Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 
 

Files

File List


Katharine McCain Dissertation.pdf (3.07 MB)

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Today Your Barista Is: Genre Characteristics in The Coffee Shop Alternate Universe

McCain, Katharine Elizabeth
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1595512930155036

Abstract Details

2020, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, English.
This dissertation, Today Your Barista Is: Genre Characteristics in The Coffee Shop Alternate Universe, works to categorize and introduce a heretofore unrecognized genre within the medium of fanfiction: The Coffee Shop Alternate Universe (AU). Building on previous sociological and ethnographic work within Fan Studies, scholarship that identifies fans as transformative creators who use fanfiction as a means of promoting progressive viewpoints, this dissertation argues that the Coffee Shop AU continues these efforts within a defined set of characteristics, merging the goals of fanfiction as a medium with the specific goals of a genre. These characteristics include the Coffee Shop AU’s structure, setting, archetypes, allegories, and the remediation of related mainstream genres, particularly the romantic comedy. The purpose of defining the Coffee Shop AU as its own genre is to help situate fanfiction within mainstream literature conventions—in as much as that’s possible—and laying the foundation for future close reading. This work also helps to demonstrate which characteristics are a part of a communally developed genre as opposed to individual works, which may assist in legal proceedings moving forward. However, more crucially this dissertation serves to encourage the continued, formal study of fanfiction as a literary and cultural phenomenon, one that is beginning to closely analyze the stories fans produce alongside the fans themselves. Far from writing chaotically, fanfiction authors have spent the last six decades developing structured forms of literature for online spaces, of which the Coffee Shop AU is a part, yet most scholarship has yet to acknowledge that structure outside of overly broad categories (such as slash) or equally specific tropes (such as bed sharing). Defining what is currently one of the most popular genres written today—a genre that is the product of and is now helping to produce other genres—is the first step in filling this gap.
Sean O'Sullivan (Advisor)
Matthew Birkhold (Committee Member)
Jared Gardner (Committee Member)
Elizabeth Hewitt (Committee Member)
284 p.
Gender; Gender Studies; Literature; Mass Media; Romance Literature
Fanfiction; Fan Fiction; Fanfic; Fans; Fan Studies; Coffee Shop AU; Supernatural; Teen Wolf; Witcher; Genre

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • McCain, K. E. (2020). Today Your Barista Is: Genre Characteristics in The Coffee Shop Alternate Universe [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1595512930155036

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • McCain, Katharine. Today Your Barista Is: Genre Characteristics in The Coffee Shop Alternate Universe. 2020. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1595512930155036.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • McCain, Katharine. "Today Your Barista Is: Genre Characteristics in The Coffee Shop Alternate Universe." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1595512930155036

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1595512930155036
3,946
© 2020, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.