Camilla Wallin Lämsä: "'It's About the Yearning': Desire and Masculinity in the Jane Austen Fandom"

Research presentation by Camilla Wallin Lämsä, Linköping University.

Abstract:

To many readers across the world, Mr. Darcy from Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice (1813) is the epitome of a heterosexual romance hero: tall, dark, and handsome, not to mention inordinately rich. But in the online fan community there is a much greater variation in how this character is interpreted and retold. Through the transformative fan practices of headcanons and fanfiction, the prideful Mr. Darcy may instead become a socially awkward lesbian lingering in the back of the ballroom, too shy to dance; or he may be twisted into an evil doppergänger of himself – a Dark Darcy, embodying all the masculine horror and sexual violence of the Gothic. Camilla Wallin Lämsä will present her ongoing research project about the constructions of masculine desire in the contemporary Jane Austen fandom on Tumblr and AO3.

NB: Both the presentation and the discussion will be held in Swedish.