| The objective of "The Educational Capacity of an Amateurish Field: The Applicability of Fan Fiction Studies within the English Discipline" is to investigate the amateur writing genre known as fan fiction with the goal of demonstrating its inherent academic qualities and viable potential for incorporation into the English discipline as a new subfield. The data for this thesis was gathered from numerous scholarly journal articles and books regarding such topics as the complex nature of fan fiction as well as the thoughts of academic and professional spheres regarding the genre. Primary research was also completed on student experiences of the educational benefits of fan fiction via an informal, online interview. The findings of this thesis indicate that despite its current amateur status, fan fiction actually possesses a highly-organized and pseudo-academic structure, progressive perspectives on the reading experience and the relationship between readers and writers, and an inherent ethicality and proven legality, all of which qualify it well for academic adoption. Furthermore, fan fiction has already proven to have beneficial scholarly applications within the English classroom, thus demonstrating all the more the genre's worthiness as a potential new subfield within the English discipline. |
