Case for Fanfiction
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Challenging readers to rethink what they read and why, the author questions the aesthetic assumptions that have led to the devaluing of fanfiction--a genre criticized as both tasteless and derivative--and other "guilty pleasure" reading (and writing), including romance and fantasy. The complicated relationship between "fanfic" and intellectual property rights is discussed in light of the millennia-old tradition of derivative literature, before modern copyright law established originality as the hallmark of great fiction.
"Absorbed reading"--the practice of immersing oneself in the narrative versus critically "reading from a distance"--is a strong motive for the appropriation by fanfiction of canon characters and worlds.
Ashley J. Barner received her Ph.D. in literature from Ohio University and is the author of a fantasy novel. She lives in Pennsylvania, with her family and their fourteen cats.