Dissertation

Jade from the other mountain: Chinese fan fiction based on English source texts

On Friday 22 November 2024 Ye Jiang successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Author: Jiang, Y.
Date: 22 November 2024
Links: Leiden Repository

How does Chinese fan fiction re-create foreign (in this case, Anglophone) source texts, and how does such re-creation contribute to fans’ subjectivity construction? This thesis underlines fan fiction’s nature as (literary) text, with the imagination at work through language that is used within specific socio-cultural contexts. I show that Chinese fan fiction provides an important channel for self-articulation and for fans to complicate, parody, negotiate, and challenge socio-cultural discourses, demonstrating their agency and contributing to the construction of their subjectivity.My four core chapters examine four types of identification. They are informed by textual elements including character development and plot, language, a key trope, and narrative technique. By delving into textual nuances and their socio-cultural context, I reveal a productive tension between the “restoration” of Anglophone source elements and an ineluctable “acclimatization” in the Chinese context, which enables fans to creatively navigate both the foreign source texts and local socio-cultural discourses. In conclusion, this thesis captures fascinating examples of structures of feeling from a transcultural perspective, and uncovers the complexity of texts that form a significant part of the Chinese popular culture landscape today.

Supervisor: Prof.dr. M. van Crevel
Co-supervisor: Prof.dr. I.B. Smits