#literary studies

[howsoonitwasover]

22.04.26. writing is coming along slowly but steadily. my morning walks in the park are continuing to keep me sane - I think i’m really going to need them for the next week!

[fanhackers]

Fanfiction as Performative Criticism: Harry Potter Racebending

Kristina Busse and I are planning a book called Reading Fanfiction/Fanfiction Readings, which will be a collection of close readings of fanfiction stories. The goal is to treat the stories as literary works with their own preoccupations quite apart from the source text’s meanings and pre-occupations; our collection will ask the question, “What is the fanfiction writer using the fandom to think about?”  

In putting this proposal together, I found myself reviewing the works of particularly literary fanfiction scholars, so I might do a few posts shouting out literary acafans, particularly those who do readings of particular stories. One scholar who came to mind was Khaliah Reed, and her essay Fanfiction as Performative Criticism: Harry Potter Racebending. Reed argues that fanfiction writers “are blurring demarcation lines between creative writing and literary criticism,” but comes down in many ways on the creative side of that equation with particular style and verve.  

Reed starts with a quote from Tumblr user Vondellswain about racebending; this quote serves as an excellent manifesto for fanfiction writing in general:

All my interpretations are based squarely in canon. But if they weren’t, that would be damn well acceptable. Squeeze representation out of anywhere you can feel it and fabricate the rest. Own your fiction.

Reed later analyzes the fanfiction story “Black” by Potterworm and celebrates the way the story is interested in the particular social and political realities of people of color. This is the part of the story that that Potterworm innovates.  As Reed notes:

Racebending allows Potterworm to directly insert perspectives of marginalized people where they explore and vocalize the experience and concerns of people of color. Consider, for example, the way that Potterworm writes Hermione’s discovery of her blackness. Potterworm takes the canonical backstory of Hermione—her intelligence and ‘know-it-all’ attitude isolated her from her peers—and uses this to set the backdrop for her first encounter with racism. Hermione considered Bobby her first (and only) friend, and unfortunately, one day he abruptly refuses to play with her anymore:

“Get away from me,” he yells, and then he screams a word that Hermione hasn’t read and doesn’t know. But she’s a smart girl – she’s never gotten less than a perfect report card – and she can read his body language. She knows he just said a mean word, and she knows friends don’t yell mean words at friends …

(Years later, Hermione’s parents will tell her that Bobby’s father was an abusive drunk, and he hated black people, and he told Bobby not to be friends with her. Bobby was just a scared little boy … Now, though, it doesn’t matter. Now he’s just a little boy, and Hermione is just a little girl, and they are not friends anymore). (“Black” chap. 1)

Reed further argues that ““Black” and fanfiction that uses racebending forces the reader to not only think about race but also to think about it in ways that may create discomfort for the reader,” and notes that “In Potterworm’s story, in spite of Ron’s personal experience with class prejudice, Hermione still must explain to Ron what being black and being muggleborn means.” It’s Potterworm who brings the intersectionality, having Hermione note: “I’m black in the muggle world, and I’m black and a muggleborn here.”

For a long time, we’ve seen fanfiction as doing a reading of the source text - and of course it is. But fanfiction is also about expressing fanfiction writers’ own preoccupations, which are sometimes not in the source text. The preoccupation with the Black experience isn’t Rowling’s; it’s Potterworm’s own contribution. Squeeze representation out anywhere you can feel it. Fabricate the rest. Own your fiction.

[darlingofdots]

One of the first things I teach new students in my intro to literary studies class is that there is no definition of "literature" that includes everything you want it to but also excludes the things you don't want, and that no definition is ideologically or intellectually neutral. I use a specific text to teach this because I have to give them an exam at the end of the semester and need specific information for them to recall, but my secret agenda with this lesson is to dismantle the (conscious or unconscious) hierarchy we all have in our heads about what is Good Art. I also find that students tend to have very narrow expectations about what kind of literature they are going to encounter at university, and I don't blame them for that! But it's really important to me that they at least start to understand that every text is worth studying with the same amount of attention you would give to a Shakespeare play. The point of literary studies isn't to make some sort of judgement about quality, it's to understand how we tell stories and process our lives and communicate and how everything we do and experience influences everything else. On this website we sort of make fun of the "his wife has filled his house with chintz" post and of people who read "too much" into kids' TV but we should do this unironically! My main research focus is historical romance novels and people ask me all the time why I think they matter enough to write a book about, and I have to tell them that everything matters. I know a scholar who has worked on Sunday comic strips around the turn of the 19th century and we can learn so much about what people's lives were like from those! Nothing is too small or silly or "bad" to analyse. Understanding how a text works, what it does, where it comes from are all important and incredibly rewarding questions to ask! Every piece of writing is the result of a series of experiences and circumstances and choices that shape it and just being able to understand that is genuinely one of the most important things I hope my students learn from my classes.

[florasstudyjournal]

research/essay writing 26.09 THU

researching for my english essay at the library today!! writing on the romantics/william blake. ultimately, i’m hapoy i went with blake and this art/literary movement. the discussion he makes surrounding religion in ‘the marriage of heaven and hell’ is reallt captivating and interesting. and the scholarship is nice to read as well!!

i’m just doing some quick research to see how strong my current arguments are represented, or if i need to alter them, or find more scholarship to either argue with or against

also going to the library was a great decision, i actually started writing the bloody thing.

[atridesmediator]

Opened my unfinished paper, got to citations - and ended up finding a mention of the author whose name I couldn’t quite remember, and whose work I never managed to write down in bibliography.

Got to google, to every academical cite, scanned every article and book I’ve downloaded to find even a mention. Nothing. But it was ME who wrote the citation. I’ve never used AI and shit like that. So what the fuck is this. WHO’S THAT. WHO IS THAT!!!!!! WHERE DID I’VE FOUND THE GUY GOD DAMMIT

This pic is me for the past few hours

[annabananaaxox]

I am starting uni on September 16th. I am scared, as I don't know anybody (all of my friends are going to other colleges, and studying things far more useful than literary studies and classics).

A couple months back I went on a tour of the humanities faculty building and it is absolutely beautiful, it looks like it could belong in a Donna Tartt novel, or a Shirley Jackson story: creepy, kind of unsettling, old, reminiscent of gothic architecture, beautiful.

I am excited, but also extremely confused, when I was building my timetable I realized none of my classes were on Fridays, and upon further research I found out there is no class on Fridays. I am confused about that.

Anyway, as I do every year before school starts, or, As I've done for the past three years, I will be re-reading The Secret History by Donna Tartt. I have had to buy a new copy because the one I've had since 2021 is so used the pages fall off. I am currently reading The Goldfinch, also by Donna Tartt.

Have a good academic year, lots of love,

Anna.

[kaitlin-writes]

Studying receptions of Antigone. xx

[littlecakeclub]

“Read the Classics” They Said... But Why Are They All Western ?

“Read the classics,” they say — in classrooms, in reading challenges, in thinkpieces about anti-intellectualism. And yes, I agree: literacy matters. Context matters. Critical reading matters.

But have you ever actually looked up a list of “must-read classics”? I did.

Just for fun, I googled “classic literature” and clicked on the first five websites that popped up : Macmillan, Penguin, Pen & Poison, Goodreads, and The Greatest Books.

I am data girlie so I decided to track the nationalities of the authors mentioned in each of their lists. It’s not a rigorous study (I’m not a publishing house or a university archive), but here’s the thing: the results didn’t surprise me. At all.

From Penguin to Goodreads to indie blogs, these lists are almost entirely Western — mostly British, American, French. The literary canon is overwhelmingly shaped by imperial power. Even when Russian or German authors are thrown in, non-Western voices are basically absent.

The percentage of African, Asian, Middle Eastern, or Indigenous authors is close to zero. Not because they didn’t write brilliant books, but because they’re not what we’re taught to call “classic.”

And that’s a problem.

Because the idea of “classics” isn’t neutral. It’s institutional. It’s political. It’s imperial.

What we call “the literary canon” is a product of Western dominance. It’s shaped by who held power : economically, academically, and culturally.

It reflects which countries built publishing empires, which languages were globalized, which authors had the backing of universities, critics, prizes. We talk a lot about colonialism in economics or politics, but literature has its empires too.

The global canon is still mostly made in London, Paris, and New York.

Even the term “World Literature” often just means non-Western books chosen by Western gatekeepers, translated by Western presses, reviewed by Western critics.

There are literary classics in Urdu, Swahili, Tamil, Arabic, Korean.

But most of them are never translated, never taught, never included in what we call “a classic.”

Ismat Chughtai and Saadat Hasan Manto were writing at the same time as Virginia Woolf and Albert Camus —and yet who gets taught worldwide? Who gets quoted in essays and book clubs and high school syllabi?

That’s not just coincidence. That’s cultural imperialism.

So when we say we’re fighting anti-intellectualism by “reading the classics” , we need to ask: Whose intellectual legacy are we preserving? And whose are we still ignoring?

If we don’t expand our idea of what “a classic” can be, we’re just reinforcing a literary empire with a prettier cover.

So if you’re a fan of classics (and I say this with love) please take a moment to look at your shelf. Are your “classics” only Western?

If yes, maybe it’s time to ask: Whose stories are being left out and why?