The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Philosophy: Everything Is Fire

Can Lisbeth Salander be our guide to a postgender world?

To catch a criminal, can Lisbeth and Mikael be criminalsthemselves?

Would Aristotle read Larsson′s mystery books on a beach?

Can revenge be ethical?

What′s the deal with all that coffee?

Drawing a thin moral line between their own actions and thecriminal schemes they seekto unravel in the internationalbestselling Millennium Trilogy, tattooed and troubledcomputerhacker Lisbeth Salander and disgraced middle–aged journalist MikaelBlomkvist form the most unlikely pairing of heroes in popularfictionhistory and one of the most compelling. Drawing onsome of history′s greatestphilosophical minds, The Girl with theDragon Tattoo and Philosophy gives fresh insight into the complexethical framework of this sleuthing odd couple and the keyepistemological themes driving Stieg Larsson′s ingeniouslyplottedtales of crime and corruption in Sweden′s dark underbelly.Topics such as theAristotelian arguments for why we love revenge,Kantian theories explaining why so many women sleep with MikaelBlomkvist, feminist readings of Lisbeth Salander, andLarsson′sviews on skepticism offer a huge helping of metaphysical morselsthat will more than satisfy the intellectual appetite of devotedLarsson fans everywhere.

To learn more about the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Cultureseries,visit www.andphilosophy.com.

BLACKWELL PHILOSOPHY AND POP CULTURE SERIES
This book has not been approved, licensed, or sponsored by anyentity orperson involved in creating or producing The MillenniumTrilogy or the movies.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Confi dential Sources xv

Introduction: The Girl Who Kicked the Sophists′ Nest 1

PART ONE: LISBETH "THE IDIOT" SALANDER

1 Labeling Lisbeth: Sti(e)gma and Spoiled Identity 7
Aryn Martin and Mary Simms

2 The Mis– Education of Lisbeth Salander and the Alchemyof the At– Risk Child 19
Chad William Timm

3 The Girl Who Turned the Tables: A Queer Reading of LisbethSalander 33
Kim Surkan

PART TWO: MIKAEL "DO–GOODER" BLOMKVIST

4 Why Are So Many Women F∗∗∗ing Kalle Blomkvist?:Larsson s Philosophy of Female Attraction 49
Andrew Terjesen and Jenny Terjesen

5 Why Journalists and Geniuses Love Coffee and Hate Themselves65
Eric Bronson

6 The Making of Kalle Blomkvist: Crime Journalism in PostwarSweden 75
Ester Pollack

PART THREE: STIEG LARSSON, MYSTERY MAN

7 The Philosopher Who Knew Stieg Larsson: A Brief Memoir91
Sven Ove Hansson

8 "This Isn′t Some Damned Locked– Room Mystery Novel": Is TheMillennium Trilogy Popular

Fiction or Literature? 107
Tyler Shores

9 Why We Enjoy Reading about Men Who Hate Women: Aristotle′sCathartic Appeal 120
Dennis Knepp

10 The Dragon Tattoo and the Voyeuristic Reader 128
Jaime Weida

PART FOUR: "EVERYONE HAS SECRETS"

11 Hacker′s Republic: Information Junkies in a Free Society141
Andrew Zimmerman Jones

12 Kicking the Hornet′s Nest: The Hidden "Section" in EveryInstitution 155
Adriel M. Trott

13 Secret Meetings: The Truth Is in the Gossip 166
Karen C. Adkins

PART FIVE: 75,000 VOLTS OF VENGEANCE CAN′T BE WRONG, CANIT?

14 The Principled Pleasure: Lisbeth′s Aristotelian Revenge181
Emma L. E. Rees

15 Acting Out of Duty or Just Acting Out?: Salander and Kant189
Tanja Barazon

16 To Catch a Thief: The Ethics of Deceiving Bad People198
James Edwin Mahon

CONTRIBUTORS: The Knights of the Philosophic Table211

INDEX: Code Words 217

ERIC BRONSON is a visiting professor in the HumanitiesDepartment at York University in Toronto, Canada. He is the editorof Baseball and Philosophy and Poker and Philosophyand the coeditor of The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy andthe forthcoming The Hobbit and Philosophy.

WILLIAM IRWIN is a professor of philosophy at King′sCollege in Wilkes–Barre, Pennsylvania. He originated the philosophyand popular culture genre of books as coeditor of the bestsellingThe Simpsons and Philosophy and has overseen recent titlesincluding House and Philosophy, Alice in Wonderland andPhilosophy, and Mad Men and Philosophy.

"In this excellent and timely addition to the series, Bronson (humanities, York University, Toronto) pulls together 18 international scholars and writers who examine both Stieg Larsson′s novels and the movies based on them. Main characters Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist each receive a section devoted to essays on identity politics, feminist dimensions in culture, and other salient and philosophical concerns they personify. Larsson is treated in a third section of essays, with the final two sections taking on secrets and ethics. Contributors include Karen Adkins (philosophy, Regis Coll.), Ester Pollack (journalism, Stockholm University), Andrew Terjesen, who has contributed to other volumes in the series, and James E. Mahon (philosophy & law, Washington and Lee Univ.). They take up such specific considerations as Lisbeth′s sexual identity, Mikael′s investigatory methodology, and the ethical nature of social institutions; of course, each essay suggests philosophical assertions that can be and are argued against as well as for, making for a heady and welcome whole. You′ll learn how Aristotle and Kant among others can be illuminated through the "Millennium Trilogy." VERDICT This volume belongs in both popular and scholarly collections." [The book is not an officially licensed product of the Larsson books or the movies. Ed.] Francisca Goldsmith, Infopeople Project, Berkeley, CA ( Library Journal, November 15, 2011)