Book 1, Ep. 3 | Animals
Material Girls
Rehak Hannah
4.8 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 29 September 2020
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Snuggle up to your familiars, Witches, because today's episode is all about animals (and critical animal studies!). What distinguishes the "animal" from the "human" and why did Western society come to arrive at that distinction? How does separating humans from their fellow animals work to enforce destructive social, political, and ecological power dynamics? What do we make of the way magical and non-magical creatures (and the humans who care for them, commune with them, or use them) are portrayed throughout the Harry Potter books?
Content warning: This episode includes discussion of anti-Black racism including racial stereotyping, dehumanization, and physical violence. This discussion largely occurs in the Transfiguration segment of the episode (24:22 to 39:57) and is marked by a content warning at the beginning of the episode and at the beginning of the Transfiguration segment. Please take care of yourselves and feel free to skip all or parts of this episode as needed.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Before we want to offer a quick content warning for this episode. |
| 0:04.4 | We're talking about animal studies today, but as part of that conversation, |
| 0:08.8 | we also talk about particular forms of historical colonial and anti-Black violence. |
| 0:14.0 | That conversation takes place almost entirely in the |
| 0:17.0 | transfiguration class segment, so if that's not a conversation you're feeling up for today, |
| 0:22.0 | you might want to skip that segment, or maybe just If that's not a conversation you're feeling up for today, |
| 0:22.7 | you might want to skip that segment, |
| 0:24.6 | or maybe just come back to the whole episode |
| 0:26.4 | when you feel ready for it. |
| 0:28.0 | At the beginning of the Transfiguration Class segment, |
| 0:30.7 | we're also going to give you another quick reminder. |
| 0:32.8 | So just listen out for that. |
| 0:34.7 | Hello and welcome to which please, |
| 0:41.8 | a rebooted podcast about the Harry Potter world. I'm Marcel Cosmon and I'm |
| 0:47.0 | Hannah McGregor and hey Marcel let's talk about kitties. Do you mean fantastic beasts and magical animals in the... No, no, no, no. No, no. |
| 0:57.5 | No. No. No. Okay, you're shaking your head. Yeah, we're gonna, okay, well that's, that's fine fine that's why we have the sorting chat. |
| 1:05.0 | I mean I'm really happy to have a complex theoretical conversation about the |
| 1:10.7 | representation of animals in this book, but by this book I mean |
| 1:15.1 | Harry Potter and the philosopher's stone, which I accidentally earlier today |
| 1:19.5 | called Harry Potter and the sorcerer stone, and then immediately got kicked out of the country. |
| 1:25.0 | But I just would like a really quick update on how all of the cats that you live with are doing. |
| 1:31.0 | Oh no, they've abandoned me. So I'm presently |
... |
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