Queering Harry, slashing Potter: Between latent meanings and resistant readings (original) (raw)

Writing with Impunity in a Space of Their Own: On Cultural Appropriation, Imaginative Play, and a New Ethics of Slash in Harry Potter Fan Fiction

Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures, 2019

As defined by Ika Willis, slash is "fiction written by women involving man-on-man (m/m) sexual and/or romantic relationships" (290). Refracted through the contemporary theories of moral philosophy, this paper names such slash as cultural appropriation; however, it further contends that such cultural appropriation is not inherently unethical but instead represents a generative imaginative space in which new configurations of gender and sexuality might be theorized. Building upon this premise, this paper argues that slash's appropriative nature only becomes problematic when it generates misrepresentations that decouple the gay community from its histories, both joyous and painful.

Harry Potter Slash Fanfiction and Women’s Writing: (Re)Writing Desire into Canon

Samyukta: A Journal of Gender and Culture

This paper examines slash fanfiction based on the Harry Potter series as a form of women’s writing. In doing so, it seeks to explore the ways in which slash fanfiction as a genre, with its queering of canonical content and often explicitly sexual narratives, represents an avenue for women to explore ideas of desire and sexuality while separating it from the female body. Considering the readership is also largely female, it also looks at whether slash fanfiction constitutes a form of pornography for women, by women, and therefore whether it holds any potential to be examined as feminist texts.

‘The Boy who Lived’ in the Cupboard: ‘Queer Readings’ and Rowling’s Harry Potter Series

Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, 2017

The paper argues that the articulation of non-normative identities, desires and meanings are possible even within literary representations that are also forms of deliberations to conform to (hetro)normalcy. A queer reading of the popular Harry Potter series created by J. K. Rowling is attempted to identify the understated proclivities of subversion in texts that have a non-esoteric readership. Certain ideations that have emerged from queer theoretical discourses are applied in the process of interpreting textual aspects, especially pertaining to the two important characters of Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter. The aim is not to add to the significantly large amount of slash fiction that the series has generated and instead use the grounds provided by the author herself, purposively and otherwise, that bear affinities or may be read in terms of certain theoretical exercises in the field of queer studies.

READING HARRY POTTER: POPULAR CULTURE, QUEER THEORY AND THE FASHIONING OF YOUTH IDENTITY

Popular culture provides materials out of which people create their identities. Since it plays such a prominent role in current society, particularly with youth, it is crucial for clinicians to engage with popular culture as a therapeutic tool. This article espouses some of the key tenets of the interdisciplinary field of cultural studies, a useful methodology in analyzing popular culture and the mass media. Paying attention to how therapy clients make meaning of media texts can be a powerful therapeutic tool. A case example with a gay youth, Steven-who inserts himself into the text of the Harry Potter stories-illustrates a cultural studies-informed therapeutic approach that draws both upon cultural studies methods and a strong theoretical partner, queer theory. By using a queer cultural studies viewpoint, Steven uncovered some of the hidden "queer" readings and messages in the Harry Potter books that helped him find support for his own sexual identity.

Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are: Sexuality and Gender Exploration in Contemporary Slash Fanfiction

2021

In recent years, slash fanfiction has become a place for trans and non-binary inclusivity in romance narratives. Slash creates a safe space for queer and non-binary fans to express their sexuality and gender identity, thus encouraging the normalization of non-heteronormative people and lifestyles. The first chapter of this thesis, dedicated to the slash fanfiction author, examines the interwoven relationships between the fan, the piece of media (or, canon), and contemporary social outcries for LGBTQ+ inclusivity in romance narratives. Combining both Roland Barthes’ “Death of the Author” and Kristina Busse’s Framing Fan Fiction, I define the fluid relationship between author and reader, and who actually has authority over the text at hand. The second chapter analyzes what these fan authors are writing and how they have methodically created worlds that not only show trans and non-binary characters, but normalize their lives, bodies, and relationships. Through the fan-generated genre k...

Domesticating Hermione: The Emergence of Genre and Community from WIKTT's Feminist Romance Debates

Feminist Media Studies, 2015

WIKTT, or “When I Kissed the Teacher,” is a listserv for the circulation and discussion of fan fiction featuring a romantic/erotic relationship between Harry Potter characters Hermione Granger and Severus Snape. WIKTT discussions reflect the discursive functioning of online fan fiction communities, as well as members' negotiations of the Harry Potter canon, conventions of the romance genre, and current gender norms. Tracing WIKTT's debates around the representation of rape in Hermione's fan fiction romances achieves two complementary goals by both showing the variety of modern women's interpretations of heterosexual exchange, and charting the complex process by which fan fiction communities and genres emerge from ideologically heterogeneous cycles of on-going discussion. Thus, while fan fiction communities can represent an alternative to editorial controls and the supply and demand model of professional publishing, the exact content of those visions will vary widely across and within various writing communities.

Slashing the fiction of Queer Theory: Slash fiction, queer reading and transgressing the boundaries of screen studies, representations and audiences

Slashing the fiction of Queer Theory: Slash fiction, queer reading and transgressing the boundaries of screen studies, representations and audiences, Journal of Communication Inquiry, 32(4): 335-347., 2008

The popularity of slash fiction, a productive strand of fan fiction in which same-sex television or film characters are subversively made into queer subjects, has grown in recent years. The practice of queer readings, which is about repositioning texts outside the borders of heteronormativity, very much resembles some of the basic premises of queer theory, the post-structural theory that contests strict categorical views on gender and sexuality. Unfortunately, slash fiction as well as audience reception practices do not appear to be high on the agenda of queer film theorists. This article argues that queersensitive audiences cannot be ignored in research on queer representations and reception in media studies. Moreover, the authors argue for a multidisciplinary approach that includes queer theory frameworks and insights from audience and reception studies as demonstrated by queer readings of non-queer-coded texts such as slash fiction.

Harry's Girls: Harry Potter and the Discourse of Gender Author

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