Katniss in Fallujah: War Stories, Post-War, and Post-Sovereign Peace in Fan Fiction

Abstract

Fan writings show how popular culture, politics, international relations, and young people’s lives and aspirations are interwoven, and there are explicit references to historical and contemporary wars, including to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and some are written by former combatants. Through the act of writing about armed conflict and its aftermath, fan writers are imaginatively travelling across national borders and erasing the boundaries between the real and not real. They are engaging new political possibilities for alliances and breaking taboos about reconciliation. The first of two chapters about fan fiction, this chapter explores fan fiction as a space within which war play can occur in a way that, rather than reinforcing militarism and xenophobia, makes ‘peace’ pleasurable instead.