UC Davis

“Fannish Fiction: Queer Historical Narratives as Real Person Fan Fiction” argues that fan fiction–specifically the subgenre of “Real Person Fiction”–is a productive lens through which to read professional, non-fan-authored works of historical fiction about real-historical people. I call these non-fan-authored texts–which include novels, television series, and films–“fannish fiction” both to align them with, and distinguish them from, self-published fan texts. I also use the term “real-historical person fiction” as a way of linking these texts to the (largely contemporary) subgenre of “real person fiction” while still clearly situating these fannish texts within the context of historical narrative. This dissertation includes three chapters, each identifying a set of fan fictional tropes, processes, or narrative devices within works of fannish fiction, ultimately arguing that inappropriate, “fannish” modes of engagement–such as excessive attachment, hyper-identification, and erotic desire–are not exclusive to fan fiction or fandom settings, but are in fact inherent to the genre of historical narrative and the urge, in Western culture, to tell new stories about historical subjects. Through this project, I aim to show that fan fiction offers writers a useful model for queer historical storytelling as well as offering readers a model for deep historical engagement and apprehension. Rather than using traditional literary critical lenses to read historical novels, I bring together literary studies, fan fiction studies, and queer studies to read both written and visual historical media; this interdisciplinary approach allows me to grapple with the complex layering of historical periods, disparate forms of queerness, and intimacies across time in a wide array of historical narratives about real people. I use fan fiction and its re-imaginings of and interventions into its source material to illustrate the similarly porous and unstable boundaries between historical fiction and History proper–ultimately arguing that historical fiction is a source of historical knowledge, an intervention into historical omissions and errors, and a vehicle for the reclamation of queer historical figures.