DOCSLIB.ORG

Rereading the Magical World of Harry Potter: Fanfiction As an Alternative Critical Modality

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text

Load more

Rereading the Magical World of Harry Potter: Fanfiction as an Alternative Critical Modality SUZANNE PASSMORE B.A. (HONS 1) / B.COM., THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA, 2007 This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at The University of Western Australia School of Social and Cultural Studies 2011 ii Declaration I declare that this thesis is entirely my own work and that it has not been submitted for a degree or award at any other university. To my knowledge, this thesis does not contain material that has been previously published or written by another person where due reference has not been made in the text. This thesis does not contain work I have published, nor work under review for publication. iii iv Abstract Fanfiction (stories written by fans based on and existing ‘source’ text) has been an object of inquiry since the late 1980s. Studies in this field often use fanfiction as evidence of active consumption of media by fans; however, a trend in more recent work, such as Hellekson and Busse’s 2006 collection Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet, suggests that fanfiction texts may be studied in their own right. These approaches both contend that writing fanfiction is a form of critical engagement with the fan object or source text. This thesis builds on this previous work and argues that reading fanfiction may also encourage its readers to engage critically with the source text. Fanfiction can, therefore, function similarly to academic literary criticism, which encourages its readers to rethink texts in similar ways. This thesis analyses the ways fanfiction facilitates a critical reading of the ideology of the source text, through close analysis of five novel- length Harry Potter fanfiction texts. The thesis is organised into three sections which reflect the themes of the family, masculinity and the body which emerged from the fanfiction under investigation. The first chapter of each section contextualises the theme in relation to Potter, drawing on relevant criticism of Potter which highlights its ideological ‘faultlines,’ a concept borrowed from cultural materialist critic Alan Sinfield. This foundation then informs the close textual analysis of the fanfiction which constitutes the remaining chapter(s) of each section. This approach demonstrates how the fans’ rereading of the magical world of the Potter source text in fanfiction makes visible and disrupts dominant ideologies, of gender and sexuality in particular, reproduced in the source text. Successfully positing fanfiction as an alternative critical modality prompts a reconsideration of fanfiction’s literary and critical value: where traditional ‘lit crit’ is largely the province of the university educated, the alternative critical modality offered by fanfiction is more accessible to the ‘ordinary’ (untrained) reader. v vi Table of Contents DECLARATION III ABSTRACT V TABLE OF CONTENTS VII ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS IX INTRODUCTION 1 SECTION I – THE FAMILY 27 CHAPTER ONE: CREATING THE FAMILY IN POTTER 28 CHAPTER TWO: DENATURALISING FAMILY IDEOLOGY IN SEVERITUS FANFICTION 45 SECTION II - MASCULINITY 71 CHAPTER THREE: PATRIARCHY AND MASCULINITY IN POTTER 72 CHAPTER FOUR: DISRUPTING THE PATRIARCHY IN SEVERITUS FANFICTION 89 CHAPTER FIVE: SEXUALITY AND ALTERNATIVE MASCULINITIES IN SEVERITUS FANFICTION 108 SECTION III – THE BODY 128 CHAPTER SIX: CONSIDERING THE BODY IN POTTER 129 CHAPTER SEVEN: CHANGING BODIES IN SEVERITUS FANFICTION 145 CHAPTER EIGHT: EMBODYING GENDER, CLASS AND RACE IN SEVERITUS FANFICTION 160 CONCLUSION 177 BIBLIOGRAPHY 187 PRIMARY SOURCE TEXTS 187 PRIMARY FANFICTION TEXTS 187 SECONDARY TEXTS 188 vii viii Acknowledgements I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the people who made this final work possible through their support, kindness and encouragement. To my supervisor, Dr. Chantal Bourgault. Thank you for your time, effort and energy throughout this process. Your encouragement, understanding and kindness helped me move through the difficult times and enjoy the good times, research related and otherwise. Your academic rigour, knowledge and enthusiasm for your work set an example that motivated me and encouraged me to do my best. This thesis would not exist without you and I am very thankful that I have had the opportunity to work with you. To my partner, Bilal. Thank you for your unfailing support. That you always believed that I could do this means more to me that you realise. Your understanding and encouragement got me moving more times than I can count. This thesis would not exist without you, word as bond. To my parents. Thank you for your love, your time, your encouragement and your patience throughout this process and through every other aspect of my life. I am lucky to have you both. This thesis would not exist without you, for so many reasons, all of which I love you for. To my brothers, Mathew and David. Thank you for letting me bore you with tales of my research and of Harry Potter for so many hours over the last few years. Mathew, your humour and composure calmed me during stressful times. David, your conversation and interest inspired me during unproductive times. This thesis would not exist without you, even if you don’t realise it. To my extended family. Your interest in my work and support for my ambitions meant a great deal to me. I look forward to seeing you all more often now! Thank you. Finally, to my friends, old and new, thank you for your interest and your encouragement at every stage of this process. I only hope I will have the opportunity to do something as invaluable for you in the future. Thank you as well to my friends and colleagues at The University of Western Australia who have supported me in both my research and my teaching. Sharing this journey with you has been a pleasure. ix x Introduction I discovered fanfiction when I was thirteen years old, searching for a script of a missed episode of the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion and finding fanfiction, in script format, instead. I remember being first confused, then intrigued and then eager for more. I dived head first into Evangelion fandom and, through my gradually growing confidence on the Internet and the Web, which I had used very few times before that, I began to discover other fandoms, and realised that for almost any text I liked, there could be more out there, somewhere. At that stage, I was what Sheenagh Pugh would describe as someone who wanted ‘more of’ my source text.1 This is contrasted with fans who want ‘more from’ their source text: Pugh compares Sherlock Holmes fans who write more mysteries for Holmes to solve in his usual way, and those Star Trek fans who wanted character development and relationships that were not featured in the source text.2 As I grew older, I grew more critical of my source texts, which by now had extended from my original anime into television shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Stargate, and books like the Harry Potter series. Becoming politicised about issues of gender, race and sexuality made me realise that these texts, while still enjoyable, were often problematic in both their depictions and their silences. To continue to enjoy these texts, I increasingly turned to fandom, where fan criticism and fanfiction could offer solutions to, or at least recognition of, these issues, while also opening my eyes to the texts in new ways. It is this personal experience of reading fanfiction as a critical form that motivated this study. I argue that fanfiction can be read as an alternative critical modality to literary criticism, performing similar tasks through different means. I chose to approach the question this way because fanfiction has not been studied much as a text; rather, fanfiction has been used primarily as evidence to support arguments regarding the blurring of the lines between consumption and production of media and popular culture, or to explore the motivations of fans.3 Kristina Busse and Karen 1 Sheenagh Pugh, The Democratic Genre: Fan fiction in a literary context, (Bridgend: Poetry Wale Press Ltd, 2005), p. 19. 2 Pugh, pp. 19-20. 3 Deborah Kaplan identifies this gap in a similar way, but focuses on studying fanfiction using the tools of literary criticism, writing ‘Literary analysis of fan fiction texts for its own sake is still mostly unexplored territory; literary theorists have left the field clear for the social and cultural theorists. … The produced works themselves [fanfiction], however, are usually valued only as windows into the producers. … Fan fiction has not been studied much as fiction, as texts that, under a literary criticism lens, can be fascinating as nonfan-produced work.’ Deborah Kaplan, “Construction of Fan Fiction Through Narrative,” Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet, Eds. Karen Hellekson and Kristina Busse, (Jefferson, North Carolina: MacFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2006), pp. 134-135. Similarly, Mafalda Stasi writes that ‘In the last fifteen years of so, a number of scholarly texts studying slash fanfiction have 1 Hellekson provide a useful and comprehensive history of fan and fanfiction studies, in which they designate three distinct approaches to research in this field: media studies, psychoanalysis and ethnography.4 I would suggest that these three approaches fall into two distinct categories. The first approach, which flows from cultural studies and media studies, has been a principle paradigm in fan studies since the early 1990s. Henry Jenkins’ Textual Poachers is an exemplar of this approach, which has been primarily focused on examining the active or productive dimensions of fan cultures.5 Later research that developed from this paradigm conceived of fanfiction as an interpretive gesture which offers the researcher insight into the fan object/text.6 The second primary approach within fan and fanfiction studies is evident in some of the earliest work on fanfiction, such as Joanna Russ’s 1985 essay “Pornography by Women, for Women, with Love,” and often focuses on female fans in particular and their relationship with their fan object or text.7 Into this paradigm I collapse ethnographic studies of fan communities, such as Camille Bacon-Smith’s Enterprising Women.
Recommended publications
  • Indignant Reading

    Indignant Reading

    Indignant Reading The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Goodman, Lesley Anne. 2013. Indignant Reading. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:11051185 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Indignant Reading A dissertation presented by Lesley Anne Goodman to The Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of English Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts May 2013 © 2013 Lesley Goodman All rights reserved Professor Leah Price Lesley Anne Goodman Professor Amanda Claybaugh Indignant Reading Abstract In 1871, R. H. Hutton criticized George Eliot for “unfairly running down one of her own characters”: Middlemarch’s Rosamond Vincy. Hutton blamed Eliot for being cruel to her own creation and used his role as a reader and a critic to lodge a public complaint on Rosamond’s behalf. Indignant Reading identifies this response—dissatisfaction and even anger with an author for his/her perceived mistreatment of a fictional character—as a common occasion for literary criticism in the nineteenth century. The indignant readings found in Victorian reviews, letters, and prefaces advance conceptions of plot, characterization, and fictionality distinct from those offered in modern narratological criticism or historicist accounts of Victorian novel practice or literary criticism.
  • UNIVERSITY of WINCHESTER Negotiating Endings In

    UNIVERSITY of WINCHESTER Negotiating Endings In

    UNIVERSITY OF WINCHESTER Negotiating Endings in Contemporary Fiction: Narrative Invention and Literary Production Caroline Wintersgill ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9909-6473 Doctor of Philosophy June 2020 This Thesis has been completed as a requirement for a postgraduate research degree of the University of Winchester. DECLARATION AND COPYRIGHT STATEMENT Declaration: No portion of the work referred to in the Thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning. I confirm that this Thesis is entirely my own work. I confirm that no work previously submitted for credit has been reused verbatim. Any previously submitted work has been revised, developed and recontextualised relevant to the Thesis. I confirm that no material of this Thesis has been published in advance of its submission. I confirm that no third party proof-reading or editing has been used in this Thesis. Copyright Statement: Copyright © Caroline Wintersgill 2020, Negotiating Endings in Contemporary Fiction: Narrative Invention and Literary Production, PhD Thesis, pp. 1 – 300, ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9909-6473 This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgment. Copies (by any process) either in full, or of extracts, may be made only in accordance with instructions given by the author. Details may be obtained from the RKE Centre, University of Winchester. This page must form part of any such copies made. Further copies (by any process) of copies made in accordance with such instructions may not be made without the permission (in writing) of the author.
  • University of Florida Thesis Or Dissertation Formatting Template

    University of Florida Thesis Or Dissertation Formatting Template

    CHARLOTTE’S WEB SITE: THE CONVERGENCE CULTURE OF CHILDREN’S PRINT AND DIGITAL LITERATURE By CATHLENA ANNA MARTIN A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2010 1 © 2010 Cathlena Anna Martin 2 To my family 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Above all, I thank my parents, who supported me throughout the entire process that led to this dissertation, including reading to me as a child, encouraging me in every academic and non-academic pursuit, and grounding me in the belief that I could do anything I set my mind to. Without them, I would not be Dr. Martin. And I am grateful to my sister, Tamara, and her husband, Phillip, for their letters, packages, shared books, and inspiration. I would not have pushed myself as hard without such an amazing big sister to compete with. Additionally, this project could not have been completed without the guidance and help of Dr. Kenneth Kidd. He provides the perfect blend of criticism and encouragement, revision and hope. Moreover, I want to thank my committee members—Dr. John Cech, Dr. Greg Ulmer, and Dr. Barbara Pace—for providing feedback and support throughout this process. I thank fellow kiddie litters, Julie Sinn Cassidy and Ramona Caponegro, for solidarity in our subject matter, and Rita Smith, for allowing me solace in the stacks of the Baldwin. And I thank two gaming ladies, Laurie Taylor and Lisa Dusenberry, for their passion and knowledge on all things digital. I thank the members of my dissertation seminar—Aaron Talbot, Joel Adams, and Mindy Cardozo—and editor friend Joi Tribble.
  • A Truth Universally Acknowledged?: (Post)Feminist Rewritings of Austen‘S Marriage Plot

    A Truth Universally Acknowledged?: (Post)Feminist Rewritings of Austen‘S Marriage Plot

    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by ScholarBank@NUS A TRUTH UNIVERSALLY ACKNOWLEDGED?: (POST)FEMINIST REWRITINGS OF AUSTEN‘S MARRIAGE PLOT MARIA LORENA MARTINEZ SANTOS (M.A. English Studies: Language, University of the Philippines) A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE 2011 Santos i Acknowledgments I wish, first of all, to acknowledge my family and friends for their help and encouragement throughout the writing of this thesis. I thank my husband, Joseph Nathan Cruz, for starting me on the path to this study, my mother, Dr. Paz Verdades Santos for giving me valuable feedback, and my son, Elias Yusof Santos Cruz, for keeping me motivated. My thanks also go to my ―moral support‖ system in Singapore, particularly classmates Gene Navera and Angeline Wong who shared the PhD journey with me. For their support and assistance, I thank friends and colleagues from the University of the Philippines, particularly Dr. Rose Bumatay-Cruz, Dr. Wendell Capili, Dr. Frank Flores, Dr. Mila Laurel, and Dr. Naida Rivera, as well as Prof. Marifa Borja-Prado of the Ateneo de Naga University. Secondly, this thesis would not have been possible without the research scholarship provided by the National University of Singapore and the endorsement of my application to upgrade to the PhD programme by the Department of English Language and Literature. I must also give thanks to Dr. Walter Lim for his facilitation of my viva voce. Lastly, and most importantly, I am deeply indebted to my supervisor, Dr.
  • Pirate Nation How Digital Piracy Is Transforming Business, Society and Culture

    Pirate Nation How Digital Piracy Is Transforming Business, Society and Culture

    To the Bean and the Bear Pirate Nation How digital piracy is transforming business, society and culture Darren Todd 4 Pirate Nation by Darren Todd is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.piracyhappens.net. CONTENTS Acknowledgements 8 Introduction 9 01 The copyright players 14 The copyright oblivious 15 The copyright rich 22 The copyright poor 28 02 Copyright terms 36 Copyright terms in literature 37 All rights reserved alternatives for software 42 Perspectives on copyright terms in film 46 Copyright terms and short-lived media 49 Expanding copyright coverage in music 52 03 Piracy in the digital age 57 The move to digital media 58 Peer-to-peer networks 62 File-sharing and popular opinion 66 The rise of Pirate Party politics 70 04 Responses to the pirate problem 74 Rights-holder reactions 75 State-sponsored anti-piracy efforts 79 Copyright and internet business 84 Internet service providers 88 Literary defence of thick copyright 92 6 contents 05 Pirate economics 98 The first-sale doctrine in digital media 99 The economics of the music CD’s decline 107 Consumption patterns across media 110 Piracy’s economic impact 114 Corporate works-for-hire 121 06 Digital piracy in Asia 124 Discovering counterfeit causes 125 Tracing the bootleg source 130 Counterfeit pharmaceuticals 135 Brand hijacking and the consumer costs 140 The USTR watch list 144 07 The idea-expression dichotomy 147 Imitation and intimidation in literature
  • Remaking the Voyage: New Essays on Malcolm Lowry and in Ballast To

    Remaking the Voyage: New Essays on Malcolm Lowry and in Ballast To

    Remaking the Voyage LIVERPOOL ENGLISH TEXTS AND STUDIES 86 REMAKING THE VOYAGE New Essays on Malcolm Lowry and In Ballast to the White Sea Edited by HELEN TOOKEY and BRYAN BIGGS Remaking the Voyage LIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY PRESS First published 2020 by Liverpool University Press 4 Cambridge Street Liverpool L69 7ZU Copyright © 2020 Liverpool University Press The right of Helen Tookey and Bryan Biggs to be identified as the editors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data A British Library CIP record is available ISBN 978-1-78962-183-9 cased ISBN 978-1-800-34821-9 limp epdf ISBN 978-1-78962-763-3 Typeset by Carnegie Book Production, Lancaster An Open Access edition of this book is available on the Liverpool University Press website and the OAPEN library, which has been made possible by the generous support of Liverpool John Moores University. In memory of Vik Doyen 1942–2018 Contents contents Acknowledgements ix Contributors xi Introduction 1 Helen Tookey and Bryan Biggs 1 Haunted by Books: Malcolm Lowry’s Ultramarine and In Ballast to the White Sea 21 Patrick A. McCarthy 2 ‘We’ve got a bastard duke on board’: Class, Fantasy and Politics in Malcolm Lowry 31 Ben Clarke 3 Malcolm Lowry and the End of Communism 47 Mark Crawford 4 In Ballast to the White Sea: The Springboard for Russian Influences on Malcolm Lowry’s Visionary Intellect 61 Nigel H.