Slash: It's like a plauge. A Gay Plague.
So, I'm reading today's NYT (yes, I read the Times every day because I'm ex-J-school and bougie like that), when I run across an interesting review of the romcom (I don't know why, but I love that hilariously postmodern mashup) Bride Wars--a review which basically ends saying, "Dammit, I want my canonical femslash."

And this gets to the heart of something that has been bothering me for awhile, since I found out it happens: people who seem to have arbitrarily declared that fanfic is not a form of critical analysis, and then may furthermore be bothered by anyone who argues differently.

The whole point of fanfic is to interrogate a fictional world and make an argument about some aspect of it, most often focusing on the romantic. These arguments are supported by parts of the text which can be interpreted thought the lenses of common queer culture cues, Freudian metaphors, and archetypal depictions of queerness along with other examples cobbled from numerous different disciplines.

This doesn't mean, of course, that such arguments are exactly what one would call academically rigorous, but they don't have to be. Academic rigor is not a requirement of enjoyment, though it will be if one decides to, say, publish a peer-reviewed paper on their pet pairing. But, ultimately, one only needs to mention vociferous shipping wars as evidence of the argumentative nature of fannish romantic analysis. (Gundam Wing, I'm looking at you!)

Now, setting aside (LJ) fandom's focus on the romantic variation of critical analysis, let's consider some published and to-be-published works: What is the Wicked series? Fanfic. What is SMeyer doing with Midnight Sun and its inevitable sequels? Fanfic (of her own work, no less). What is Marvel vs. DC? The ultimate superhero fan's fanfic.

Whenever someone engages with a text in some shape or form (unless they're using it as, say, wallpaper, which doesn't actually count), they are partaking in analysis. They are questioning something about a text, and then making an argument in support of their reading, even if it's just that adamantium can totally outlast Superman's heat vision.

Of course, this doesn't mean suddenly fanfic is A Duty or An Academic Exercise Which Requires the Abuse of Emphasis Capitals. None of this changes anyone's hot pegging porn. It is still someone getting anally pentrated, with extra hotness. But fannish interpretations have always been analytical and questioning in nature, analysis which is also critical because it requires intelligent judgment and a defense if questioned; fanfic is thus the defense of said argument.

And we all know, as brown_betty so well pointed out, academics have "survived years of schooling in the art of bloody battle, and have been chosen for their ability to stake out a position and defend it to the death."

Clearly, fandom is just their training ground.