Kristina Busse

Karen Hellekson

An essential introduction to a rapidly growing field of study, The Fan Fiction Studies Reader gathers in one place the key foundational texts of the fan studies corpus, with a focus on fan fiction. Collected here are important texts by scholars whose groundbreaking work established the field and outlined some of its enduring questions. Editors Karen Hellekson and Kristina Busse provide cogent introductions that place each piece in its historical and intellectual context, mapping the historical development of fan studies and suggesting its future trajectories. Organized into four thematic sections, the essays address fan-created works as literary artifacts; the relationship between fandom, identity, and feminism; fandom and affect; and the role of creativity and performance in fan activities. Considered as literary artifacts, fan works pose important questions about the nature of authorship, the meaning of “originality,” and modes of transmission. Sociologically, fan fiction is and long has been a mostly female enterprise, from the fanzines of the 1960s to online forums today, and this fact has shaped its themes and its standing among fans. The questions of how and why people become fans, and what the difference is between liking something and being a fan of it, have also drawn considerable scholarly attention, as has the question of how fans perform their fannish identities for diverse audiences. Thanks to the overlap between fan studies and other disciplines related to popular and cultural studies—including social, digital, and transmedia studies—an increasing number of scholars are turning to fan studies to engage their students. Fan fiction is the most extensively explored aspect of fan works and fan engagement, and so studies of it can often serve as a basis for addressing other aspects of fandom. These classic essays introduce the field’s key questions and some of its major figures. Those new to the field or in search of context for their own research will find this reader an invaluable resource.

The Fan Fiction Studies Reader

Louisa Ellen Stein

Introduction: the literary, televisual and digital adventures of the beloved detective / Louisa Ellen Stein and Kristina Busse -- Transmedia and Collective Intelligence. Sherlock's epistemological cconomy and the value of "fan" knowledge: how producer-fans play the (great) game of fandom / Matt Hills -- Winning "the grand game": Sherlock and the fragmentation of fan discourse / Ashley D. Polasek -- Sherlock then and now. "But it's the solar system!": reconciling science and faith through astronomy / Ariana Scott-Zechlin -- Terror, nostalgia and the pursuit of Sherlock Holmes in Sherlock / Ellen Burton Harrington -- Decoding the industrial and digital city: visions of security in Holmes' and Sherlock's London / Anne Kustritz and Melanie E. S. Kohnen -- Adaptations and intertextuality. Shaping Sherlocks: institutional practice and the adaptation of character / Elizabeth Jane Evans -- Sherlock's webs: what the detective remembered from the doctor about transmediality / C B Harvey -- Holmes in the small screen: the television contexts of Sherlock / Tom Steward -- Interpreting Sherlock. "Good old index"; or, the mystery of the infinite archive / Roberta Pearson -- Sherlock: critical reception by the media / Paul Rixon -- Holmes abroad: Dutch fans interpret the famous detective / Nicolle Lamerichs -- Postmodern Sherlock. Sherlock and the (re)invention of modernity / Balaka Basu -- Sherlock as cyborg: bridging mind and body / Francesca Coppa -- Conclusion: transmedia Sherlock and beyond / Kristina Busse and Louisa Ellen Stein.

Essays on the BBC Series

Sherlock and Transmedia Fandom

Fans have been responding to literary works since the days of Homer's Odyssey and Euripedes' Medea. More recently, a number of science fiction, fantasy, media, and game works have found devoted fan followings. The advent of the Internet has brought these groups from relatively limited, face-to-face enterprises to easily accessible global communities, within which fan texts proliferate and are widely read and even more widely commented upon. New interactions between readers and writers of fan texts are possible in these new virtual communities. From Star Trek to Harry Potter, the essays in this volume explore the world of fan fiction--its purposes, how it is created, how the fan experiences it. Grouped by subject matter, essays cover topics such as genre intersection, sexual relationships between characters, character construction through narrative, and the role of the beta reader in online communities. The work also discusses the terminology used by creators of fan artifacts and comments on the effects of technological advancements on fan communities. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

New Essays

Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet

Gathering some of Kristina Busse’s essential essays on fan fiction together with new work, Framing Fan Fiction argues that understanding media fandom requires combining literary theory with cultural studies because fan artifacts are both artistic works and cultural documents. Drawing examples from a multitude of fan communities and texts, Busse frames fan fiction in three key ways: as individual and collective erotic engagement; as a shared interpretive practice in which tropes constitute shared creative markers and illustrate the complexity of fan creations; and as a point of contention around which community conflicts over ethics play out. Moving between close readings of individual texts and fannish tropes on the one hand, and the highly intertextual embeddedness of these communal creations on the other, the book demonstrates that fan fiction is simultaneously a literary and a social practice. Framing Fan Fiction deploys personal history and the interpretations of specific stories to contextualize fan fiction culture and its particular forms of intertextuality and performativity. In doing so, it highlights the way fans use fan fiction’s reimagining of the source material to explore issues of identities and peformativities, gender and sexualities, within a community of like-minded people. In contrast to the celebration of originality in many other areas of artistic endeavor, fan fiction celebrates repetition, especially the collective creation and circulation of tropes. An essential resource for scholars, Framing Fan Fiction is also an ideal starting point for those new to the study of fan fiction and its communities of writers.

Kristina Busse

About

Books

Join the club