The Fan Studies Network

Fan studies is an interdisciplinary field, with scholars in disciplines ranging from cultural studies to law, from sociology to library science, all bringing their unique perspectives to bear on research about fans. As a result, fan studies is methodologically eclectic: approaches can include a combination of quantitative, qualitative, highly theoretical, practice-based, online, offline, archival, legal, textual, and/or community-centred methods, and this is far from an exhaustive list. This gives the field flexibility to address a huge variety of research questions while also posing challenges with regards to methodology selection and compatibility, different perspectives on rigour, as well as ethics and researcher positionality. The ways we do fan studies are as different, interesting, and challenging of academic norms as the things and people that we study.

The goal for this special issue of Transformative Works and Cultures, therefore, is to set a common but varied ground for doing research as a fan studies scholar. While it is clear that fan studies does use specific methodologies, those methods aren’t always explicitly stated or considered (Evans and Stasi, 2014). We recognize the variety of disciplines that make up fan studies scholarship, and seek to express a common sense of ethics, practices, stances, without privileging one as ‘the’ methodology. Despite being interdisciplinary and methodologically eclectic, the tradition of scholarship in the model of Textual Poachers has shaped what we see as “fan studies” (Ford, 2014), though other approaches have also emerged, such as Chin and Hitchcock-Morimoto (2013) who argue for an affective definition of transcultural fans, and Reid (2009) who highlights the queer practices of non-normative fans and fandoms.

We seek submissions that address or challenge that shaping, and explore and theorize key methodological challenges and approaches within fan studies. We encourage articles that address not just the how-to of a method, but also why — theoretically, ethically, fannishly — that method is a good choice (or, perhaps, why it is not a good choice in some cases), and we particularly encourage articles that consider the ethical dimension as an essential and integral part of research methodology. We welcome submissions from scholars with experience within academia as well as those working outside academic institutions, and those who conduct research on fans while primarily identifying as fans rather than scholars. Potential topics include but are not limited to:

• The dual positionality of those who study fans, as both fans and researchers (aka the “aca-fandom” question)
• The theory and practice of interdisciplinarity in fan studies
• Conducting research outside the support structures of academic institutions
• Negotiating disciplinary and institutional requirements with personal, fannish ethics
• Researching fans online and offline
• Practice-based research methodologies
• Feminist and other caring approaches to the relationship between researcher and researched in fan studies
• Quantitative and mixed methods approaches to fan studies
• The place of qualitative scholarship in fan studies
• Fan perspectives on fan studies methodologies
• Community building among fans and scholars
• Citational practices in fandom and fan studies
• Embedding intersectional practices in research methods
• The challenges/solutions to studying underrepresented fandoms, fans, and fannish phenomena
• The role of (mitigating) shame in fan studies methods
• “Bringing in” and “working out towards” adjacent fields, for instance Porn studies, Queer Studies, Critical Race Studies, etc.

We also welcome shorter pieces showcasing specific practical challenges, methods, and tools for the contemporary fan studies scholar.

Works cited

* Chin, Bertha, and Lori Morimoto. “Towards a theory of transcultural fandom.”Participations 10, no. 1 (2013): 92–108.

* Evans, Adrienne, and Mafalda Stasi. “Desperately seeking methods: New directions in fan studies research.” Participations 11, no. 2 (2014): 4–23.

* Ford, Sam. “Fan studies: Grappling with an ‘Undisciplined’discipline.” Journal of Fandom Studies 2, no. 1 (2014): 53–71.

* Reid, Robin Anne. “Thrusts in the dark: slashers’ queer practices.” Extrapolation 50, no. 3 (2009): 463–483.

Submission guidelines

Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC, http://journal.transformativeworks.org/) is an international peer-reviewed online Gold Open Access publication of the nonprofit Organization for Transformative Works copyrighted under a Creative Commons License. TWC aims to provide a publishing outlet that welcomes fan-related topics and to promote dialogue between the academic community and the fan community. TWC accommodates academic articles of varying scope as well as other forms that embrace the technical possibilities of the Web and test the limits of the genre of academic writing.

Theory: Conceptual essays. Peer review, 6,000–8,000 words.

Praxis: Case study essays. Peer review, 5,000–7,000 words.

Symposium: Short commentary. Editorial review, 1,500–2,500 words.

Please visit TWC’s Web site (http://journal.transformativeworks.org/) for complete submission guidelines, or e-mail the TWC Editor (editor AT transformativeworks.org).

Contact—Contact guest editors Julia Largent (@julialargent), Milena Popova (@elmyra), and Elise Vist (@visticuffs) with any questions or inquiries at FSMethodologies@gmail.com. You are welcome to approach us on Twitter with informal inquiries.

Due date—January 1, 2019, for estimated March 15, 2020 publication.

Call for book chapters for a proposed edited collection

Following her death in 2016, the public mourning of Carrie Fisher revealed the breadth of her impact as star, feminist icon, and mental health advocate. We are seeking abstracts for essays to be included in an anthology on Fisher that will appeal not only to academics, but also to her fans.

In addition to analyzing Fisher’s work as a performer, writer, comedian, and advocate, this anthology aims to provide insight into the role of celebrity in social issues of gender inequality, mental health, substance addiction, and political resistance. We welcome work from a wide variety of academic approaches and fields of study, including audience & fan studies, feminist theory, queer theory, autobiography studies, celebrity studies, comedy studies, media studies, and scholarship in public health/mental health.

Possible topics may include but are not limited to:

* Adaptation

* Ageism

* Authorship

* Autobiography

* Bright Lights Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds

* Comedic Style

* Drug Addiction

* Fan bases

* Fan Collections

* Feminist activism

* Gender Inequality

* Mental Health

* Public Mourning

* Fisher’s work as script doctor

* Social Media Use

* “Space Mom”

* Wishful Drinking stage play

A university press is interested in this collection and looks forward to a proposal from the editors after contributors and topics are finalized. Please direct any questions and 300-500 word abstracts along with a 150-word bio to Linda Mizejewski (mizejewski.1@osu.edu) and Tanya D. Zuk (tzuk1@gsu.edu) by May 25, 2018. We will respond by June 6, 2018.

Final essays will be approximately 5,000 to 7,000 words and will be due January 2, 2019.

Editors:

Linda Mizejewski, a professor at Ohio State University, is the author of five books on women and popular culture and is the co-editor of Hysterical! Women in American Comedy (2017), winner of the Susan Koppelman Award from the Popular Culture Association.

Tanya D. Zuk, a Ph.D. candidate at Georgia State University, is an editor at In Media Res a web publication out of GSU. She has also published work in the Journal of Transformative Works & Cultures, and Journal of Religion and Popular Culture. Her research focuses on fandom, LGBTQ+ new media, and collaborative authorship.

The CFP for Mechademia 12.1, Transnational Fandoms, is now available. The issue will explore the global consumption, creative (re)production, and widespread redistribution of East Asian popular culture.

The CFP will close on June 1, 2018. Questions and submissions may be directed to the Submissions Editor at submissions [at] mechademia.net.

In tandem with the 2018 Mechademia conference in Minneapolis, this volume of the Second Arcjournal will focus on the theme of Transnational Fandoms. It will explore the global consumption, creative (re)production, and widespread redistribution of East Asian popular culture, including, but not limited to, fan cultures surrounding manga, anime, popular cinema, music, fashion, and gaming. Authors are invited to submit papers of 5000-7000 words by June 1, 2018.

Media fandoms arose in Japan and the United States contemporaneously, growing out of the proliferation of mass media in the twentieth century, particularly after the spread of the television in the 1950s and 1960s. As the work of scholars such as Marc Steinberg has made clear, the origins of what is known in Japan as the “media mix” and in the United States as “convergence” or “transmedia” (after the work of communications scholar Henry Jenkins) lay in the rise of Astro Boy and its associated merchandising in the 1960s. From the cross-cultural science fiction fandom scene of Worldcon, brought home to Japan in the 1970s, to the European obsession with Takemiya Keiko, Hagio Moto and the Izumi Salon in the same decade, fandom in the broadest sense has always been transnational. In the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, and with increasing simultaneity of access enabled by the rise of fandom cultures online since, transnational fandoms focused on East Asian media have proliferated globally. At the same time, the media mix model has increasingly conquered Hollywood, as is evident in the global success of the “Marvel Cinematic Universe” at the box office.

Transnational fan cultures have played an active role in these developments, and professional creators continue to evolve in their attempts to court and to corral fandom approval and fan production. Friction between these groups, and the slippages among them evident in the doujin goods networks of Japan, the webstores of fan artists worldwide, and the growing approbation for established creators working on tie-in media, are some of the most interesting sites of study for transnational fandoms in the twenty-first century.

We welcome papers treating, among other themes:

• The transnational networks and community formations of fan cultures
• Transnational fandoms of specific media in anime, manga, gaming, film, toys, and literature
• Identity formation in relation to media pertaining to gender, sexuality, class, race, ability, and age, among other social factors in transnational fandoms
• Fans in the media (Depictions of otaku, BL fans/fujoshi, female gamers, etc. in film, television, manga, journalism, and digital media)
• Legal issues pertaining to fan cultures and/or remix
• Fan service by content creators in response to fandoms
• Amateur and semi-professional fan media (Doujin goods, “Amerimanga,” fan fiction, AMVs, fanart)
• Performative communities (Cosplay, Nico nico Douga dance parties, anime theme song group dances, practices of fan pilgrimage)
• Historical examples of transnational fandoms predating television

Please send papers to submissions [at] mechademia.net by June 1, 2018. The Mechademia Style Guide and Essay Parameters is available on the Mechademia website.

All interested scholars are also invited to present about their work on Transnational Fandoms at the associated Mechademia Conference in September 2018. The deadline for submitting conference papers is April 15, 2018. For more information, please consult the conference CFP.