Principe, Concetta
Ecology of Publishing in Canada, The Mighty D.I.Y. Krill: What Role do Chapbooks Play in Canadian Publishing and Canadian Culture?
The purpose of this thesis is to acknowledge the contributions chapbooks have made to the world of Canadian publishing and to Canadian culture. It is important to place chapbooks in Canada's publishing history as there has not been a lot of writing on chapbooks or even on Canadian publishing. What sources there are usually focus on larger, traditional presses, often based in Ontario (Lorimer); if chapbooks are mentioned at all, they are usually mentioned only in passing (MacSkimming). On rare occasions when texts focus on micropresses or small presses, they are usually out of print and not easy to access (Anstee). Due to this short list of accessible resources on chapbooks, this project was created to help record and capture the impact chapbooks have on Canadian publishing and culture using interviews.
Author Keywords: Canadian Culture, Canadian Publishing, Chapbook, Interviews, Mirocpress, Small press
Ripe for the Taking: Disrupting Narratives of a Queer Utopia in the Alpha/Beta/Omega Fanfiction Gift Economy
This thesis considers the fanfiction genres of slash-fiction, and Alpha/Beta/Omega fiction through an analysis of fandom's embedded gift economy structures. Previous research on fanfiction and fandom structures have often characterized the gift economy nature of these spaces as countercultural and as separate from the frequent exploitation inherent in economic-based systems. There has been less attention paid to considering the potential disruptions that can come with unregulated and large-scale sharing. This thesis undertakes a critical discourse analysis of Alpha/Beta/Omega slash-fiction with a focus on commodity fetishism to reveal how the subgenre's relationship with the fanfiction gift economy complicates and at times counters the conception of these spaces as a 'queer utopia.' The purpose of this research is to dismantle traditional archetypes within Alpha/Beta/Omega fanfiction by exploring how male Omegan characters become fetishized cultural commodity objects internally through interactions with Alpha characters and externally through the desires of fanfiction readers and writers.
Author Keywords: Alpha/Beta/Omega, Commodity Fetishism, Fanfiction, Gift Economy, Queer Theory, Slash-fiction