1 00:00:05,930 --> 00:00:11,560 [Auto-generated transcript. Edits may have been applied for clarity.] Okay, ladies and gentlemen, I think we'll make a start. Thank you very much for coming to this third day. 2 00:00:11,570 --> 00:00:17,860 As you. As you may recall, the structure that we tried to do was is the past, present and future. 3 00:00:17,870 --> 00:00:23,779 And today, I suppose, falls into the future. But the future is already here, as we will hear from many of the speakers. 4 00:00:23,780 --> 00:00:32,900 So what we're going to hear are things which are changing, are moving fantasy forward currently, but probably will change the direction of fantasy. 5 00:00:33,350 --> 00:00:40,490 So it gives me great pleasure to start off, and I'm going to introduce Megan Laban, who's a PhD student at the University of Lincoln. 6 00:00:40,820 --> 00:00:50,270 And Megan is studying how fanfiction is queering Arthurian literature, and literature tells us so. 7 00:00:50,270 --> 00:00:53,120 In his 1947 essay on fairy Stories, 8 00:00:53,120 --> 00:00:59,000 J.R.R. Tolkien considers the significance of fairy stories for adult audiences and defines his understanding of fantasy. 9 00:00:59,480 --> 00:01:04,460 I want to focus on one phrase I found particularly exciting as I prepared this talk arresting strangeness. 10 00:01:05,890 --> 00:01:10,300 Talking rights. Fantasy, of course, starts out with an advantage arresting strangeness. 11 00:01:10,750 --> 00:01:15,430 The term strangeness here evokes queerness, not necessarily limited to issues of gender and sexuality, 12 00:01:15,730 --> 00:01:19,360 but also encapsulating the normal, the non-normative. It's anonymous. 13 00:01:19,360 --> 00:01:24,070 For a long time, both queerness and strangeness indicate a deviation from what is expected or conventional, 14 00:01:24,400 --> 00:01:27,280 and thus carry the potential to resist dominant cultural narratives. 15 00:01:28,210 --> 00:01:32,950 An encounter with the queer or strange may awaken or answer an existing curiosity or desire, 16 00:01:33,310 --> 00:01:36,400 and as talking continues, many people dislike being arrested. 17 00:01:36,670 --> 00:01:38,710 They dislike any meddling with the primary world. 18 00:01:39,460 --> 00:01:44,080 The strangeness of what Tolkien calls fairy stories is something which not only transgresses between worlds, 19 00:01:44,080 --> 00:01:46,450 but has the potential to intervene in the primary world. 20 00:01:47,910 --> 00:01:54,540 Fairy stories for Tolkien, a literary works which must contain four qualities fantasy, recovery, escape, and consolation. 21 00:01:54,870 --> 00:01:58,590 They are derivative works based on old myths, added to the cauldron of story, 22 00:01:58,860 --> 00:02:03,689 and shared and share an ever and ever evolving pool of narrative elements, 23 00:02:03,690 --> 00:02:07,920 which is always expanding and which allows for the constant reconfiguring of traditional ideas. 24 00:02:08,700 --> 00:02:12,960 Fan texts, at least those forming my sample, meet the criteria that Tolkien establishes. 25 00:02:13,530 --> 00:02:18,389 I focus today on their ability to meddle, to intervene, because through their arresting strangeness, 26 00:02:18,390 --> 00:02:25,500 they become sites of what talking terms, recovery and renewal, a regaining of a clear view in the rest of my presentation. 27 00:02:25,890 --> 00:02:30,180 I draw on the work of some scholars and queer theorists to build on Tolkien's exploration of fairy stories, 28 00:02:30,480 --> 00:02:34,380 in order to demonstrate the transgressive potential of both fantasy and fan fiction. 29 00:02:34,980 --> 00:02:43,379 I argue that fan text, particularly works of fiction, queer traditional concepts of gender and sexuality via an arresting strangeness that is, 30 00:02:43,380 --> 00:02:49,740 by foregrounding the non-normative via a process of familiarisation which arouses and sometimes satisfies desires. 31 00:02:51,510 --> 00:02:58,800 The term fanfiction describes self-published stories based on existing media that fans produce and circulate before the internet. 32 00:02:58,830 --> 00:03:03,660 Fanfiction was usually created and disseminated in the form of self-published fan made zines. 33 00:03:04,170 --> 00:03:09,630 Through the 1970s and 80s. These hard copy items were often exchanged through the mail or in person at fan conventions. 34 00:03:10,140 --> 00:03:13,950 In the early 1990s, fandom began to transition into online spaces. 35 00:03:14,430 --> 00:03:17,970 This move affected how fanfiction was both distributed and interacted with. 36 00:03:18,450 --> 00:03:24,630 The internet offered increased availability with online tools and hosting services, aiding accessibility, authoring, and sharing. 37 00:03:25,110 --> 00:03:31,020 Now, fanfiction is largely published and hosting sites like Archive of Our Own fanfiction and Wattpad. 38 00:03:32,310 --> 00:03:35,220 Fanfiction is increasingly described as transformative literature, 39 00:03:35,580 --> 00:03:40,800 recognising that it does not just reinterpret or expand on, but significantly reimagines its source material, 40 00:03:41,130 --> 00:03:44,610 offering new perspectives or narratives that challenge or redefine the source text 41 00:03:45,300 --> 00:03:48,959 produced and shared without interference oversight from traditional publishing houses, 42 00:03:48,960 --> 00:03:54,030 studios, or distribution networks. Fan texts are uniquely positioned to amplify marginalised voices, 43 00:03:54,030 --> 00:03:58,170 experience and narratives, and to critique both the source text and society at large. 44 00:03:58,710 --> 00:04:05,040 It is, however, important to remember that fan texts do not provide a politically stable or consistently coherent response to their source text, 45 00:04:05,280 --> 00:04:12,310 or to our current social and political situation. The type of fan fiction most prevalent in my research is slash fiction. 46 00:04:12,790 --> 00:04:18,640 Slash fiction is a subcategory of fan fiction that focuses on queerly identified romantic and or sexual relationships. 47 00:04:19,090 --> 00:04:24,700 Named after the convention of using a forward slash um between character names to indicate such a relationship. 48 00:04:25,300 --> 00:04:31,300 Slash, which fan scholars such as Henry Jenkins and Joanna Rust note has radical, liberatory, and transgressive potential. 49 00:04:31,690 --> 00:04:38,260 Typically refers to pairings between two men with slash stories, usually based on perceived homoerotic subtext in the source text. 50 00:04:41,060 --> 00:04:46,580 The narrative structure of some source materials resist heteronormative frameworks of time and sociality, 51 00:04:46,850 --> 00:04:51,380 inviting queer interventions which make explicit the implicitly queer aspects they contain. 52 00:04:51,890 --> 00:04:56,930 For example, media source texts frequently leave certain milestones deferred and unfulfilled, 53 00:04:57,410 --> 00:05:02,000 potentially due in part to an episodic format or the need for undisturbed exoticism and adventure. 54 00:05:02,330 --> 00:05:05,239 Traditional cis heteronormative milestones like marriage, children, 55 00:05:05,240 --> 00:05:11,840 and familial responsibilities may be largely absent from or deferred within fantasy texts like Lord of the rings or the BBC's Merlin. 56 00:05:12,530 --> 00:05:17,840 This frequently results in short lived heterosexual relations, which lack the depth and intensity of the existing male bonds. 57 00:05:18,470 --> 00:05:22,459 As a consequence, the bonds the characters share with their same gender companions, for example, 58 00:05:22,460 --> 00:05:27,560 Frodo and Sam or Merlin and Arthur become the most important and complex relationships for the characters, 59 00:05:27,890 --> 00:05:31,430 relationships which provide ample material for fans and a heavy with queer potential. 60 00:05:32,420 --> 00:05:38,540 In her examination of slash pairings, Sarah Gwenllian Jones challenges the extent to which these texts can be seen as transgressive, 61 00:05:39,020 --> 00:05:43,550 arguing that this making explicit what is implicit is only an extension of the canon. 62 00:05:44,000 --> 00:05:48,470 But it is critical to remember that no explicit queer representation exists in the method of Lord of the rings. 63 00:05:49,070 --> 00:05:54,830 Queer people are denied a place in their reality. Merlin and Lord of the rings slash fiction engage in a radical transformation of 64 00:05:54,830 --> 00:05:58,700 their source texts by explicitly depicting various same gender characters as lovers, 65 00:05:59,330 --> 00:06:03,020 foregrounding the non-normative by offering queer representation what I previously was not. 66 00:06:05,720 --> 00:06:09,950 Fan texts as forms of fairy story function as a tool of de familiarisation. 67 00:06:10,280 --> 00:06:16,909 Transgressive and their potential to destabilise our understanding of social concepts, which we have ceased to look at in San Sook. 68 00:06:16,910 --> 00:06:24,950 But the term fit, which is the most popular fan text sorted by kudos on archive of our own under the category Lord of the rings or Media types. 69 00:06:25,490 --> 00:06:34,460 Um, the relationship of Frodo Baggins slash Sam Gandhi slash Rosie Cotton opens a traditional institution of the family up to reimagining, 70 00:06:34,730 --> 00:06:39,470 particularly around issues of paternity in the traditionally heavily gendered division of reproductive labour. 71 00:06:40,520 --> 00:06:44,739 My research demonstrates something similar happening in Merlin fanfiction in Next to You, 72 00:06:44,740 --> 00:06:48,980 which the rule by looking at my love, my land is described by people both within and beyond Camelot, 73 00:06:49,010 --> 00:06:55,760 as is the Queen, a title which functions to break gender away from biological sex but doesn't quite dissolve the binary construction of gender. 74 00:06:56,410 --> 00:07:02,780 Merlin conforms to a traditionally feminine set of characteristics engaging and under enumerated under enumerated domestic labour, 75 00:07:03,020 --> 00:07:06,800 which is not alleviated but obfuscated by his eventual marriage to Arthur. 76 00:07:07,940 --> 00:07:13,370 There are, however, texts like Glowing Grey by Hello Earthlings and Author intended by platonic underscore bona, 77 00:07:13,670 --> 00:07:17,950 which depict characters as more androgynous and which worked to familiarise and naturalise. 78 00:07:18,230 --> 00:07:23,510 This is set to normative behaviours and systems mapped onto them, opening them up to contemplation and critique. 79 00:07:27,040 --> 00:07:30,550 With the term arresting talk. It indicates something which is desirable. 80 00:07:30,940 --> 00:07:38,200 Attractive as opposed to repulsive. Strangeness here reminds me of what utopian queer theorist host Esteban Menas wrote about queerness, 81 00:07:38,620 --> 00:07:44,620 that it should be about a desire for another way of being, a desire that resist mandates to accept that which is not enough. 82 00:07:46,560 --> 00:07:50,730 It is critical to recognise that fan texts allow fans to satisfy some of their desires. 83 00:07:51,420 --> 00:07:57,900 Consider the existence of Fix It Fix, a type of fanfiction which aims to resolve or alter to fix part of a source text, 84 00:07:58,080 --> 00:08:02,100 such as a storyline or element of character development to provide a more satisfying outcome. 85 00:08:03,060 --> 00:08:09,630 Tolkien uses the term constellation to describe an emotional satisfaction within fairy stories, which again fan fiction forms a part. 86 00:08:10,530 --> 00:08:17,190 He uses constellation to refer to an imaginative satisfaction of ancient desires, but also joy of a happy ending, the sudden, joyous turn. 87 00:08:18,380 --> 00:08:25,190 Merlin's antics frequently rewrite the moment. Merlin reveals his magic to Arthur the moment he comes out as a sorcerer to his friend. 88 00:08:25,670 --> 00:08:29,480 In the show, this moment is not given much time, with Arthur passing away in the same episode. 89 00:08:30,110 --> 00:08:33,799 The Merlin fan text I have encountered so far frequently work towards delivering 90 00:08:33,800 --> 00:08:36,980 a more satisfying resolution to what is the central conflict of the show, 91 00:08:37,430 --> 00:08:42,980 demonstrating mostly unseen character development for Arthur and a positive outcome for Merlin and those Camelot has been a pressing. 92 00:08:43,550 --> 00:08:48,860 This is in opposition to, and therefore directly critiques the ending of the show, where the political project of Albion, 93 00:08:48,980 --> 00:08:56,060 which promised a society free from the criminalisation of magic, fails, and in which Merlin frequently works against those seeking liberation. 94 00:08:56,660 --> 00:09:02,600 The failure to attain their dreams and desires in the source text is significant, especially because the fantasy inspired which, 95 00:09:02,600 --> 00:09:10,100 closer to their achievement, refusing I can't see refusing, um, to accept that which is not enough. 96 00:09:10,970 --> 00:09:19,010 Um and then winds through this um. Cultural theorist Marc Fisher sees desire under neoliberal capitalism as something which has been exploited, 97 00:09:19,010 --> 00:09:21,500 repressed, regulated and represented back to us. 98 00:09:21,950 --> 00:09:27,650 He argues that to reclaim a real political agency, there must be an effort to use desire to look beyond what has been prescribed to us. 99 00:09:28,160 --> 00:09:32,000 Fan texts and works of fantasy form part of that effort. Fairy stories. 100 00:09:32,000 --> 00:09:35,990 But Tolkien were not primarily concerned with possibility, but with desirability. 101 00:09:36,380 --> 00:09:43,430 If they awaken desire, satisfying it while often wetting it unbearably, they succeeded, understanding that desires are suppressed under capitalism, 102 00:09:43,430 --> 00:09:50,600 and that fairy stories and fan fiction allow for the exploration and satisfaction of these desires, allows us to recognise the mistakes of resistance. 103 00:09:50,990 --> 00:09:54,380 This transgressive potential is born from their arresting strangeness. 104 00:09:54,890 --> 00:10:01,660 So to conclude, there is a transgressive potential in both fantasy and fan text to the desires they both satisfy and sharpen. 105 00:10:02,150 --> 00:10:08,450 Escaping into a secondary world. Returning, recovered with a renewed awareness of an ability to scrutinise concepts like gender and sexuality, 106 00:10:08,690 --> 00:10:13,640 and perhaps even with consolidated desires, perhaps shifts the queer horizon a little more into focus. 107 00:10:20,470 --> 00:10:21,690 Hi. Thank you for the talk. 108 00:10:21,790 --> 00:10:27,989 Um, I was wondering if relates to, like, what you said at the end about desiring the present capitalism and fan fiction as a way to, 109 00:10:27,990 --> 00:10:33,030 like, access desire that is otherwise suppressed. How, then, do you feel about this kind of new trend in publishing, 110 00:10:33,030 --> 00:10:38,880 where fan fiction is risk and traditionally publish and therefore, like is a product of capitalism? 111 00:10:40,050 --> 00:10:43,290 Oh my God. Um, um, I mean. 112 00:10:45,770 --> 00:10:50,690 I suppose. I mean, obviously like any kind of fairy stories, I was sort of saying is like, 113 00:10:50,690 --> 00:10:54,409 has that potential for you to escape into a secondary world and then come back again? 114 00:10:54,410 --> 00:11:01,160 So I suppose they still retain that element of what I was talking about, of like moving between worlds and bringing ideas there and back again. 115 00:11:01,670 --> 00:11:08,120 Um, I, I haven't read that many Arthurian, um, Ya novels. 116 00:11:08,120 --> 00:11:16,390 I don't know which ones are sort of ex fan fiction. Um, so I couldn't comment on whether they still contain sort of any kind of explicit radicals, 117 00:11:16,400 --> 00:11:21,230 you know, um, resisting cultural dominant narratives, kind of edge. 118 00:11:21,690 --> 00:11:24,650 Um, that's a really good question. I'm sorry, I can't answer any better than that. 119 00:11:25,400 --> 00:11:29,210 I that was very interesting, especially what you said about fanfiction being transformative. 120 00:11:29,540 --> 00:11:36,170 I was wondering how, um, I guess alternate universes and that sort of thing fit into your framework of, 121 00:11:36,740 --> 00:11:41,210 um, um, fanfiction is sort of sorry, my voice is about, um, 122 00:11:41,990 --> 00:11:46,520 kind of being a place of exploration because you said sort of it kind of critiques the source material, 123 00:11:46,520 --> 00:11:51,679 but obviously in an alternate universe, you're actually moving away from that. So, yeah, I was wondering what you thought about that. 124 00:11:51,680 --> 00:11:55,339 Basically. Um, I think this it still rings true. 125 00:11:55,340 --> 00:11:58,910 Um, if you're still taking these characters and putting them in like a coffee shop, 126 00:11:59,030 --> 00:12:03,889 you you're then adding in and in a way even more from the modern society. 127 00:12:03,890 --> 00:12:07,760 You know, the society in which you say for like Merlin and it was produced in, um, 128 00:12:07,940 --> 00:12:12,310 but it allows you then to think about, say, the relationship between a bartender and a customer. 129 00:12:12,330 --> 00:12:20,690 You know, these kind of things get added to it. Um, so it kind of still plays into that sort of cauldron of story, um, that Tolkien expresses. 130 00:12:20,690 --> 00:12:27,630 And, and one thing that I find, I can't remember the scholar that says it, but they use the term all context to describe fanfiction, um, 131 00:12:27,650 --> 00:12:32,510 by which they mean it behaves like I think Derrida describes an archive and that it wants to grow, 132 00:12:32,510 --> 00:12:36,620 it wants to expand, it wants to, um, bring things under its umbrella. 133 00:12:36,620 --> 00:12:42,739 And I think that's one of the wonderful things it made me think of this cauldron of story aspect of and especially for the author in tradition, 134 00:12:42,740 --> 00:12:46,100 as we've heard over the last few days, it just wants to include everything it can. 135 00:12:46,100 --> 00:12:55,459 So when these characters and narratives and conflicts move into different alternative universes, it just brings to the fore aspects that again, 136 00:12:55,460 --> 00:13:02,480 when maybe implicit in the source text, but then sort of more able to be analysed and considered in a new setting. 137 00:13:03,020 --> 00:13:08,690 Um, a really quick one from online is just, um, can you, um, do you have recommendations for further reading on there? 138 00:13:08,690 --> 00:13:13,490 So some of the, um, text that you've talked about, can you let us know so we can go and read some of these things? 139 00:13:13,760 --> 00:13:19,100 That's a good point. I should have put a bibliography slide of, um, if you want to do some, uh, queer theory reading. 140 00:13:19,100 --> 00:13:23,840 I referenced, um, Jose Esteban. Mina's, um, uh, queer. 141 00:13:24,410 --> 00:13:27,799 Oh, my God, what's it called? Adrenaline. Something about queer horizons. 142 00:13:27,800 --> 00:13:31,930 He's a utopian queer theory, so I recommend him if you'd like to start into fan studies. 143 00:13:31,940 --> 00:13:36,500 Henry Jenkins textual approaches is the one to start with. I referenced Sarah Gwendolyn Jones. 144 00:13:36,950 --> 00:13:44,120 Um, Joanna Russ, um, I recommend I'm going back to sort of the 80s and 90s, but like lamb and V, there are so many, 145 00:13:44,120 --> 00:13:50,719 um, like fan studies people at the fanfic fan Fiction Studies reader is a really helpful sort of entry text. 146 00:13:50,720 --> 00:13:54,500 Um, if you'd like to dive into some short excerpts from the big, Big boys. 147 00:13:54,740 --> 00:13:59,990 Um, yeah. Okay. Okay, I think we will. 148 00:14:00,110 --> 00:14:01,340 Thank you very much, Megan.