Reading Harry Potter: Critical Essays

Anatol, Giselle Liza ed. Reading Harry Potter: Critical Essays. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003.

One important point to keep in mind with this anthology of criticism is that only books one through four of the seven book series existed when it was written. Therefore, the essays are necessarily limited in their scope and available information. The following essays touch on Rowling's shape-shifters to some degree (usually tangentially):

Mills, Alice. "Archetypes and the Unconscious in Harry Potter and Diana Wynne Jones's Fire and Hemlock and Dogbody." 3-13.

A couple brief paragraphs about Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, and James Potter as well as minor mention of Remus Lupin. Mills focuses on Black and limits her reading to how shape-shifting fits within Jung's trickster archetype.

Lavoie, Chantel. "Safe as Houses: Sorting and School Houses at Hogwarts." 35-49.

Briefly mentions Remus Lupin, primarily as someone whose courage in living with an illness inspires others and grants him a place in Gryffindor.

Ostry, Elaine. "Accepting Mudbloods: The Ambivalent Social Vision of J. K. Rowling’s Fairy Tales." 89-101.

Briefly notes werewolves as a sign of racial intolerance within wizarding society. Points out Ron as a source of the prejudiced views, and incorrectly claims a lack of self-control on Lupin's part. Ostry also includes an extremely brief mention of the animagi, but makes no effort to interpret their place except to say that "transformation of physical form" is common to fairy tales (90).

Hall, Susan. "Harry Potter and the Rule of Law: The Central Weakness of Legal Concepts in the Wizard World." 147-162.

Very briefly (two sentences) mentions the legal problems inherent in a society that includes animagi and other means of transformation such as the Polyjuice Potion.

Anatol, Giselle Liza. "The Fallen Empire: Exploring Ethnic Otherness in the World of Harry Potter." 163-178.

Briefly mentions Lupin and werewolves in a footnote (fn 56, pg. 178) to introduce the race versus illness dialogue that occurs in interpreting Rowling's werewolves. However, Anatol ultimately rejects the racial reading in favor of the disease reading, even though this ignores 50-60% of the textual evidence.