The Lion and the Unicorn

Now, perhaps more than ever, is a tough time to be a Harry Potter fan. The joy from the emotional devotion to the series is complicated by the real-life and storyworld problematics of important critical subjects. J. K. Rowling has explicitly allied herself with transgender exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs), forcing folks to grapple with the difficulties of separating a beloved fictive universe from an author who has publicly sided against inclusivity and progressive gender politics. Aca-fans, like myself, are acutely caught up in this discomfort, simultaneously pulled between our fannish investments and our academically motivated critiques. As someone who edited a collection of Harry Potter focused criticism, I jumped at the chance to review this text.

The book begins with the contributors' biographies. For me, this sets the tone for this book's prospective audience. Listing the contributors' biographies first tells the Aca-fan "these are my people." The following Preface acts as a literature review, outlining some of the major scholarship that pertains to Potter and its relationship to Cultural Studies. It's a concise reading, and it does a nice job of preparing the reader. Jarazo-Álvarez writes: "this book has been designed to approach new critical issues in the Potterverse with a collection of articles that comprises three broad topic areas: (1) wizarding biopolitics and intersected discourses; (2) death culture, trauma and anxiety; and (3) politics of fear and postmodern transformations" (xiv). Each of these major parts begins with a preamble of sorts, providing quick information about the section's themes. These also include the obligatory chapter abstracts. In terms of organization, these keep the contents tidy and orderly.

Part I: Wizarding (Bio)Politics and Intersected Discourses examines "precisely what is cultural about wizarding biopolitics, and what is political about culture" (xiv–xv). It includes four chapters that tackle broad and seemingly disparate subjects: English nationalism, disability, the manic pixie dream girl trope, and comparative analysis with Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale. Of these essays, Maureen Saraco's "Squibs, Disability and Having a Place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry" stands out. Saraco expertly [End Page 371] unpacks the role of Squibs within the Wizarding World and produces salient connections to both Disability Studies and the actual accessibility issues that people with disabilities face. The ending of her essay, which explicates how Hogwarts's curriculum could integrate Squib students successfully, is actually a call-to-action to change our own curriculum to be more inclusive. "Specific knowledge and skills are taught [at Hogwarts and high school]," argues Saraco, "because, when applied or further developed, they help students find work, understand more about the human experience, and participate in society" (27). This is the essay that best meets the goals for the section as outlined in the Preface.

In Part II: Death Culture, Trauma and Anxiety, authors "conduct an exhaustive examination of the origins and causes of the fear of death in the Western world from various perspectives" (xv). There are a whopping eight chapters included in this section, half of the contributor content. Reading the book from cover to cover means a significant amount of repetition in the middle section and the chapters' contents begin to merge together. Fortunately, edited collections aren't often read in this fashion; rather, individual essays are selected in order to demonstrate specific concepts, theories, or methods.

There are two essays here that I want to highlight. Jessica Seymour's "When Spares Are Spared" tackles the role of the bystander, particularly when murdered to provoke the emotional growth of the main character, otherwise known as "fridging" (125). This trope works to reinforce the monstrosity of the text's villain, who has no regard for life, while also catalyzing the hero to (re)action, usually to seek revenge. The term "fridging," shorthand for stuffed into a refrigerator, comes from the Green Lantern comic series; the character, Alexandra DeWitt, is...