Profiles of the Class of 2016 C o m m e n c e m e n t 2 0 1 6 For CAS’s Alexandra Braverman, Language Is More Than Elementary “Fan fiction, which is a form of writing that builds on characters and settings from a source text, is one of the most popular ways...
More
Profiles of the Class of 2016 C o m m e n c e m e n t 2 0 1 6 For CAS’s Alexandra Braverman, Language Is More Than Elementary “Fan fiction, which is a form of writing that builds on characters and settings from a source text, is one of the most popular ways for fans to engage with the stories they love,” observes Alexandra Braverman, who graduates today from the College of Arts and Science. For her English thesis project, Braverman— a double major in history and English—stud- ied the way that Sherlock Holmes fan fiction establishes its own generic conventions and satisfies readers’ desires. As her history thesis project, Braverman explored female involvement in Sherlock Holmes fan culture and how this exemplified shifting gender roles in 20th-century America. “Holmes is the most adapted character of all time,” Braverman notes. “He became a way for certain subcultures to express themselves outside of mainstream popular culture. By studying fan fiction, we can see how a story can be lift
Less
