Archives of potential: researching fanfiction as contemporary digital literature

As a unique form of contemporary digital literature, fanfiction’s significance is epitomised by its propensity for multifocal interpretation. This thesis utilises literary, fan fiction, and monster studies approaches in a case study analysis of a representative fanfiction: Azriel Green’s You’re Divine (written under the pseudonym ‘Oonionchiver’). You’re Divine was selected as a complex work that engages with multiple modes of meaning-making within and outside the narrative. The case study demonstrates how fanfiction forms meaning through subverting societal norms while deviating from traditional literary perspectives, with a particular focus on the monstrous and community as creating queer space. Literary significance is uncovered in this thesis through critical analysis of the form, content, and communicative space of You’re Divine, filling research gaps in scholarship on fanfiction’s thematic groups by applying a text-focused approach.

Fanfiction production has been predominately investigated through ethnographic frameworks inspired by media and cultural studies, originally focusing on feminism and resistance. Research has branched out to include literary analysis, particularly in scholarship challenging notions of authorship and investigating specific categories of fan-writing. The academic avenues of fan fiction studies influential to my research are detailed in the literature review alongside relevant theories of literary criticism and monster studies, thus locating my thesis as it responds to existing scholarship. The textual analysis investigates significance formed within You’re Divine’s structural play, the depth of its characters and their development, the quarrel between multifaceted narratives of monstrosity and morality, and the creation of queer space in the text and through it via paratextual communication. By identifying the textual complexity of You’re Divine as open to multiple analytical perspectives, this case study is indicative of the potential for further multifocal research into fanfiction as a significant form of contemporary digital literature unlimited by traditional conventions of genre or structure.