We are delighted to begin offering you weekly posts in a blog affiliated with the journal Transformative Works and Cultures, specifically its Symposium section.
Our goal for this blog is to provide a lively forum for discussion of fan works and fan cultures, one which draws on the modes and traditions of both fannish meta and academic analysis. Above all, we want to offer a bridge between Transformative Works and Cultures and fannish discussions, by covering both fannish meta topics, and fannish perspectives on fan and media studies. Our hope is that the blog spurs greater interest in and engagement with TWC among fandom, and extends the reach of TWC by linking to and discussing ideas and themes presented in the journal.
Your regular bloggers are:
— cryptoxin, who is a long-time fan of science fiction TV, comic books, professional wrestling, and anime. He came into online media fandom a few years ago, and his fannish interests include meta and vidding. He maintains personal journals on Dreamwidth and LiveJournal.
— Dana Sterling, who was abruptly catapulted into online fandom with the movies of “The Lord of the Rings.” She has loved the books since childhood, and never looked back after plunging into the fan community for the movies. Since then, she’s branched out into several other fandoms while retaining her love of all things Middle-earth. She was trained as a journalist, and after 20 years in newspapers, television, radio and magazines, now teaches a variety of communications classes at Oklahoma State University in Okmulgee, Oklahoma.
The two of us intend to gear our posts to a general fannish audience interested in meta discussions and fan studies. The style and tone of the blog will be more informal than TWC articles, and we assume very little prior knowledge of specialized terminology. We will define and cite whenever necessary. We’ll follow the media fandom we know from Livejournal and Dreamwidth, but we anticipate addressing fan topics mentioned in other blogs and mainstream media, as well as the scholarly blogosphere where it intersects with fan studies.
So what can readers expect in the months to come? Weekly posts which will include:
— Reviews and reflections on articles in TWC, including its Symposium section.
— Discussion of trends and developments in fan cultures and fan works, riffing off of the types of posts that are highlighted by the Metafandom community on LiveJournal and Dreamwidth. We always ask permission before citing a fannish journal, and we’ll only cite public posts.
— Critical discussion of external perspectives on fans and fan cultures, including those of journalists and academics.
— Brief interviews with acafen, and a monthly guest blogger.
— Reviews of books or journal articles relevant to fan cultures.
We will moderate and respond to comments, and hope we get a lot of them!
In short, we want to make this blog a bridge between the TWC journal and fandom, by producing a regular stream of content on meta and acafannish topics, content that will be available in a timely fashion, in between the semiannual journal issues.
Plus, we want to have a lot of fun with our friends. 🙂