Destination: Toast!: Conversations about fandom: on non-canonical ships and judging fans.
51pegasi-b and I had an interesting email thread about societal judgement of different kinds of fans, and also canonical vs. non-canonical ships. I wanted to post excerpts and expand a little.
51:
I think [fandom is] something only some people choose to be “out" about. I feel as…This is a long, interesting discussion; I’m truncating just because destinationtoast had asked about acafandom resources, and I wanted to share a few of my fandom studies favorites:
Confessions of an Aca-Fan – this is Henry Jenkins’s blog, and Jenkins is basically the father of fan studies. Check out also his seminal book (a newly revised version), Textual Poachers, to see where it all began. More recently, he’s co-edited Spreadable Media, which I am clearly going to have to read myself.
Founded by Kristina Busse and Karen Hellekson, the bi-annual journal Transformative Works and Cultures is the academic arm of the Organization for Transformative Works, which also houses our own AO3. There is a LOT of really excellent writing on fandom here, covering a range of topics, and it’s dedicated to its Open Access policy. They put out a special topics issue (most recently, comic book fandom) and a general issue every year.
Another excellent journal is Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies, headed by Sue Turnbull and Martin Barker. While this journal is more broadly focused on audience studies (which can include fandom studies, but also encompasses other aspects of filmgoing/TV viewing). Also Open Access!
A really exciting, newer blog is Suzanne Scott’s Revenge of the Fans – I’m still getting up to speed on her work, but the blog is accessible and really interesting.
Sadly, scholar Matt Hills doesn’t keep an academic blog, but his work continues to have a strong influence within the field. Online, he’s most active on the Doctor Who News website, where he writes reviews of newly-aired episodes (if you read anything of his, you’ll quickly figure out the extent of his Love of DW). He also has an essay that I really liked in the book Sherlock and Transmedia Fandom, edited by Kristina Busse and Louisa Ellen Stein (who blogs at transmedia | new media, tv, fandom).
A more recent book that’s been generating a lot of buzz in the fandom studies community is Lynn Zubernis and Katherine Larsen’s Fandom at the Crossroads, which looks at fandom (and, in particular, fan pleasure) through the lens of their own Supernatural fandom. They have an active blog at Fangasm!, and I think another book in the works.
Finally, the University of Iowa Press is currently putting together a series of fan studies-related books – something to keep an eye out for, as some terrific scholar-fans are said to be contributing.
These are just some resources off the top of my head – happy reading! 🙂
ETA: I forgot to pimp my own blog. I contribute at On/Off Screen which, while not solely focused on fandom studies, has a strong fan studies component. Regular contributors are Inger-Lise Kalviknes Bore, Rebecca Williams, Bertha Chin, and me. We’re still pretty young and so it’s not an extensive blog, but the posts are – IMHO – great. We also occasionally feature guest posts. 🙂
ETA2: ALSO, the Fan Studies Network has a nice list of fan studies journals that’s more comprehensive than what I have up above.