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Fan Studies Network Australasia Conference: Call for Papers, Swinburne University of Technology Melbourne, Australia December 11th – 13th, 2019

May 7, 2019

Fan Studies Network Australasia Conference: Call for Papers

Swinburne University of Technology Melbourne, Australia December 11th – 13th, 2019

For the 2019 FSN Australasia Conference, we turn to a focus on the impact of technological, cultural, and media change on shifting fan practices, and vice versa: the impact of fan practices on technological, cultural, and media change. The Conference aims to showcase diverse approaches to a wide range of fan communities and practices across four core areas: screen and digital cultures (such as film, television, videogames, online and other digital media); public leisure cultures (such as sport, theme parks, festivals and conventions, popular culture stores, and concerts); audio cultures (such as podcasts, radio, and music); and material cultures (such as comic books, toys, books, and board games).

In focusing on technological and industrial change, the conference aims to address pressing questions relevant to a wide range of disciplines, such as: how does the dominance of streaming services in the contemporary entertainment media landscape influence the formation of fandoms and fan practices? What role do digital platforms – from social media to taste curation websites like LetterBoxd – play in the mainstreaming of fandom? Do hacker and maker cultures, such as those that surround videogames, necessitate new theorisations of fan cultures? How do interactions in public spaces between fandoms from different cultural spheres affect or reshape fan practices and identities (for instance, in the case of Melbourne’s “Marvel Stadium” sporting arena, which connects sporting and comic book/superhero fan cultures)?

We invite abstracts of no more than 300 words (with 150 word bio) to be submitted by 15th July 2019 for presentations that address any aspect of fandom or fan studies. We also welcome collated submissions for pre-constituted panels of three to four presenters. We encourage new members in all stages of their career to the network, and welcome proposals for presentations on, but not limited to, the following topics:


Screen and Digital Cultures
Topics may include:

  • Online and digital vernacular creativity
  • Streaming services
  • Curatorial culture
  • Vernacular criticism
  • Fan practices around and using specific media technologies
  • Hacker, homebrew, and maker cultures
  • Digital heritage

Public Leisure Cultures
Topics may include:

  • Sporting team fandoms and fan practices
  • Festivals and conventions
  • The role of restaurants/cafes in fan cultures
  • The public mainstreaming of fan or geek cultures
  • Theme park fandoms and fan practices
  • Film music and other fan-oriented concerts
  • Comic book/popular culture stores and groups
  • The GLAM sector (galleries, libraries, archives and museums)

Audio Cultures
Topics may include:

  • Podcast fandom and fan podcasts
  • Music fan practices and fandoms
  • Music streaming and curatorial culture
  • Radio fandom and fan practices

Material Cultures
Topics may include:

  • Comic book fandoms and fan practices
  • Archival and other materially-based fan practices
  • Toys for fans
  • Collecting and collections
  • Book fandoms and fan practices
  • Board game fandoms and fan practices
  • Fandom and clothing

Across all of these areas, papers are welcome that approach issues such as audience research and fan studies methodologies; accessibility of fan cultures and fan studies; anti-fandom and toxic practices; fan labour; transcultural and transnational fandom; fan/industry relationships (subversions, interactions, appropriations); inter-generational fandoms and fan practices; the ethics of studying participatory culture and fandom; transgressive fan practices and fandoms (ie alt-right and serial killer fan cultures); shipping, slash fiction, and other queer fan practices; and the intersections between media/industry change and shifting fan practices.

The conference will feature a number of innovative keynote speakers who have driven fan studies in new directions across a range of different disciplines. These include the following keynote speakers, with further speakers and industry events to be announced:

Dr Bertha Chin
Lecturer of Social Media and Communication Swinburne University of Technology, Sarawak, Malaysia
Editor: Crowdfunding the Future: Media Industries, Ethics, and Digital Society (with Lucy Bennett & Bethan Jones, 2015) Editor: Crowdfunding Issue of New Media and Society (with Bennett and Jones, 2015)
Editor: Transcultural Issue of Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies (with Lori Morimoto, 2015).

Dr Benjamin Woo
Assistant Professor, School of Journalism and Communication Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
Author: Getting a Life: The Social Worlds of Geek Culture (2018)
Author: The Greatest Comic Book of All Time: Symbolic Capital and the Field of American Comic Books (with Bart Beaty, 2016) Editor: Scene Thinking: Cultural Studies from the Scenes Perspective (with Stuart Poyntz and Jamie Rennie, 2016).

Professor Melanie Swalwell
Professor of Digital Media Heritage
Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia
Editor: Fans and Videogames: Histories, Fandoms, Archives (with Angela Ndalianis and Helen Stuckey, 2017)
Editor: Born Digital Cultural Heritage Issue of Refractory: A Journal of Entertainment Media (with Angela Ndalianis, 2016)
Lead Investigator of the digital heritage project “Play it Again: Creating a Playable History of Australasian Digital Games” in collaboration with the Australian Centre of the Moving Image.

Please send a 300 word abstract and a 150 word bio by the 15th of July as a word doc attachment to the conference organising committee: jbalanzategui@swin.edu.au. Use the Subject Line: “Abstract Submission FSNA2019” and the following the file name convention: Surname_ProposalTitle

Conference Steering Committee:
Dr Jessica Balanzategui (jbalanzategui@swin.edu.au)
Dr Liam Burke
Dr Naja Later
Tara Lomax
Andy Lynch
Professor Angela Ndalianis

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CFP: Fan Studies Network North America Conference 2019, Chicago, 24-26 October

March 4, 2019

Call for Papers
Fan Studies Network North America Conference 2019

October 24 – 26, 2019

College of Communication, DePaul University, Chicago, IL

We are delighted to announce the second FSN North America Conference, which will take place October 24-26, 2019 at DePaul University in Chicago. Proposals are now being accepted on all aspects of fandom, including (but not limited to):

fandom and sports
fandom and music
media fandoms
theatrical fandom
anime and manga fandom
video game fandom
K-pop and K-drama fandom
celebrity fandoms
historical fandoms
literary fandoms
fandom and identity
anti-fandom and toxic fandom
fandoms and material culture
politics in/and fandom
fan studies methodologies
interdisciplinarity in/and fan studies
transnational/transcultural fan studies
fandom platforms and networks
representations of fans
We particularly encourage proposals that engage with race, sexuality, gender, ethnicity, class, age, disability, and other aspects of power and identity as they intersect with fan communities, practices, activities, and/or identities.

First-time attendees, fan-scholars and researchers at all stages of study are invited to submit proposals for:

Individual papers (500 words)
Pre-constituted panels (500 words for each paper, plus 250 word panel proposal, 3-4 participants)
Roundtables (500 words)
Workshops (500 words)
Speedgeeking (250 words; speedgeeking involves making a short ‘elevator pitch’ about an idea you’re working on to several groups of 5-7 people, who then give feedback. It’s been a popular part of FSN conferences in the UK, and we had a great time with it at our own first conference last year!)
In response to feedback following our inaugural conference, we are aiming to reduce the ‘silo effect’ in panels by both encouraging submissions of pre-constituted panels and requiring 3-5 keywords for individual paper proposals. We encourage you to think creatively about the different ways your paper(s) might intersect thematically with others.

Proposals are due no later than May 1, 2019, using the submission form HERE. For questions, please contact us at fsnna.conference@gmail.com. Information about our venue and lodging options is available on our website: http://fsn-northamerica.org

Keynote Speakers: Coming Soon!

Conference Organizers: Paul Booth, Lori Morimoto, Louisa Stein, Lesley Willard

Follow us on Twitter!

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Call for Chapters: Sartorial Fandom: Fashion, Beauty Culture, and Identity

March 1, 2019

Call for Chapter Proposals for Anthology

Title: Sartorial Fandom: Fashion, Beauty Culture, and Identity

Editors: Elizabeth Affuso (Pitzer College) and Suzanne Scott (University of Texas at Austin)

In recent years, geeks have become chic and the fashion and beauty industries have responded to this trend with a plethora of fashion-forward merchandise aimed at this audience.  This cultural ascendence can be seen in the glut of pop culture t-shirts lining the aisles of big box retailers as well as the proliferation of geek culture lifestyle brands and digital retailers over the past decade. While fashion and beauty have long been integrated into the media industry with tie-in lines, franchise products, and other forms of merchandise, there has been limited study of fans’ relationship to these industries.  Fashion and beauty cultures are significant areas for study due to their role as markers of identity and position as industries that prop up forms of hegemony along the lines of race, gender, age, ability, size, and so on. We are particularly interested in how fan fashion and beauty cultures reflect larger socio-cultural trends related to normative values, consumer culture, capitalism, and identity performance.

This collection seeks to think about fashion and beauty as related to fandom across a range of modes of practice including retailers, branded products, fan-made objects, and fandom of these.

Fan fashion and fan-oriented beauty products also offer a space to productively expand what we consider to be a “fan object,” as media texts, musicians, sports teams, celebrities, and retail lines all involve distinct forms of sartorial fan expression. These forms of expression range from purchasing and collecting to wearing and sharing (often via social media) and frequently convey messages about imagined or desirable fan identities, bodies, and demographics. This collection pointedly uses the word “fashion,” rather than the more general designation of “fan merchandise,” to acknowledge both the industrial specificities of the fashion and beauty industries, as well as the cultural significance of style. Just as Dick Hebdige and others have engaged subcultural style as a politically charged space, this collection aims to address both the affective and performative dimensions of fan fashion, as well as the identity politics that inform sartorial expressions of fan identity.

Our goal is to explore how fan fashion has evolved over time, and how it is performed in a wide array of fan communities and cultures, from early fan magazines to sports arenas to comic book conventions to theme parks to music venues. We also welcome considerations of digital incarnations of fan fashion, from hair/make-up tutorial videos on YouTube to analyses of specific social media accounts (e.g. Instagram, Tumblr) of fan fashion influencers, brands, or subcultures. Centrally, essays in this collection will explore how identity (broadly defined) intersects with fan fashion and beauty culture as a consumer lifestyle brand.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Historical approaches to fan fashion (or histories of fan-oriented fashion and beauty products)
  • Fan cultures surrounding celebrity fashion and beauty lines  (e.g. Fenty, Yeezy, Ivy Park, Goop, etc.)
  • Fantrepreneurialism and fashion
  • Fashion and/as performance of fan identity (gender, class, age, sexuality, and so on)
  • The legalities of fan fashion (licensing, copyright, trademark, etc.)
  • Fan culture retailers and lifestyle brands (Thinkgeek, Her Universe, Jordandene, Espionage Cosmetics, etc.)
  • Fan fashion and merchandise subscription services (and unboxing or “haul” videos)
  • Cosplay (or Everyday Cosplay, Disneybounding, etc.)
  • Auctions and fashion and/as memorabilia
  • Fan-centric Jewelry and Accessories (purses, hairbows, etc.)
  • Couture fan fashion and class
  • Identity and model selection for fan fashion lines
  • Fan lingerie and intimates
  • Fan-produced fashion (Etsy, crafting cultures, etc.)
  • Fan-oriented make-up and hair tutorials
  • Fan fashion shows
  • Fandom or geek culture as fashion “trend”
  • Fandoms around specific products or brands (sneakerheads, hypebeasts, etc.)

Proposal guidelines:

  • Seeking essays of 5000-6000 words, inclusive of references
  • Proposals should contain the following:
    • Contributors’ contact information (name, title, affiliation, email, highest degree obtained)
    • Chapter title
    • Chapter abstract of 250-500 words that illustrate the chapter’s
      • a) topic/subject matter
      • b) methodological approach
      • c) conclusions/argument
  • Proposals are due March 1, 2019.
  • Proposals or questions should be emailed to Elizabeth Affuso (Elizabeth_Affuso@pitzer.edu) and Suzanne Scott (suzanne.scott@utexas.edu)

 

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#FSN2019

February 11, 2019

Fan studies is a discipline overrun with whiteness.

This fundamental truth, put forward by a fan studies scholar on Friday 8th February, prompted a number of conversations between academics on Twitter. The resultant discussion has required us – the board members of the Fan Studies Network – to consider the role and function of the FSN within the field, and how our conference events frame representation.

Since the FSN was founded in 2012, we have worked hard to be inclusive in a range of ways, but it is clear through the recent discourse that in relation to issues of race we have failed. This is a failure that we want to rectify. This is an issue that is bigger than the Fan Studies Network, and working towards a solution will not be an overnight process. However, there are steps FSN can take to try and be better.   

This starts with our annual conference. We were delighted with the calibre of keynote speakers chosen for FSN2019, and chose these scholars because of our respect for their excellent scholarship and their support of FSN over the years. We believe that a keynote speaker should represent their field, and use their position at the conference to inform, interest, and inspire. We also believe such discourses should come from the keynote addresses themselves, rather than being informed by external discussions. As a result, in agreement with those we invited as keynotes, it has been decided that the conference will feature Lori Morimoto as the sole keynote speaker this year. The second keynote slot will instead be dedicated to a roundtable discussion on representation and diversity. We welcome thoughts on the most appropriate format for this roundtable, including potential participants.

All FSN keynotes have been chosen by the board since our first event in 2013, but we now recognise that we need to rethink our selection practices and procedures. So, over the coming months, we will be inviting everyone with an interest in fan studies (regardless of whether you have attended one of our events or not) for your thoughts on how we can make fan studies a more diverse and inclusive space. Inclusivity is an issue for us as a field to address together, and we want to ensure that the most appropriate voices are heard.  

The last 72 hours have involved a considerable amount of reflection and discussion between FSN board members, trying to react to an ongoing situation and consider the discourse with a level head. One thing that has become clear to the board is that we have underestimated the power and privilege we have in our positions. To understand why such a misjudgement has taken place, it is important to contextualise the role of the board and the ongoing management of FSN.

The network was founded by PhD students who lamented the lack of a common space for those with an interest in fan studies. It began as a group of UK-based friends and peers, keen to get a network off the ground. Unfortunately, the board’s ambitions for the network have been hampered by time and money. In regards to the former, for a large part of the lifespan of FSN the board have all been in precarious states of employment, unable to be afforded the time to work on network activities beyond the annual conference. For the latter, it is worth noting that FSN has no form of funding[1], and the conferences are entirely self-sustaining – all the money earned from delegate fees go into the conference. Ultimately the success of FSN in attracting such an international selection of keynote speakers over the last few years has relied on vast amounts of goodwill and compromise.

With this in mind, for the last few years the board has essentially seen itself as a conference organisation committee. What we did not consider, however, was how the decisions we make with our conference could have wider implications and ramifications. We now recognise that although we quite casually (albeit in good faith) began FSN to promote networking in the field, it has grown into something that warrants more considered formalisation. This is an opportunity to recognise that the board would benefit from new voices, and we are considering ways to take this forward.

Challenging the structural whiteness of our discipline is going to take more than just sticking plasters and tokenistic gestures. It will require all of us – individuals, institutions, committees, publishers, editorial boards, SIGs, research centres and beyond – to work together over the coming months and years to make fan studies a welcoming space for marginalised scholars. The six of us on the FSN board cannot and do not claim to know the answers, but we do have a platform and a presence within the field that we would like to put to good use. Please help us to do that.

We are particularly keen to hear from scholars of colour on this matter, but we welcome the comments, suggestions and input from anyone with an interest in the network and the field of fan studies more broadly. Email us at fsnconference@gmail.com (including “INCLUSIVITY” in the subject line), and if you are able to do so, please make the trip to Portsmouth (UK) in June for FSN2019 so that we can address these issues in person.


The Fan Studies Network board

[1] For the sake of transparency – the Interdisciplinary Institute for the Humanities at the University of East Anglia makes a budget available of £500 a year available to Tom Phillips in his role as co-Chair of the network. Last year this money was used for travel and accommodation for two board members at the FSN conference in Cardiff.

 

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Fan Studies Network 2019 Conference: Portsmouth, UK, 28-29 June 2019

February 1, 2019

CALL FOR PAPERS: Fan Studies Network Conference 2019

Fan Studies Network Conference 2019

28th & 29th June 2019

School of Film, Media and Communication, University of Portsmouth, UK

Keynote Speakers:

Dr Nicolle Lamerichs, HU University of Applied Sciences, Utrecht, The Netherlands

Dr Lori Morimoto, Independent Researcher, USA

In 2019 the Fan Studies Network will be travelling to the UK’s south coast and the historic naval city of Portsmouth. We are delighted to announce that the seventh annual Conference is taking place in the School of Film, Media and Communication at the University of Portsmouth. Offering a diverse two-day programme our conference will sit alongside historic sites such as the Dockyards, HMS Victory and the Mary Rose while also attracting presenters to explore our cult fan trail which includes comic book, collectibles and record stores, video and board game lounges, and museum exhibits. Fans of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes can see a permanent collection of artefacts and fans of Charles Dickens can visit his birthplace. The conference will continue FSN’s long-standing tradition of offering an enthusiastic space for interdisciplinary researchers at all career stages to connect, share resources, and further develop their research ideas. In addition to panel presentations, the two days will feature a variety of social events, workshop discussions, and our famous speed-geeking sessions.

We are honoured to have Nicolle Lamerichs and Lori Morimoto as our keynote speakers for 2019. Both have contributed hugely to the field of fan studies, leading the community in new and important directions. Nicolle is senior lecturer and team lead at Creative Business at HU University of Applied Sciences, Utrecht. She is the author of Productive Fandom: Intermediality and Affective Reception in Fan Cultures (Amsterdam UP, 2018) and co-editor of Fan Studies: Researching Popular Audiences (interdisciplinary.net, 2014). Lori is an independent researcher who has published widely on transcultural and transnational media fandoms in a range of seminal collections and leading journals, including: Fandom: Communities and Identities in a Mediated World, Second Edition, The Routledge Companion to Media Fandom, and A Companion to Media Fandom and Fan Studies; Participations, Transformative Works and Cultures, East Asian Journal of Popular Culture and Mechademia: Second Arc. We are very excited to have both of them come to Portsmouth as keynotes for FSN2019.

We invite abstracts of no more than 300 words for papers that address any aspect of fandom or fan studies. We also welcome collated submissions for pre-constituted panels of four papers. We encourage new members, in all stages of study, to the network and welcome proposals for presentations on, but not limited to, the following possible topics:

  • The business of fandom (entrepreneurs, affective economics)
  • Branding fandom (promotional culture, marketing and PR)
  • Fandom, copyright and the law
  • Links between fandom, participatory culture and the political moment
  • Forms of anti-fandom, non-fandom or toxic fandom
  • The intersections between celebrity and fandom
  • Fan activism in response to contemporary political/world events
  • Fan space, place and geographies
  • Fandom and material cultures
  • Fan Studies methodologies
  • Fandom and controversies
  • Producer/fan interactions and relationships
  • Fan conventions
  • Fan labour
  • Sports fandom

In connection with our location and keynotes, the following topics may be of interest:

  • Music fandom
  • Literary fandom (Sherlock Holmes/Dickens)
  • Subcultural identities
  • Cult movies and filming locations
  • Transcultural and transnational fandom
  • Fandom, race and ethnicity
  • Cosplay and productive fandom
  • The use of social media and its language (e.g. memes, hashtags, GIFs)

We also invite short abstracts (100-200 words) from anyone wishing to present as part of our popular ‘speed geeking’ session. This would involve each speaker presenting a short discussion on a relevant topic of their choosing to a number of small groups, and then receiving instantaneous feedback, making it ideal for presenting in-progress or undeveloped ideas. If you have any questions about this format of presentation, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Please send any abstracts/enquires to: fsnconference@gmail.com by the end of Sunday 24th March, 2019. Please include up to three keywords for your submission, which will help us to place your paper in an appropriate panel, and a short biographical note.
You can join the discussion about the event on Twitter using #FSN2019, follow us @FanStudies or visit http://www.fanstudies.org.

Dr Lincoln Geraghty
Reader in Popular Media Cultures
School of Film, Media and Communication
University of Portsmouth
Eldon Building North
Winston Churchill Avenue
Portsmouth
PO1 2DJ
Lincoln.Geraghty@port.ac.uk

 

 

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