OH YEAH!!!
I've never actually written an abstract before in my life, and I'm not entirely certain if I even did it correctly or attached it correctly or provided the correct information in my email and blah blah blah, not to mention that the deadline for the abstract is, indeed, April 2 (one hour to spare - look at me go!), so I have very little hope that anything will come of this, but I feel quite proud of the attempt anyway! The majority of my intended article comes from an already partially written discussion on the concepts of identity and the rampant cultural appropriation of the Holmes character throughout the large number of adaptations featuring our great detective. I still have to add some information on, like my very recent analysis of the BBC Sherlock adaptation, but maybe I'll write it anyway just for fun and to feel like I possibly still have a brain left dormant in my head somewhere.
In case anyone was curious, here's the abstract that Virginia Woolf helped me form. Thanks, Woolf!
Humanizing Holmes: Appropriation of an Iconby Mary O'Reilly
"Humanizing Holmes: Appropriation of an Icon" is an essay that describes the evolution of the Holmes that once was into the Holmes that he has become via the quest of a collective readership to maintain a cultural identification with the great detective. From his beginnings as a disconnected, mechanical, ingenious Victorian gentleman existing firmly above the level of his peers (and his readers), Sherlock Holmes has been appropriated by a public desperate to find cultural resonance and personal identification within the superhuman abilities he possesses. Though we were intended to first find our foothold through the eyes of Doctor Watson, Holmes is the character that we revere and aspire to become. Through the numerous adaptations of both Holmes and Watson, and the changes and alterations that have been undertaken upon their characters, these two cultural icons have become not only everything that we hope to be, but ultimately have developed through adaptation into figures in which we can legitimately find ourselves. This essay examines particularly the adaptations presented through William Gillette, Basil Rathbone, Jeremy Brett, Robert Downey Jr., and Benedict Cumberbatch.
*bites nails even though she knows there's no chance*
