The Magicians by Lev Grossman introduces Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy, a secret magic boarding school for young adults in New York state. While this school and its students are American – as is the author – British traditions and practices are central to Brakebills: the text recounts the “absurd, infantilizing idea[s] borrowed from the English public school system” and many “symptom[s] of the Anglophilia” that are “embedded so deeply in the institutional DNA of Brakebills” (Grossman 197).
Why is an American school so concerned with British traditions? And why does the Anglophilia of one magical school matter beyond the text?
The proposed paper will answer these questions, looking at the colonial legacies of both the North American education system and the fantasy genre and demonstrating the ways in which American fantastic school stories such as Grossman’s are uniquely positioned to comment on and critique persistent colonial structures in both education and fantasy. Drawing on Helen Young’s elaboration of the White, Eurocentric traditions of fantasy in Race and Popular Fantasy Literature and the work of scholars such as Gaile S. Cannella and Radhika Viruru explicating the ongoing colonization accomplished through the North American education system, the paper will establish the ways in which Grossman’s series leverages its position as a fantastic school story to draw attention to and problematize the colonialism in both of these spheres. By foregrounding issues of genre within the series, Grossman’s Magicians trilogy makes visible the colonial legacies of both fantasy and education, providing opportunities for readers to engage with and continue the critique presented through the depiction of Brakebills and students at the institution. Understanding the ways in which Grossman’s trilogy accomplishes its critique provides a framework for interrogating other Anglophilic American schools in fantasy, such as J.K. Rowling’s Ilvermorny.
About the presenterMegan Suttie
PhD Candidate in English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Dissertation on fantastic school stories and representations of education. Research interests: fantasy, children’s and YA literature, education, childhood studies, SoTL.