(Ü/PS) Already Left Kudos: Critical Perspectives on Fanfiction

Have you ever wondered what unites Shakespeare, Milton and E.L. James?  That's right, they all wrote and published fanfiction.

Fanfiction has long been dismissed as trivial or niche or written by teens for teens. Yet, it has, in recent years in particular, become a democratising force in contemporary literature, offering a space where writers can collectively rethink, reshape, and renegotiate existing stories – and, with luck, even publish their works in traditional publishing. But there is, as Ashton Spacey (2018) notes, a darker underbelly to it: from ignoring marginalised groups, to shaming sexual practices, to providing heteronormative relationship patterns, fanfiction is by no means a perfect system. In this seminar, we will explore how fanfiction has moved from largely separate fan spaces into mainstream publishing. We will consider how fanfiction operates as a creative practice of "writing back", the new narrative possibilities it opens up, and the points at which these possibilities encounter their limits. We will also critically reflect on broader questions of authorship and discuss how fanfiction and fan art (re)negotiate issues such as gender, race, queerness, sexuality, and class.

Texts will be selected with the participants in the beginning of the semester.