English Language and Literature Commons^™

Fanfiction As: Searching For Significance In The Academic Realm, Megan Friess

English (MA) Theses

What is literature? What is art? And, just as importantly, what isn’t? What criteria are you using to make this judgment call? As natural as we feel our views to be, they are not; they are culturally and socioeconomically based. How and when we live affects what we see as literature or art and what we deem not to be. While there was originally a large chasm in Western cultures between what was considered to be “proper” art and literature and what was considered lowbrow and for the uncultured masses, this divide has diminished over time. Instead of everyday people …