The Fan Studies Network

Shipping and Fandoms

Literature revolves around relationships. These may include not only relationships between authors and their readers, but also ones among readers themselves; and they may also include not only relationships between fictional characters within a work, but also potential relationships between characters that are not explicitly delineated within the text itself.

We invite chapter proposals for a volume on the phenomenon of “shipping”—whereby readers create fan fiction or other fan-generated material that brings fictional characters together into imagined relationships (sexual, amorous, or otherwise).

The volume will consist of two parts, with the chapters in Part I being issue-driven (e.g., shipping and desire, shipping and animus, shipping and canons, shipping and perversity), and the chapters in Part II focusing on individual case studies (featuring examples from a variety of different genres, languages/cultures, and historical periods). Innovative and experimental approaches are encouraged.

Although individual chapters will each have a lead author (or authors), the volume as a whole will be collaboratively authored—both to ensure a uniform tone, but also in acknowledgement of the fundamentally dialogic nature of fan fiction itself. That is to say, the editorial team expects to work closely with each contributor on issues of structure, style, and content.

Please e-mail 300-word chapter proposals, together with your full contact information and a short biographical statement, to Carlos, Clare, and Eileen at shippingvolume@gmail.com by April 15, 2016. The editors will review proposals by the end of April. If the proposal is accepted for inclusion in the volume, a draft of the complete chapter should be completed and submitted to the editors by August 1, 2016. Chapters should around 6,000 words in length, must be original work, and not be under review or accepted for publication elsewhere.

Editorial Team:
Clare Woods, Associate Professor of Classical Studies, Duke University
Carlos Rojas, Associate Professor of Chinese Cultural Studies, Duke University
Eileen Chow, Visiting Associate Professor of Chinese and Japanese Cultural Studies, Duke University

This entry was posted on March 12, 2016 at 11:29 am and is filed under CFP, Publications. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.