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Alexandra_Garner_Thesis.pdf (30.27 MB)

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

The Erotics of Fanfiction: Queering Fans, Works, and Communities in Modern Internet Fandom

Garner, Alexandra
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1460129118

Abstract Details

2016, Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, Popular Culture.
Inspired by Janice Radway’s Reading the Romance, this thesis utilizes a survey and set of interviews conducted with 100 participants to engage with a variety of fan experiences, perspectives, and interpretations. This thesis also draws on my own experience as an active fanfiction reader and writer. I argue for a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary theory of the erotics of fanfiction, drawing on Marxist, literary, feminist, queer, genre, and cultural/media studies theories. Then, I analyze and breakdown the data acquired through my own research to discuss the trends and outlying responses found through these analyses. I then apply this theory to the research findings to discuss the relationship among fanfiction, sexuality, and community. This relationship extends to all erotic fanfiction, and shows the queerness even of heterosexual pairings in fanfiction. While a majority of participants identify as female, most fans consider themselves sexually fluid. This fluidity is particularly evident in erotic fanfiction, which I argue is a transgressive space for fans to explore and imagine a multiplicity of pairings, contexts, and plots. Fanfiction allows fans to disrupt the scarcity/abundance dichotomy, lack of queer representation, stringent gender roles, and regulated sexual content controlled by media corporations producing these original works. Fanfiction, then, is a medium that queers and problematizes these concepts through fan imagination, and ultimately also queers the fans, works, and communities involved. This project challenges the ways we have previously understood the relationship between fans’ sexuality and their interests in and consumption of erotic fanfiction, exploring how writing, reading, and sharing fanfiction itself is a queer act, and one that queers the participants and communities involved. This queerness is both in reference to sexuality, and also in terms of transgression and non-normative behavior. I question the traditional relationship between producer and consumer and the hegemonic ideals/values transmitted through said relationship, examining the radical possibilities of imagination that occur in the prosumption of fanfiction.
Jeff Brown (Committee Chair)
Becca Cragin (Committee Member)
Montana Miller (Committee Member)
118 p.
American Studies; Gender Studies; Literature
fanfiction; fandom; sexuality; gender; popular culture

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Garner, A. (2016). The Erotics of Fanfiction: Queering Fans, Works, and Communities in Modern Internet Fandom [Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1460129118

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Garner, Alexandra. The Erotics of Fanfiction: Queering Fans, Works, and Communities in Modern Internet Fandom. 2016. Bowling Green State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1460129118.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Garner, Alexandra. "The Erotics of Fanfiction: Queering Fans, Works, and Communities in Modern Internet Fandom." Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1460129118

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

bgsu1460129118
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© 2016, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Bowling Green State University and OhioLINK.