Course details
Tutors
Aims
This course aims to:
- examine the growth and history of fanfiction with close reference to Austen
- consider what a variety of recent, commercially published variations and vagaries on Pride and Prejudice fanfictions do, and how they do it
- assess possible reasons for the extraordinary mass popularity of such variations and vagaries
Course content
There is an enormous quantity of Jane Austen Fanfic (JAFF), but to date very little scholarship or criticism, so the sessions will be openly exploratory, wondering how each of us responds, as a reader, to what these authors are doing to and with canon. The set fanfic will be the core, but other work by the same author, or similar strategies used by other Austen fanfic authors, are all fair game; as are any freely posted fics.
Laraba Kendig is a prolific author of JAFF, always entertaining and often thought-provoking. To start us off, Peacocks of Pemberley is one of her more unusual variations, with a shrewd point of departure and striking treatment of Georgiana Darcy. Melanie Rachel, also a prolific JAFF author, provides in An Unexpected Inheritance a more radical vagary, altering pre-novel character arcs, and includes a cleverly misdirected mystery. Gruinard is a more recent JAFF writer who has persistently done the unexpected, and in The Stench of Trade offers a tale with a strong social and political agenda, that comes with a warning for a character death. Lucy Marin, one of the strongest JAFF authors, ends the course with Being Mrs Darcy, which displaces the enabling character-arcs of canon to follow rather than enable the marriage of Elizabeth and Darcy.
What to expect on this course
In the first session I will begin with a mini-lecture using PowerPoint, laying out some history and defining some terms before opening up to general discussion. Thereafter I will begin each session with an account of why I chose that work, with what I think it shows or suggests, and the session will be open throughout for all to participate.
Course sessions
- Fanfiction and the Popularity of Jane Austen. Fanfiction is not new, but it has been supercharged by the internet, and Austen has been a major beneficiary
- Laraba Kendig, Peacocks of Pemberley. What might happen if Darcy never came to Netherfield and Bingley and Jane did marry?
- Melanie Rachel, An Unexpected Inheritance – and an unexpected backstory, with a very different pattern of primogeniture.
- Gruinard, The Stench of Trade. JAFF can turn to real historical issues as well as the insulated world of romance, and Gruinard here steers Elizabeth into a much closer connection with a different prejudice; warning for character death.
- Lucy Marin, Being Mrs Darcy, intervenes before canon starts, putting Elizabeth in Ramsgate to stop a predatory elopement at a terrible cost for herself.
Learning outcomes
As a result of the course, you will gain a greater understanding of the subject and you should be able to:
- speak more authoritatively about what (Jane Austen) fanfic is and isn’t
- consider and map with confidence the sheer range of variations and vagaries
- assess the skill and agenda any given fic author exhibits.
Required reading
All the set texts are available in multiple digital formats and in some cases paper editions. The Kindle editions are listed below.
Gruinard, The Stench of Trade (2024) ASIN B0DM9PRNYH
Kendig, Laraba, Peacocks of Pemberley (2022) ASIN B0BJ1WJMTB
Marin, Lucy, Being Mrs Darcy (2020) ASIN B085F4KY8M
Rachel, Melanie, An Unexpected Inheritance (2022) B09XN2DNBG