Positions
Education
Areas of Specialization:
Children's Literature; Fantasy; Fandom; Theology and Literature
Research Interests:
Her work focuses on British High Fantasy since 1950, in particular the construction and representation of evil.
Publications
Books:
Evil in the Christian Fantasy of C.S. Lewis and J.K. Rowling: From the White Witch to the Dark Mark. Lexington, 2024.
With Pavlina Radia and Laurie Kruk, Eds. The Future of Humanity: Revisioning the Human in a Posthuman Age. Rowman & Littlefield, 2019.
With Elizabeth Hale, Eds. Marvellous Codes: The Fiction of Margaret Mahy. Victoria University Press, 2005.
Articles and Chapters:
“Camping Out on the Quest: The Landscape of Boredom in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Children’s Literature and Imaginative Geography. Ed. Aida Hudson. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2018. 193-206.
With Kristin Lucas, “Thematic Organization and the First-Year Literature Survey.” Teaching the Literature Survey Course: New Strategies for College Faculty. Ed. Gwynn Dujardin, James M. Lang, and John A. Staunton. West Virginia University Press, 2018. 153-69.
With Susan Srigley, “Undisciplined Debate: Coursing Through Dialogue.” Co-Teaching in Higher Education: From Theory to Co-Practice. Ed. Daniel Jarvis and Mumbi Kariuki. University of Toronto Press (2017): 63-88.
“Patriarch, Parasite, and Pervert: Evil in The Magician of Hoad.” The Lion and the Unicorn. 39 (2015): 204-21.
“Streaming Scholarship: Using Fan Vids to teach Harry Potter.” Children’s Literature in Education 45.3 (2014): 239-54.
“Vidding and the Perversity of Critical Pleasure: Sex, Violence, and Voyeurism in ‘Closer’ and ‘On the Prowl.’” Transformative Works and Cultures 9 (2012).
“Religious Faith and Secular Hope in The Underland Chronicles.” The Lion and the Unicorn 36.1 (2012): 1-19.
“Bubble-Wrapped Children and Safe Books for Boys: The Politics of Parenting in Harry Potter.” Children’s Literature 39 (2011): 213-33.
“From Satan to Hitler: Theological and Historical Evil in C. S. Lewis, Philip Pullman, and J. K. Rowling.” Monsters in the Mirror: Representations of Nazism in Post-War Popular Culture. Ed. Sarah Buttsworth and Maartje Abbenhuis. Praeger, 2010. 53-74.
“Aliens in the Landscape: Maori Space and European Time in the Fiction of Margaret Mahy.” Children’s Literature Association Quarterly 33.4 (Winter 2008): 408-25.
“Christina Rossetti’s Poetic Vocation.” Women’s Writing 12.2 (2005): 291-307.
“Heavenly Bodies in ‘The Windhover.’” Hopkins Quarterly 30:1-2 (Winter-Spring 2003): 31-44.
“Good and Evil in the Works of Diana Wynne Jones and J. K. Rowling.” Diana Wynne Jones: An Exciting and Exacting Wisdom. Ed. Teya Rosenberg et al. New York: Peter Lang, 2002. 79-95.
“Questioning Milton, Questioning God: Christina Rossetti’s Challenges to Authority in Goblin Market and The Prince’s Progress.” The Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies 10 (Fall 2001): 14-26.