”…I posit that the unexamined yet assumed whiteness of media fan spaces has allowed for successive theorizations about their workings to have now solidified into accepted histories. This positioning now forces any consideration of racial dynamics within those spaces to
Imagination Gaps: Crowdsourcing and Decolonizing Fandom
Previously, I talked about the linguistic and racialized gaps in fantasy worlds, specifically with respect to the construction of magic and magic systems. I’ve been pondering a lot about that still: how do we emancipate magic? Do we racebend, as
Imagination Gaps: Magic and Language in SFF
I’ve been thinking a lot about magic this week. As an SFF writer (both in fandom and outside of it), almost all of my work involves building fantastical worlds and magical systems that are both realistic and believable. Systems in
Dalong and Tiantian: who is less real?
Thank you for all the suggestions regarding reader insert narratives! I am going through them and will post about my readings later. Two weeks ago, the new Transformative Works and Culture issue, Fandom Histories, came out. Among the many interesting
New survey alert!
This is the summer of surveys! This one is from Emily Faulkner, an MSc student at Robert Gordon University. Emily is studying information-seeking behaviours of fanfiction communities and their applicability to libraries for their grad dissertation! The survey is open to adults who
Call for Survey Participants
Interested in online sociolinguistics in fandom? Then have we got the survey for you! We were contacted by a researcher at Bellevue College, who asked about boosting their study, so we’re passing this along. The study is about sociolinguistics in
Fan Studies x Digital Humanities: Part 1
So, a little bit of a different post today! Fanhackers will always be about making Fan Studies scholarship more accessible, but Fan Studies encompasses a whole lot of other methodologies and disciplines. This post will be the first of a
Queer Representations: Pasts, Presents and Futures Conference
Hi everyone! This post is little bit of a departure from our regular programming, but we figured why not? One of the very few perks of the COVID-19 pandemic has been how accessible conferences are. From May 11-14, the University
A comparison of trends in the same fandom, but on different platforms
Separate fandoms and even separate platforms will have their own trends when it comes to the type of content they create. The above quote compares fanfiction from the same fandom but on different platforms. A survey of the ‘Sherlock/John’ tag
Fanfiction’s doppelgänger (from the market universe)
Porn parodies occupy an interesting space in the United States regarding copyright. While fandom is overtly familiar with the careful way fanfilms are made, porn parodies face a different treatment. However, Brain’s films – including a Star Wars parody that