Opposing Forces – XIV Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Seminar Working paper Hanna-Riikka Roine, M.A. (comparative literature) hanna.roine@uta.fi University of Tampere June 6, 2013 Fan Fiction – Opposing the System of Genre Fiction? Fan fiction is often seen as a “democratic” or “liberating genre” (cf. Pugh 2005). This premise has been used to underline various aspects of audience’s freedom: for example, audience’s freedom to act and to choose, possibilities to oppose and to break free of certain interpretations deemed hegemonic, means to criticise the capitalist culture of consumption and, on the whole, capacity to be an active player instead of being a passive receiver or consumer. An emphasis of this kind can, on the one hand, highlight certain important features of fan fiction as an activity and phenomenon, but on the other hand, it can easily lead to the underestimation of others. In this paper, 1 I explore the conventions and generic devices of fan fiction based on fantastic fiction. My starting point is that although fandoms 2 can take the laws of interpretation and meaning-making into their own hands, they can also be seen to form their own shared interpretations, evaluations and therefore, their own cultural canon (cf. Jenkins 1992, 18). It should also be noted that not all fans are created equal, as the communities producing and evaluating fan fiction involve their own hierarchies. 3 This viewpoint affords, firstly, an opportunity to look at fan fiction in relation to larger fannish practices, and secondly, to discuss various meaning-making strategies in general from a vantage point of the so called social responses. Former has been neglected especially in studies focusing on fics, the works of fan fiction, as separate, individual works of art, whereas latter has been largely forgotten in literary studies mapping audience responses to fiction. It is also interesting to consider why fantastic fiction as a genre offers such a fertile ground for fan fiction writers. 1 This paper is a part of my PhD project (and more or less an excerpt from my licentiate thesis) which has to do with possibilities and paradoxes of fictional worlds in contemporary fantasy fiction and digital (role-playing) games. 2 In short, fandom (consisting of fan plus the suffix -dom, as in kingdom) is a term used to refer to an active and participating subculture composed of fans. It encompasses all kinds of fannish practices, which usually are born as a part of a social network. It might sound like a new phenomenon, but Merriam-Webster dictionary, for example, dates its first known use as early as in 1903 (see http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fandom ). 3 These conventions and hierarchies can interestingly be compared with role-playing as an activity, as role-playing and games in general are often seen as “democratic art form” (cf. Costikyan 2002, 32). However, although role-playing can be seen as an interactive process of defining and re-defining an imaginary game world by a ground of participants, it is done according to a recognized structure of power, and portraying anthropomorphic character delimits the players’ power to define (cf. Montola 2007, 179). 1