The Fan Studies Network

​CALL FOR CHAPTERS:

Star Wars and the History of Transmedia Storytelling
Edited by Sean A. Guynes and Dan Hassler-Forest

We seek chapter proposals for a volume titled Star Wars and the History of Transmedia Storytelling, which aims to provide an account of the history of the franchise, its transmedia storytelling and world-building strategies, and the consumer practices that have engaged with, contributed to, and sometimes also challenged the development of the Star Wars franchise. We aim to have the collection in print by 2017, the year that marks the 40th anniversary of the first Star Wars film’s release. In those forty years, its narrative, its characters, and its fictional universe have gone far beyond the original film and have spread rapidly across multiple media—including television, books, games, comics, toys, fashion, and theme parks—to become the most lucrative franchise in the current media landscape, recently valued by Forbes at roughly $10 billion (Damodaran 2016).

A key goal of this project is to highlight the role and influence of Star Wars in pushing the boundaries of transmedia storytelling by making world-building a cornerstone of media franchises since the late 1970s. The chapters in this collection will ultimately demonstrate that Star Wars laid the foundations for the forms of convergence culture that rule the media industries today. As a commercial entertainment property and meaningful platform for audience participation, Star Wars created lifelong fans (and consumers) by continuing to develop characters and plots beyond the original text and by spreading that storyworld across as many media platforms as possible.

While there is much to be said about recent installments in the franchise, we discourage submissions that focusexclusively on Star Wars texts produced since the sale to Disney in 2012. Priority will be given to those submissions that demonstrate an ability to engage with the breadth of Star Wars media and fan activity, including (but not limited to) digital and analog games, novels, comics, televisions shows, tie-in merchandise, fanfic, and Star Wars events, places, and gatherings (conventions, exhibitions, shows, theme parks, performances, etc.); or that bring new approaches from transmedia and franchise studies to old topics. Chapters solicited from invited authors, for example, already propose a broad range of topics, including transmedia worldbuilding in comics and novels surrounding the original trilogy; the limits and criteria that define the limits of “A Star Wars Story”; transmedia erasure and the Holiday Special; and theStar Wars collectible card game.

Submissions might consider, but are certainly not restricted to, some of the following topics:

• Children’s media, kidification, and Star Wars
• Star Wars and/on television
• Star Wars video games
• Transmedia “metaseries,” e.g. Dark Empire
• Star Wars comics and graphic novels
• (Un)Adaptation and Dark Horse’s The Star Wars (2013-2014)
• Licensing, intellectual property, and canon
• Star Wars “Legends” imprint of novels and comics
• Children’s literature, YA literature, andStar Wars novels
• Star Wars and fandom, cosplay, fanfic, consumption practices, collecting
• Generational shifts in Star Wars fandom and creators as consumers
• Gender, race, and sexuality in Star Wars(especially where readings of lesser known characters, novels, comics are forwarded)
• Genre flexibility across Star Wars media
• Star Wars action figures and world-building through play
• Star Wars (tabletop) role-playing games
• Star Wars merchandising, franchising, and branding
• Mash-up/remix culture and Star Wars
• Music in and across Star Wars media

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact the editors about the suitability of your topic for the collection.

Submissions should include a provisional title, a 200-word abstract, and a 100-word biographical note. Abstract submissions are due by October 1, 2016.

Please send submissions simultaneously to both editors, Sean A. Guynes (guynesse@msu.edu) and Dan Hassler-Forest (d.a.hassler-forest@uu.nl), with the subject line “SURNAME Star Wars Transmedia Book.”

Drafts will be due February 5, 2017, with a quick turnaround for editing and revisions so as to publish by Autumn 2017 before the 40th anniversary year ends.

LOCATING IMAGINATION: POPULAR CULTURE, TOURISM, AND BELONGING

APRIL 5-7 2017

ERASMUS UNIVERSITY ROTTERDAM 

Keynote Speakers:

David Morley

David Crouch

Marie-Laure Ryan

When the small Dutch seaside village of Urk was announced as a filming location for superstar director Christopher Nolan’s historical drama
Dunkirk, featuring One Direction star Harry Styles and other big names, it was unsurprising that reports of fans traveling in hopes of catching a glimpse of the production followed. Indeed, it would have been more surprising if they hadn’t. Visiting places connected to media is increasingly mainstream – from searching for film locations of popular TV shows to taking part in literary walking tours to traveling around summer music festivals. Popular culture sets the touristic identity of regions, while fan conventions and festivals draw increasing numbers (and prices) year after year. These developments, and others like them, point to a growing interest in bridging the gap between reality and imagination through physicality, intertwining them in new ways.

They also illustrate new ways in which place, and its role in creating a sense of identity and belonging, matters in a globalized and digital world in which popular culture plays an integral role.

This conference brings together these disparate threads and explores the ways in which popular culture and tourism interact in the contemporary media age. This is reflected in the keynote speakers: Professor David Morley of Goldsmiths University, author of many influential works of media theory, including The Nationwide Audience (1980) and Media, Modernity, and Technology: the Geography of the New (2007); Professor David Crouch, Professor Emeritus in Cultural Geography and Senior Research Fellow at the University of Derby, author of
Flirting with Space: Journeys and Creativity (2010) and editor of  The Media and the Tourist Imagination (2005); and Dr. Marie-Laure Ryan, author of Narrative as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media
(2000) and Narrating Space/Spatializing Narrative: Where Narrative Theory and Geography Meet (2016, with Kenneth Foote and Maoz Azaryahu).

We seek to bring together scholars across disciplines, including, but not limited to, media studies, literary studies, popular music studies, ethnomusicology, cultural geography, fan studies, and tourism studies and management, who work at the intersections of (popular) culture, place, and tourism. We invite papers that address all themes around this subject, such as:

fan pilgrimages

place identity and popular culture

contemporary literary tourism

music tourism

·        historical media tourism

·        themed and simulated spaces

·        music festivals

·        video-game-inspired tourism

·        media and fan conventions

·        transmedia marketing and tourism

·        place and storytelling

·        media tourism in the media

The conference will be held at Erasmus University Rotterdam, in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Recently chosen as one of the “best places to visit” by Lonely Planet and the New York Times, Rotterdam is a vibrant and cosmopolitan city featuring cutting-edge architecture, an innovative dining scene, and top-class art museums. The conference is organized by the ‘Locating Imagination’ research group of prof. dr. Stijn Reijnders, Leonieke Bolderman, Nicky van Es, and Abby Waysdorf, and sponsored by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) and the Erasmus Research Centre for Media, Communication and Culture (ERMeCC).

Please send abstracts of max. 300 words and a short biographical statement (max. 50 words) to conference@locatingimagination.com before November 1^st, 2016.