Legitimate and Illegitimate Reading

Abstract

The legitimacy of speculative fiction - a broad fiction category that includes science fiction and fantasy - varies according to the choice of texts. This article analyses what is at stake when reading literary genres with ambiguous legitimacy, by describing how this supposed illegitimate reading can be transformed into a social and cultural resource. After discussing the prejudices that science fiction and fantasy readers face, it shows how the genre’s internal legitimacy hierarchy allows for strategies of distinction amongst, not only individuals with a strong cultural capital, but others as well, through their choice of books and adopted reading methods.