Harry Potter and the Other

Race matters in the Wizarding World as much as it does in our world. Existing studies on the Harry Potter series have focused on religion, interracial relationships, social justice, and how young people growing up with the books and films have experienced and interpreted the series. As J.K. Rowling continues to reveal more details about the world she created, more fans, scholars, readers, and publics are conflicted about how the original Wizarding World depicts diverse and multicultural identities, social subjectivities, and communities. Harry Potter and the Other specifically interrogates representations of race and difference across various Harry Potter media, as well as in community readers of Potter from the Internet to the classroom. As the authors in this volume demonstrate, a deeper reading of the series reveals multiple ruptures in popular understandings of the liberatory potential of the Potter series. Young people who are progressive, liberal, and empowered to question authority may have believed they were reading something radical as children and young teens, but increasingly have raised alarms about the series' depiction of peoples of color, cultural appropriation in worldbuilding, and the author's anti-trans statements in the media. As we approach the 25th anniversary of the publication of the series, Harry Potter and the Other provides a smorgasbord of insights into the way that race and difference have shaped this story, its world, its author, and the generations who have come of age during the era of the Wizarding World.