The Equality Fantasy: Exploring Gender through the Fanfiction Literary Movement
Disciplines
Arts and Humanities | Creative Writing | English Language and Literature | Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies | Fiction
Abstract (300 words maximum)
At its core, fiction helps us explore parts of ourselves and make sense of the world we live in. It looks at the chaos of human existence and says I see you. What happens, then, when the majority of popular media centralizes around one particular identity? When you search through movies on a theater’s roster and cannot find yourself on a poster? When popular media fails to represent the diverse spectrum of human experience, counter-culture emerges. One of the primary modes of this is fanfiction. In this presentation, I explore the development of fanfiction, from 19th-century women’s clubs to the modern Organization for Transformative Works, and investigate how women created a space where they could engage in the same self-exploration traditionally offered to their male counterparts. Using this research, I argue that, despite popular belief, women are the primary curators of fandom culture, and that transformative fanworks have a place in academics. When denied egalitarian access to higher education, women’s clubs evolved into an informal academic collective, where dismissed groups could come together to develop writing and literary analysis skills. These clubs became the early prototypes of modern fandom, where women not only practiced literary criticism and creative writing, but also re-imagined fiction, creating a new branch of literary creativity. Since then, fanfiction has continued to evolve into an introspective, explorative medium unshackled by societal shaming, publishing regulations, and cultural expectations of normalcy, founding a largely unstudied literary movement that explores gender roles, gender identity, and sexuality in safety and secrecy while such introspection and representation has been traditionally condemned by society at large. With this presentation, I highlight research from my senior thesis of the same name, arguing for the inclusion of this silent counter-culture in academics, marking fanfiction as a distinct literary movement worthy of study.
Academic department under which the project should be listed
RCHSS - English
Primary Investigator (PI) Name
Miriam Brown Spiers
The Equality Fantasy: Exploring Gender through the Fanfiction Literary Movement
At its core, fiction helps us explore parts of ourselves and make sense of the world we live in. It looks at the chaos of human existence and says I see you. What happens, then, when the majority of popular media centralizes around one particular identity? When you search through movies on a theater’s roster and cannot find yourself on a poster? When popular media fails to represent the diverse spectrum of human experience, counter-culture emerges. One of the primary modes of this is fanfiction. In this presentation, I explore the development of fanfiction, from 19th-century women’s clubs to the modern Organization for Transformative Works, and investigate how women created a space where they could engage in the same self-exploration traditionally offered to their male counterparts. Using this research, I argue that, despite popular belief, women are the primary curators of fandom culture, and that transformative fanworks have a place in academics. When denied egalitarian access to higher education, women’s clubs evolved into an informal academic collective, where dismissed groups could come together to develop writing and literary analysis skills. These clubs became the early prototypes of modern fandom, where women not only practiced literary criticism and creative writing, but also re-imagined fiction, creating a new branch of literary creativity. Since then, fanfiction has continued to evolve into an introspective, explorative medium unshackled by societal shaming, publishing regulations, and cultural expectations of normalcy, founding a largely unstudied literary movement that explores gender roles, gender identity, and sexuality in safety and secrecy while such introspection and representation has been traditionally condemned by society at large. With this presentation, I highlight research from my senior thesis of the same name, arguing for the inclusion of this silent counter-culture in academics, marking fanfiction as a distinct literary movement worthy of study.