Fan fiction tends to foreground the communal: it depends on the interaction between readers and writers, and it often creates its own infrastructures, all of which throw into relief fan fiction’s social features. I’d even go so far as to
On Female Fandom & Gift Culture…
In female fandom’s gift culture, gifts correlate to aspects of the self, such as time or talent. This sort of exchange turns one role of woman and gift on its head: the woman is still the gift, but now she
Let’s Talk Fandom & Politics
With the state of the world being what it currently is, what better time to talk fandom and politics? The newest special issue of Transformative Works and Cultures does just that: The essays in this issue contribute not only to
On fans and Twitter:
[…] [T]he entire spectrum of fandom uses Twitter as an online space to bridge the problematic speciations of resistant versus complicit, as well as the increasingly inapplicable, even meaningless ‘fan/creator’ separation. Such spaces foster ample material all along that spectrum
AO3 and its design values
Since its launch in 2008, Archive of Our Own (AO3) has grown to amass nearly 750,000 users and over 2 million individual fan fiction works.2 Its code is open source, and the archive has been designed, coded, and maintained nearly
On fan culture and activism…
Fan culture offers a history of appropriation and critical engagement with pop culture that could inform broader activist strategies toward increased visibility and collective identity formation. Brough, Melissa M., and Sangita Shresthova. 2011. ‘Fandom Meets Activism: Rethinking Civic and Political
On the academic study of fan communities…
While academics should have the freedom to engage critically with cultural texts, including online fan texts, I would also point out that, unlike authors of traditionally published works (that is, works published through academic or commercial presses), fan writers are
On fanfiction’s beginnings…
“It may not be coincidental that the spectre of authorial intention, cast out with the rise of poststructuralism and postmodernism, coincides with fanfiction’s beginnings.” Hellekson, Karen, and Kristina Busse, eds. 2014. The Fan Fiction Studies Reader. Iowa City: University of
A Note on the Internet
“The Internet is a stage that allows all users to perform to other users, through text posts or images or videos or songs, through sharing playlists or liking others’ posts or publishing remixes or founding digital archives.” De Kosnik, Abigail.
Queerbaiting: Context, Context, Context!
“Queerbaiting is a historical situated term, assuming that we live in a time and place where queer representation is possible yet constantly denied. The same people that accuse producers of TV shows from the 21st century of queerbaiting, defend TV