The Girl, The Myth, The Fanfiction

Prologue- Index

Welcome

Hello and welcome to The Girl, The Myth, The Fanfiction. This project originally began as a project in a performance studies class while I was pursuing my undergraduate degree at Barnard College. Upon graduating, I was offered a post-baccalaureate fellowship at the Barnard College Digital Humanities Center, where I got the opportunity to revisit this project. This second iteration grew into something so much bigger than I had imagined starting out. That is because of the sheer generosity and passion of fan communities, who have produced so much content to work with as well as academic insights on their own practices outside of the traditional university setting. If you enjoy this work, please take the time to enjoy the many stories, musicals, songs, podcasts, and more referenced within it. 

How to Use This Book

This book was written for anyone who wants to read it! I try my best to steer clear from prohibitively inaccessible language that can often times plague academic texts and explain unfamiliar terms. If you'd like to reference this book or use it for your own research, please feel free! I only ask that you cite it accordingly. 

Example: Faires, Taylor. The Girl, The Myth, The Fanfiction. July 2020. https://taylorfaires.com/scalar/the-girl-the-myth-the-fanfiction/index.

If you'd like to explore the topics and themes in this book, you can use the notes feature. While I do have a works-cited page at the end of this book, all of my parenthetical notes are hyperlinked to show the work it is referencing.

How to Read This Book

This is a Scalar book and Scalar prides itself in allowing users to play with the structure of its information. I have chosen to structure this project as a book with multiple sections and chapters within these sections. Below is a list of all pages in the order I wrote them in. This can be seen as a sequential way of reading the book. Each chapter builds on the previous chapter. If you're new to fanfiction studies or you don't even know what fanfiction is, I suggest at least starting with the introduction. The Sequential track is self-explanatory, allowing users to read the book in its entirety from start to finish with an optional reference page for definitions. The Performance Path is the largest of the supplementary tracks, tracing the through line of the project of fanfiction as performance. The Gender Path allows readers to see why gender is important in discussing fanfiction. Finally, the Rowling Path shows the interaction between fanfiction and the work that inspired it, looking at the relationship between authorized and unauthorized works. 

The Sequential Path

  1. What is Fanfiction?
  2. The Archive
  3. Fantastic Tropes and Where to Find Them
  4. Beyond the Page
  5. Conclusion
  6. Works Cited
There are also other ways to explore this book, some of which are suggested below. These are just suggestions and you may feel free to pick and choose which pages you want to read. 

 

The Performance Path

  1. What is Fanfiction?
  2. Fanfiction as Performance
  3. The Archive
  4. Fantastic Tropes and Where to Find Them
  5. Beyond the Page
  6. Conclusion
  7. Works Cited

The Gender Path

  1. What is Fanfiction?
  2. The Archive
  3. The Contested Body of Mary Sue
  4. Queering Hogwarts
  5. Conclusion
  6. Works Cited

 

The Rowling Path

  1. Fanfiction as an Archive
  2. Fanfiction as Outsider
  3. The Archive
  4. The "I" in Fanfic
  5. Queering Hogwarts
  6. Why are Wizards all (or Mostly) White?
  7. Beyond the Page
  8. Works Cited
 

 

 

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