More Background: Archontic Literature and a Little Irony

In Chapter 1 of the anthology Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet contributor Abigail Derecho introduces readers to the concept of archontic literature, which she says is "a term borrowed from Jacques Derrida's definition of archives as ever expanding and never completely closed". Derecho states that "an archontic text allows, or even invites, writers to enter it, select certain items they find useful, make new artifacts using those found artifacts, and deposit the newly made work back into the source text's archive."

Per Derecho, since at least the 17th century, archontic literature has been a favored genre of writers belonging to "cultures of the subordinate", which includes women. She further posits that "fan fiction, too, is the literature of the subordinate, because most fanfic authors are women responding to media products that, for the most part, are characterized by an underrepresentation of women". Further tying the two labels together, she states that "historically, writing archontic literature has been a risky undertaking for women, and this is as true of contemporary fanfic authors today as it was for the first published women authors. Today, women who write fan fiction write under threat of legal prosecution".

Throughout my current research, I've discovered that the majority of fan fiction, especially the slash versions, are written by women. Are they consciously trying to properly represent their gender? At this point, I'm still far from an expert on this subject and it would take much longer than the four week span of this course to completely explore the psychoanalysis surrounding this topic. However, Kustritz (2003)also asserts that slash fiction communities "are made up almost exclusively of overeducated but underemployed heterosexual women who are oppressed not only by patriarchy but by their employment status".

I promised irony, so here it is. The following statement is posted on Derecho's blog regarding a reference she had previously made to the essay I just discussed: "I've just been notified that due to the fact that the publisher owns the copyright, I have to remove the text of the essay from this LJ".