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fan studies

[REQUEST] Anyone have tips about a fan studies-friendly graduate program?

Hi there! I was wondering if you could direct me to any information you might have about graduate programs in which one could formally pursue fan studies (especially a PhD track). I’ve looked around at length and found a wealth of related (though broader) programs situated in cultural studies or media theory, but I wanted to make sure I haven’t overlooked any institutions with an academic culture particularly interested in this field. If you have any answers or suggestions for me, I’d be very appreciative! Thanks.

ETA: Looking for programs in the US, if at all possible.

-Danielle Frankel

Tumblr crosspost: ift.tt/1rpqHZI

[REQUEST] Slashfic readers from pre-2008 needed!

Hello all! I’m requesting information on the (in)visibility of slash as a way of generating angst in fanfic pre-2008. Specifically, I want to know what causes or prevents the queering of canoncially straight characters from being used as the primary source of conflict in slashfic. I’m primarily investigating the Kingdom Hearts and Naruto fandoms right now, but information on any fandom based on a global media commodity (preferable originating in Japan, just for the sake of keeping my claims tenable) would be most welcome. If you were actively reading slash fiction in the early 2000s (or know someone who was) and would like to share you perceptions with me, I’d be most grateful!

-rabidbehemoth

Tumblr crosspost: ift.tt/1l8Y9Um

[LINK] April Membership Drive: Spotlight on Transformative Works and Cultures

The OTW blog shines a spotlight on the academic fan studies journal TWC. Excerpt:

What gets you excited about academic studies in fandom?

“Here’s what I’m excited about,” said Karen Hellekson in 2008: “an academic journal that welcomes, instead of rejects or overtly mocks, fan studies as a topic … that takes as a given the notion that fans provide something valuable to our culture that ought to be analyzed.”

That journal is Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC): run, peer-reviewed, edited, and supported by OTW members and fans like you.

TWC is a journal with contributions from fan studies scholars all over the world. Edited by Hellekson and Kristina Busse, TWC has produced 15 issues so far, featuring fascinating contributions in topics ranging fromfanvids to fan labor to Supernatural.

Here’s another reason to get excited: TWC is completely free to the public, and has been from the beginning. Academic journals are traditionally locked to people with university affiliations. Often you have to pay US$30 to $45 for access to a single article. But ours is an online-only Open Access Gold journal: free for the readers at the point of access. Plus, our Creative Commons copyright lets anyone reprint the essays for free. These are essential principles behind TWC, enabling its goal of connecting academics and fans through community and accessibility. That’s why the journal also has an open space for non-academic fans to chime in, through the Symposium section in every issue.

Read more

[META] Storify by Bertha Chin: tweets and pictures of the Fan Studies Network Symposium 2013

Storify by Bertha Chin: tweets and pictures of the Fan Studies Network Symposium 2013:

Tweets from the Fan Studies Network Symposium, hosted by the School of Political, Social and International Studies at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, on Saturday 30th November 2013. Featuring a keynote by Professor Matt Hills, and over 30 papers from international delegates.

Going on right now: Fan Studies Network 2013 Symposium

The Fan Studies Network Symposium is taking place in Norwich right now and being live-tweeted at #FSN2013. Check out the program:

09:30 – 10:20: KEYNOTE
Professor Matt Hills (Aberystwyth University) (Chairs: Lucy Bennett & Tom Phillips)
10:30 – 10:45: BREAK
10:45 – 12:00: PARALLEL PANELS
Panel A: Spaces and Performance (Chair: Tom Phillips)
Panel B: Celebrity (Chair: Sarah Ralph)
12:00 – 13:00: LUNCH
13:00 – 14:30: PARALLEL PANELS
Panel C: Gender (Chair: Bertha Chin)
Panel D: Classic Fandoms, New Narratives (Chair: Ruth Deller)
14:30 – 14:45: BREAK
14:45 – 16:00: SPEED GEEKING (Chair: Richard McCulloch)
16:00 – 16:15: BREAK
16:15 – 17:45: PARALLEL PANELS
Panel E: Transculture (Chair: Nele Noppe)
Panel F: Textualities (Chair: Bethan Jones)
17:45 – 18:00: CLOSE  - Lucy Bennett & Tom Phillips (Fan Studies Network)

More info and abstracts

[REQUEST] Academic works on uses of fanworks in education

Rebecca Tushnet is looking for academic works that talk about the uses of transformative works in education, for instance how various kinds of fanworks are used in classrooms, what skills and knowledge people learn from making/consuming fanworks, and so on. She’s especially interested in what the most well-known and authoritative sources on fanworks in education are, but any sources would be very welcome.

Suggestions? Thanks in advance!

Crosspost: fanhackers.tumblr.com/post/63041136528

[QUOTE] From Emily Regan Willis, Fannish discourse communities and the construction of gender in “The X-Files”

Much of the literature on fan fiction sees slash fiction as transformative because of its imposition of a queer framework on heteronormative texts. While I do not disagree that this is one way fan fiction can be transformative, it is a mistake to believe that slash is inherently more transformative than het or gen fic just because of its queering of canon.

Issue 14 of Transformative Works and Cultures is out!

Congratulations to the editors and writers! Links to all articles below. As usual, we’ll be posting some good quotes from these in the coming days, and you’re very welcome to submit your own.

Editorial

Spreadable fandom - TWC Editor

Theory

Metaphors we read by: People, process, and fan fiction - Juli J. Parrish

Sub*culture: Exploring the dynamics of a networked public - Simon Lindgren

Praxis

A Japanese media pilgrimage to a Tasmanian bakery - Craig Norris

Trans-cult-ural fandom: Desire, technology and the transformation of fan subjectivities in the Japanese female fandom of Hong Kong stars - Lori Hitchcock Morimoto

Fannish discourse communities and the construction of gender in “The X-Files” - Emily Regan Wills

Capital, dialogue, and community engagement: “My Little Pony—Friendship Is Magic” understood as an alternate reality game - Kevin Veale

Symposium

So bad it’s good: The “kuso” aesthetic in “Troll 2” - Whitney Phillips

Translation, interpretation, fan fiction: A continuum of meaning production - Shannon K. Farley

Fan/dom: People, practices, and networks - Katherine E. Morrissey

Fandom, public, commons - Mel Stanfill

Review

“Spreadable media: Creating value and meaning in a networked culture,” by Henry Jenkins, Sam Ford, and Joshua Green - Melissa A. Click

“Reclaiming fair use,” by Patricia Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi - Josh Johnson

“Genre, reception, and adaption in the ‘Twilight’ series,” edited by Anne Morey- Amanda Georgeanne Retartha

[QUOTE] From Patrick Galbraith and Thomas Lamarre, Otakuology: a Dialogue, p362

Scholars working on Japanese popular culture are only distinguished by the quantity of their publications and the novelty of their topics, which conditions a preference for niche subjects, which are analyzed by applying simplified superstructures. The result is a tendency toward exoticizing and essentializing. This tendency often reflects or even reproduces sensationalist journalism about Japan. This is very clear in the context of otaku. Definitions are set up on the basis of “otaku” in Japan, but often with little or no contact with these imagined others, and there is a critical lack of engagement with experts in Japan. Thus discussions of otaku repeat assumptions about unique, even bizarre habits and practices. And such assumptions go unquestioned, because Japanese uniqueness is the last remaining rationale for continued study of Japan itself. Japan appears as the quintessential “non-Western” example.

Patrick Galbraith and Thomas Lamarre, Otakuology: a Dialogue, p362

[REQUEST] Transformative Works and Cultures wants reviewers!

Transformative Works and Cultures, the OTW’s scholarly fan studies journal, is looking to expand its pool of volunteer reviewers. If you are interested in peer reviewing for TWC, please come over to the site, sign up, and create a profile as Reviewer: journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/user/register. You’ll be asked to fill out some information (such as uni affiliation if applicable), but, most importantly, there’s a field in the software where you input your interests and expertise. 

Once you’ve created a reviewer account, please e-mail us to tell us who you are, how you found us, and what you are specifically interested in. We use the journal’s database to find reviewers, but it is often easier when we have spoken to reviewers already and know a bit about them. Then we’ll contact you when a manuscript comes in that fits your expertise, and ask if you can review it.

If you have any questions about reviewing; if you want to know more about submitting essays, Symposium pieces, or book reviews; or if you there’s something specific you want to know about TWC, please feel free to contact us. For more info on what TWC does, check out the recent interview with the editors on the OTW blog.

The Journal Team

editor@transformativeworks.org

Crosspost: fanhackers.tumblr.com/post/56457445212

[LINK] CfP European Fandoms and Fan Studies Conference

European Fandom and Fan Studies: Localization and Translation
One Day Symposium, 9 November 2013
Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis and
University of Amsterdam Department of Media Studies
Call for Papers

The increasingly global circulation of media often threatens to obscure local contexts of reception, identification, interpretation, and translation.  This one day symposium at the University of Amsterdam seeks to explore the state of Fan Studies and the variety of Fandoms focused within the social and geographical boundaries of Europe, particularly with regard to processes of localization and translation, broadly interpreted.  Inter-disciplinary papers are invited to explore the nature of the field itself, how different fandoms function within Europe, and how European fan cultures re-interpret, re-imagine, translate, and localize foreign media texts or foreign fan practices.  Potential avenues of exploration may include how Fan Studies is represented, studied, and received within European universities, by funding bodies and publishers.  Papers on fandoms may explore how European (English and non-English speaking) fans of European and non-European objects of fan appreciation participate in fandom, the differences between internet fandoms and local/national/international fan practices, and objects of fan appreciation that originate within Europe.

Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

-Regional fan histories.
-Negotiation between international and local fan infrastructures.
-Local and national adaptation of fan cultures and identities.
-European fans’ impact on international public policy and industry practice.
-Fans’ relationships to national media industries and public policy.
-National and transnational economies within fandom and/or fan studies.
-Crossing national, cultural, and language boundaries in fandom and fan studies.
-Translation, both linguistic and cultural.
-Fans’ local and international languages and economies of desire.
-Framing local European fan objects and cultures within fan studies.
-Processes of translation, adaptation, and localization in European fans’ interaction with global media.

The symposium is associated with a special issue of the journal of Transformative Works and Cultures
tentatively slated for 2015, with full papers due January 1, 2014.

Event Details
The symposium will be held in the center of Amsterdam, easily accessible from Amsterdam international airport.

Submission Process
Please send a 300 word abstract along with a short (100 word) biographical note to Anne Kustritz (A.M.Kustritz@uva.nl<mailto:A.M.Kustritz@uva.nl>) or Emma England (E.E.England@uva.nl<mailto:E.E.England@uva.nl>) by 10 September.

[META] New issue of Transformative Works and Cultures on comics fandom

Fan studies journal Transformative Works and Cultures has published its thirteenth issue on comics fandom. Here are links to all the articles, on topics ranging from women in comics fandom to fans on 4chan to Captain America and various other Avengers-related things. Enjoy! As usual, we’ll be posting some good quotes from the articles too.

Editorial:

Matthew J. Costello: The super politics of comic book fandom

Theory:

Suzanne Scott: Fangirls in refrigerators: The politics of (in)visibility in comic book culture

Praxis:

Catherine Coker: Earth 616, Earth 1610, Earth 3490—Wait, what universe is this again? The creation and evolution of the Avengers and Captain America/Iron Man fandom

Lyndsay Brown: Pornographic space-time and the potential of fantasy in comics and fan art

Tim Bavlnka: /Co/operation and /co/mmunity in /co/mics: 4chan’s Hypercrisis

Symposium (short articles):

Forrest Phillips: Captain America and fans’ political activity

Babak Zarin: The advocacy of Steve Rogers (aka Captain America), as seen in hetrez’s “Average Avengers Local Chapter 7 of New York”

Amanda Odom: Professionalism: Hyperrealism and play

Rebecca Lucy Busker: Fandom and male privilege: Seven years later

Kayley Thomas: Revisioning the smiling villain: Imagetexts and intertextual expression in representations of the filmic Loki on Tumblr

Ora C. McWilliams: Who is afraid of a black Spider(-Man)?

Interviews:

Matthew J. Costello: Interview with comics artist Lee Weeks

Kate Roddy, Carlen Lavigne, Suzanne Scott: Toward a feminist superhero: An interview with Will Brooker, Sarah Zaidan, and Suze Shore

Reviews:

Daniel Stein: “Comic books and American cultural history: An anthology,” edited by Matthew Pustz

Drew Morton: “Of comics and men: A cultural history of American comic books,” by Jean-Paul Gabilliet

[LINK] The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

www.sf-encyclopedia.com/

The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction is currently in its third edition and encompasses over 4 million words about all things SF. It is published online in collaboration with Gollancz and the SF Gateway.

This new version follows thirty-five years of work (on and off), and is heavily expanded from previous editions. The first being under the General Editorship of Peter Nicholls in 1979; and the 1993 Second Edition, being edited by John Clute (the most prolific contributor to date) and Peter Nicholls. The third edition is based on the 1995 CD-Rom “printing” and it has David Langford as the primary technical editor as well as a contributor.

As a resource for fan studies, the encyclopedia is useful because it includes a whole section titled “Culture” including separate categories/tags for “Publication”, “Fan”, “Award”, and “International”. It is by no means comprehensive but it does offer information not always found elsewhere, especially regarding SF fanzines and Big Name Fans (of literature especially).

[LINK] New fan-themed issue of the journal Participations

The tenth issue of Participations, an online open access journal for audience studies, has a section full of new articles about fan culture. The section was put together by the Fan Studies Network, a network for fan studies researchers.

I haven’t had time to read any of the articles yet, but it sounds like there’s some very interesting stuff in  here about many fandoms and fan practices – from Doctor Who, Glee, and Star Wars to Tumblr, kink memes, fandom and politics, and dojinshi. Here’s a list of all the fan-themed articles in the issue (all links go to PDFs):

Bennett, Lucy & Tom Phillips: ‘An introduction: The Fan Studies Network – new connections, new research’

Booth, Paul & Peter Kelly: ‘The changing faces of Doctor Who fandom: New fans, new technologies, old practices?’

Busse, Kristina: ‘Geek hierarchies, boundary policing, and the gendering of the good fan’

Chin, Bertha & Lori Hitchcock Morimoto: ‘Towards a theory of transcultural fandom’

Ellison, Hannah: ‘Submissives, Nekos and Futanaris: a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the Glee Kink Meme’

Hills, Matt: ‘Fiske’s ‘textual productivity’ and digital fandom: Web 2.0 democratization versus fan distinction?’

Lamerichs, Nicolle: ‘The cultural dynamic of doujinshi and cosplay: Local anime fandom in Japan, USA and Europe’

Pett, Emma: ‘”Hey! Hey! I’ve seen this one, I’ve seen this one. It’s a classic!”: Nostalgia, repeat viewing and cult performance in Back to the Future‘

Proctor, William: ‘”Holy crap, more Star Wars! More Star Wars? What if they’re crap?”: Disney, Lucasfilm and Star Wars online fandom in the 21st century’

Sandvoss, Cornel: ‘Toward an understanding of political enthusiasm as media fandom: Blogging, fan productivity and affect in American politics’

Whiteman, Natasha, Joanne Metivier: ‘From post-object to “Zombie” fandoms: The “deaths” of online fan communities and what they say about us’

Bury, Rhiannon, Ruth Deller, Adam Greenwood & Bethan Jones: ‘From Usenet to Tumblr: The changing role of social media’

McCulloch, Richard, Virginia Crisp, Jon Hickman & Stephanie Jones: ‘Of proprietors and poachers: Fandom as negotiated brand ownership’

Freund, Kathrina & Dianna Fielding: ‘Research ethics in fan studies’

Jones, Bethan & Lucy Bennett: ‘Blurring boundaries, crossing divides: An interview with Will Brooker’

Delmar, Javier Lozano & Victor Hernández-Santaolalla & Marina Ramos: ‘Fandom generated content: An approach to the concept of ‘fanadvertising”

Sturm, Damion & Andrew McKinney: ‘Affective hyper-consumption and immaterial labors of love: Theorizing sport fandom in the age of new media’

 

[LINK] List of journals that publish academic research on fans

fanstudies.wordpress.com/fan-studies-journals/

If you’re looking for a place to read academic research on fans, or a place to publish your own research, check out this list of journals compiled by the Fan Studies Network. The list is handily divided into open access journals (journals that can be read for free online by anyone) and non-open access journals (journals that can generally be read only via a university library, or by paying for access).

The list is updated regularly. If you have any recommendations for journals that should be added here, for instance non-English language journals, mail Lucy Bennett at bennettlucyk@gmail.com.

[META] New TWC issue on boys’ love fandom is live

Transformative Works and Cultures has published its twelfth issue, entirely devoted to boys’ love fandom around the globe (full press release). There are some excellent articles on Hetalia, the politics of BL in Germany, character bots on Twitter, BL in China, dojinshi, the origins of the word fujoshi, criticism from Japanese LGBT activists on BL, and more. We’ll be posting some short bits of analysis and good quotes from the articles in the upcoming weeks. Enjoy!

 

Transnational boys’ love fan studies, by Kazumi Nagaike and Katsuhiko Suganuma

Doing Occidentalism in contemporary Japan: Nation anthropomorphism and sexualized parody in Axis Powers Hetalia, by Toshio Miyake

Rotten use patterns: What entertainment theories can do for the study of boys’ love, by Björn-Ole Kamm

Transplanted boys’ love conventions and anti-“shota” polemics in a German manga: Fahr Sindram’s “Losing Neverland”, by Paul M. Malone

Simulation and database society in Japanese role-playing game fandoms: Reading boys’ love dōjinshi online, by Lucy Hannah Glasspool

Reflection on Chinese boys’ love fans: An insider’s view, by Erika Junhui Yi

Where program and fantasy meet: Female fans conversing with character bots in Japan, by Keiko Nishimura

The possibilities of research on fujoshi in Japan, by Midori Suzuki

On the response (or lack thereof) of Japanese fans to criticism that yaoi is antigay discrimination, by Akiko Hori

Book review by Samantha Anne Close of “Mechademia Vol. 6: User Enhanced,” edited by Frenchy Lunning

Book review by Emerald King of “Writing the love of boys: Origins of ‘bishōnen’ culture in modernist Japanese literature,” by Jeffrey Angles