Awakening to the twenty-first century : the evolution of human consciousness in Pullman's His dark materials / Millicent Lenz -- Reading His dark materials / Lauren Shohet -- Second nature : daemons and ideology in The golden compass / Maude Hines -- Dyads or triads? His dark materials and the structure of the human / Lisa Hopkins -- Northern lights and northern readers : background knowledge, affect linking, and literary understanding / Margaret Mackey -- Pullman's His dark materials, a challenge to the fantasies of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, with an epilogue on Pullman's neo-romantic reading of Paradise lost / Burton Hatlen -- Pullman's enigmatic ontology : revamping old traditions in His dark materials / Carole Scott -- "Without Lyra we would understand neither the New nor the Old Testament" : exegesis, allegory, and reading The golden compass / Shelley King -- Rouzing the faculties to act : Pullman's Blake for children / Susan Matthews -- Tradition, transformation, and the bold emergence : fantastic legacy and Pullman's His dark materials / Karen Patricia Smith -- "And he's a-going to destroy him" : religious subversion in Pullman's His dark materials / Bernard Schweizer -- Rediscovering faith through science fiction : Pullman's His dark materials / Andrew Leet -- Circumventing the grand narrative : dust as an alternative theological vision in Pullman's His dark materials / Anne-Marie Bird -- Unexpected allies? Pullman and the feminist theologians / Pat Pinsent -- "Eve, again! Mother Eve!" : Pullman's Eve variations / Mary Harris Russell -- Philip Pullman : a biographical note.