:

‘Unlocking Mockingjay: The Spiritual Allegory’ On Katniss as a Soul Seeking Perfection and Iconological Reading
‘Unlocking Mockingjay: ‘The Literary Alchemy’ On Literary Alchemy and Peeta as Postmodern Christ
‘Unlocking Mockingjay: Katniss’ Apotheosis’ On the Alchemical Arena and Katniss’ Perfection in the Inner Sanctuary
Katniss’ Meadow Song the musical embedded text of the series with ‘Hanging Tree’
The Hanging Tree, the story about the story inside the story;
The Hunger Games Formula, Collins’ literary scaffolding
Real or Not Real, the last-word-decisive theme of Mockingjay

We hit another round of in-depth discussion around the release of the first films. For the round-up of 35 posts about the books and their adaptations, scroll down or check this out. The best from that lot, I think, are:

There are many, many more Hunger Games posts in the archives that have gone up since the last films were released. Please search the site via the search engine on the Home Page! Here are seven of the more challenging:

Louise Freeman’s three part post on PTSD and The Hunger Games: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
MuggleNet Academia podcast with Lana Whited, editor of Critical Insights: The Hunger Games
On the Use of Hunger Games Imagery in Thailand Democracy Protests: Art Depicts Life Imitates Art
On the Tragi-Comedy of a Hunger Games Theme Park in Totalitarian China
Elizabeth Baird-Hardy on Fashion Shows with Hunger Games themes (see also the Miss Universe Pageant!)
A Response to a Critic Claiming ‘Hunger Games is Flawed to its Core’
Unintended Consequences: Hunger Games Hurts Television?

The HogwartsProfessor Series on Mockingjay and the Series as a Whole (Summer 2010):

The first 30 Hunger Games discussion threads from the three weeks after Morningjay’s publication are listed below. (nota Bene: The first ten threads were started the first morning post-publication and reflect a hurried first reading.)

The First Month of Posts at the Release of the First Film (March, 2012):

Posts are in sequence of beginning to end of month and those of greater depth or which drew the greater number and quality of responses are highlighted: