Transhistorical accounts of fanfiction often refer to the Brontës’ juvenilia, but such references... more Transhistorical accounts of fanfiction often refer to the Brontës’ juvenilia, but such references are largely cursory even as they make a claim about the siblings’ Angria and Gondal writings that needs more careful consideration. This essay offers a more thorough examination of what it means to claim “the Brontës wrote fanfic”, analyzing their family- and site-specific mode of creative production and consumption in relation both to established definitions of contemporary fanfiction and to their own sources and environment. Archival research has enabled me to situate some of the Brontës’ earliest texts in their original tiny, hand-produced format alongside the print periodicals and physical books that the young authors read and transformed. I analyze how the siblings’ books mimic the multiplicity and flexibility of authorship modeled in their local newspaper and how their drawing, marginalia, and corrections accentuate the interactive nature of the printed book. Viewing the Brontë si...
Charles Baudelaire not only wished to be where he was not—he often made the journey. He insisted ... more Charles Baudelaire not only wished to be where he was not—he often made the journey. He insisted repeatedly on his right to contradict himself, and he availed himself of it with alarming frequency. Most famously, Les Fleurs du mal records his creative travels between opposing poles he styles “Spleen” and “Ideal”: between the modern and classical, the temporal and eternal, the venal and immaculate muse.3 In the Petits Poemes en prose, Baudelaire retraces and revises again, often seeming to decimate the work of the verse, to flatten the metaphoric heights the verse attains in its approach to either polar absolute, as Barbara John son has convincingly argued.4 Following the lead suggested by key verse-prose doublets such as “La Chevelure” (“The Head of Hair”) and “Un Hemisphere dans une chevelure” (“A Hemisphere in a Head of Hair”), critical literature on the prose poem has tended to focus on this journey from verse to prose, emphasizing the increased ironic, often violent perspective of the prose work. Such readings cast “Spleen de Paris” as an ultimate turn toward “Spleen” that abandons the transcendent potential of “l’Ideal” and produces a text characterized above all by a “perpetual clash of sentimental and mora l anarchy,” by “fragmentation, discontinuity,” and “external a nd internal chaos.”5
Charles Baudelaire not only wished to be where he was not—he often made the journey. He insisted ... more Charles Baudelaire not only wished to be where he was not—he often made the journey. He insisted repeatedly on his right to contradict himself, and he availed himself of it with alarming frequency. Most famously, Les Fleurs du mal records his creative travels between opposing poles he styles “Spleen” and “Ideal”: between the modern and classical, the temporal and eternal, the venal and immaculate muse.3 In the Petits Poemes en prose, Baudelaire retraces and revises again, often seeming to decimate the work of the verse, to flatten the metaphoric heights the verse attains in its approach to either polar absolute, as Barbara John son has convincingly argued.4 Following the lead suggested by key verse-prose doublets such as “La Chevelure” (“The Head of Hair”) and “Un Hemisphere dans une chevelure” (“A Hemisphere in a Head of Hair”), critical literature on the prose poem has tended to focus on this journey from verse to prose, emphasizing the increased ironic, often violent perspective of the prose work. Such readings cast “Spleen de Paris” as an ultimate turn toward “Spleen” that abandons the transcendent potential of “l’Ideal” and produces a text characterized above all by a “perpetual clash of sentimental and mora l anarchy,” by “fragmentation, discontinuity,” and “external a nd internal chaos.”5
Studying fanfiction in a field called “fan studies” conveys the assumption that we study it prima... more Studying fanfiction in a field called “fan studies” conveys the assumption that we study it primarily to learn about fans. But what of fanfiction from a textual perspective—its distinctive recombinatory, iterative, and unstable textual effects and pleasures? How can it be defined and understood from literary historical and theoretical perspectives, or as a distinctive literary mode in its own right? Though it does seem refer to a recognizable kind of text, “fanfiction” resists a single definition but rather indicates an often playful relation nonetheless ordered by power dynamics—between source and text, writer and text, law, profit, platform or code and text, etc. Arguing through cephalopods and theorists influential in assemblage and network theory (Deleuze, Kittler), this chapter claims that “fanfiction” challenges models of unitary authorship and artistic hierarchies derived from Kant even as it relies on these models both conceptually and historically for the conditions of its existence
Forum for Modern Language Studies Vol. 52, No. 2, doi: 10.1093/fmls/
Despite profound differenc... more Forum for Modern Language Studies Vol. 52, No. 2, doi: 10.1093/fmls/
Despite profound differences, George Sand and Gustave Flaubert sustained a long and intimate correspondence that ended only with Sand's death. The two did not collaborate on any work outside the correspondence; like the friendship itself, the letters are in service of no goal outside themselves. It is as a years-long negotiation on the subject of writing – and how to live with it – that the Flaubert– Sand correspondence can best be understood as collaboration: a chronicle of the push and pull between different kinds of writerly minds and, as Sand would insist, 'hearts'. A sustained, mutual effort on the part of the correspondents develops a shared epistolary rhetoric that allows the friendship to proceed as egalitarian and affectionate across aesthetic, political and – perhaps most complexly and transfor-matively – gender divides. The result is an extremely compelling hybrid text such as neither writer could have imagined or written without the other.
... View all notes. Early in the era, Tennyson's 'Lady of Shalott' (1832; 1842), i... more ... View all notes. Early in the era, Tennyson's 'Lady of Shalott' (1832; 1842), in which looking at a man dooms a creative woman to abandon her art for the sake of dying beautifully, and Browning's 'Porphyria's Lover' (1836; 1842), a dramatic monologue in which the speaker kills ...
Kafka’s Other Prague: Writings from the Czechoslovak Republic examines Kafka’s late writings from... more Kafka’s Other Prague: Writings from the Czechoslovak Republic examines Kafka’s late writings from the perspective of the author’s changing relationship with Czech language, culture, and literature—the least understood facet of his meticulously researched life and work.
What is fanfiction and what is it not? Why does fanfiction matter? And what makes it so important... more What is fanfiction and what is it not? Why does fanfiction matter? And what makes it so important to the future of literature?
Fic is a groundbreaking exploration of the history and culture of fan writing and what it means for the way we think about reading, writing, and authorship. It's a story about literature, community, and technology--about what stories are being told, who's telling them, how, and why.
With provocative discussions from both professional and fan writers, on subjects from Star Trek to The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Harry Potter, Twilight, and beyond, Fic sheds light on the widely misunderstood world(s) of fanfiction.
(My publishers shared parts of the book on Wattpad, so I've linked to those sections).
Transhistorical accounts of fanfiction often refer to the Brontës’ juvenilia, but such references... more Transhistorical accounts of fanfiction often refer to the Brontës’ juvenilia, but such references are largely cursory even as they make a claim about the siblings’ Angria and Gondal writings that needs more careful consideration. This essay offers a more thorough examination of what it means to claim “the Brontës wrote fanfic”, analyzing their family- and site-specific mode of creative production and consumption in relation both to established definitions of contemporary fanfiction and to their own sources and environment. Archival research has enabled me to situate some of the Brontës’ earliest texts in their original tiny, hand-produced format alongside the print periodicals and physical books that the young authors read and transformed. I analyze how the siblings’ books mimic the multiplicity and flexibility of authorship modeled in their local newspaper and how their drawing, marginalia, and corrections accentuate the interactive nature of the printed book. Viewing the Brontë si...
Charles Baudelaire not only wished to be where he was not—he often made the journey. He insisted ... more Charles Baudelaire not only wished to be where he was not—he often made the journey. He insisted repeatedly on his right to contradict himself, and he availed himself of it with alarming frequency. Most famously, Les Fleurs du mal records his creative travels between opposing poles he styles “Spleen” and “Ideal”: between the modern and classical, the temporal and eternal, the venal and immaculate muse.3 In the Petits Poemes en prose, Baudelaire retraces and revises again, often seeming to decimate the work of the verse, to flatten the metaphoric heights the verse attains in its approach to either polar absolute, as Barbara John son has convincingly argued.4 Following the lead suggested by key verse-prose doublets such as “La Chevelure” (“The Head of Hair”) and “Un Hemisphere dans une chevelure” (“A Hemisphere in a Head of Hair”), critical literature on the prose poem has tended to focus on this journey from verse to prose, emphasizing the increased ironic, often violent perspective of the prose work. Such readings cast “Spleen de Paris” as an ultimate turn toward “Spleen” that abandons the transcendent potential of “l’Ideal” and produces a text characterized above all by a “perpetual clash of sentimental and mora l anarchy,” by “fragmentation, discontinuity,” and “external a nd internal chaos.”5
Charles Baudelaire not only wished to be where he was not—he often made the journey. He insisted ... more Charles Baudelaire not only wished to be where he was not—he often made the journey. He insisted repeatedly on his right to contradict himself, and he availed himself of it with alarming frequency. Most famously, Les Fleurs du mal records his creative travels between opposing poles he styles “Spleen” and “Ideal”: between the modern and classical, the temporal and eternal, the venal and immaculate muse.3 In the Petits Poemes en prose, Baudelaire retraces and revises again, often seeming to decimate the work of the verse, to flatten the metaphoric heights the verse attains in its approach to either polar absolute, as Barbara John son has convincingly argued.4 Following the lead suggested by key verse-prose doublets such as “La Chevelure” (“The Head of Hair”) and “Un Hemisphere dans une chevelure” (“A Hemisphere in a Head of Hair”), critical literature on the prose poem has tended to focus on this journey from verse to prose, emphasizing the increased ironic, often violent perspective of the prose work. Such readings cast “Spleen de Paris” as an ultimate turn toward “Spleen” that abandons the transcendent potential of “l’Ideal” and produces a text characterized above all by a “perpetual clash of sentimental and mora l anarchy,” by “fragmentation, discontinuity,” and “external a nd internal chaos.”5
Studying fanfiction in a field called “fan studies” conveys the assumption that we study it prima... more Studying fanfiction in a field called “fan studies” conveys the assumption that we study it primarily to learn about fans. But what of fanfiction from a textual perspective—its distinctive recombinatory, iterative, and unstable textual effects and pleasures? How can it be defined and understood from literary historical and theoretical perspectives, or as a distinctive literary mode in its own right? Though it does seem refer to a recognizable kind of text, “fanfiction” resists a single definition but rather indicates an often playful relation nonetheless ordered by power dynamics—between source and text, writer and text, law, profit, platform or code and text, etc. Arguing through cephalopods and theorists influential in assemblage and network theory (Deleuze, Kittler), this chapter claims that “fanfiction” challenges models of unitary authorship and artistic hierarchies derived from Kant even as it relies on these models both conceptually and historically for the conditions of its existence
Forum for Modern Language Studies Vol. 52, No. 2, doi: 10.1093/fmls/
Despite profound differenc... more Forum for Modern Language Studies Vol. 52, No. 2, doi: 10.1093/fmls/
Despite profound differences, George Sand and Gustave Flaubert sustained a long and intimate correspondence that ended only with Sand's death. The two did not collaborate on any work outside the correspondence; like the friendship itself, the letters are in service of no goal outside themselves. It is as a years-long negotiation on the subject of writing – and how to live with it – that the Flaubert– Sand correspondence can best be understood as collaboration: a chronicle of the push and pull between different kinds of writerly minds and, as Sand would insist, 'hearts'. A sustained, mutual effort on the part of the correspondents develops a shared epistolary rhetoric that allows the friendship to proceed as egalitarian and affectionate across aesthetic, political and – perhaps most complexly and transfor-matively – gender divides. The result is an extremely compelling hybrid text such as neither writer could have imagined or written without the other.
... View all notes. Early in the era, Tennyson's 'Lady of Shalott' (1832; 1842), i... more ... View all notes. Early in the era, Tennyson's 'Lady of Shalott' (1832; 1842), in which looking at a man dooms a creative woman to abandon her art for the sake of dying beautifully, and Browning's 'Porphyria's Lover' (1836; 1842), a dramatic monologue in which the speaker kills ...
Kafka’s Other Prague: Writings from the Czechoslovak Republic examines Kafka’s late writings from... more Kafka’s Other Prague: Writings from the Czechoslovak Republic examines Kafka’s late writings from the perspective of the author’s changing relationship with Czech language, culture, and literature—the least understood facet of his meticulously researched life and work.
What is fanfiction and what is it not? Why does fanfiction matter? And what makes it so important... more What is fanfiction and what is it not? Why does fanfiction matter? And what makes it so important to the future of literature?
Fic is a groundbreaking exploration of the history and culture of fan writing and what it means for the way we think about reading, writing, and authorship. It's a story about literature, community, and technology--about what stories are being told, who's telling them, how, and why.
With provocative discussions from both professional and fan writers, on subjects from Star Trek to The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Harry Potter, Twilight, and beyond, Fic sheds light on the widely misunderstood world(s) of fanfiction.
(My publishers shared parts of the book on Wattpad, so I've linked to those sections).
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Despite profound differences, George Sand and Gustave Flaubert sustained a long and intimate correspondence that ended only with Sand's death. The two did not collaborate on any work outside the correspondence; like the friendship itself, the letters are in service of no goal outside themselves. It is as a years-long negotiation on the subject of writing – and how to live with it – that the Flaubert– Sand correspondence can best be understood as collaboration: a chronicle of the push and pull between different kinds of writerly minds and, as Sand would insist, 'hearts'. A sustained, mutual effort on the part of the correspondents develops a shared epistolary rhetoric that allows the friendship to proceed as egalitarian and affectionate across aesthetic, political and – perhaps most complexly and transfor-matively – gender divides. The result is an extremely compelling hybrid text such as neither writer could have imagined or written without the other.
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Fic is a groundbreaking exploration of the history and culture of fan writing and what it means for the way we think about reading, writing, and authorship. It's a story about literature, community, and technology--about what stories are being told, who's telling them, how, and why.
With provocative discussions from both professional and fan writers, on subjects from Star Trek to The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Harry Potter, Twilight, and beyond, Fic sheds light on the widely misunderstood world(s) of fanfiction.
(My publishers shared parts of the book on Wattpad, so I've linked to those sections).
Despite profound differences, George Sand and Gustave Flaubert sustained a long and intimate correspondence that ended only with Sand's death. The two did not collaborate on any work outside the correspondence; like the friendship itself, the letters are in service of no goal outside themselves. It is as a years-long negotiation on the subject of writing – and how to live with it – that the Flaubert– Sand correspondence can best be understood as collaboration: a chronicle of the push and pull between different kinds of writerly minds and, as Sand would insist, 'hearts'. A sustained, mutual effort on the part of the correspondents develops a shared epistolary rhetoric that allows the friendship to proceed as egalitarian and affectionate across aesthetic, political and – perhaps most complexly and transfor-matively – gender divides. The result is an extremely compelling hybrid text such as neither writer could have imagined or written without the other.
Fic is a groundbreaking exploration of the history and culture of fan writing and what it means for the way we think about reading, writing, and authorship. It's a story about literature, community, and technology--about what stories are being told, who's telling them, how, and why.
With provocative discussions from both professional and fan writers, on subjects from Star Trek to The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Harry Potter, Twilight, and beyond, Fic sheds light on the widely misunderstood world(s) of fanfiction.
(My publishers shared parts of the book on Wattpad, so I've linked to those sections).