The Fan Studies Network

Edited by Irena Jurković, Marko Lukić and Tijana Parezanović

Urban myths and legends continuously serve as a source of fascination and creative inspiration in anglophone cultures, especially in the context of horror genre, within which they have a specific way of articulating collective fears and fascination with the unknown. Additionally, urban myths also contain a significant spatial dimension, based on their rootedness in real life places and landscapes. Starting from the academically well researched and confirmed premise that horror genre is not a mere form of entertainment and escapism, and that in its complexity it assumes the function of reflecting various problems and anxieties of any given society, contributions to this collection should focus on urban myths as specific segments (themes, structural elements, leitmotifs, etc.) of horror narratives, which are conditioned and perpetuated by the spatial aspect of the narrative. With this collection we aim to explore the interconnections of urban myths, horror genre, and human geography, through analyses of various examples of anglophone horror narratives in different media – literature, TV and cinema, video games, or comic books.

Analyses of the variety of horror subgenres (e.g., supernatural horror, slasher horror, body horror, psychological horror, etc.) and narratives from different periods are welcome as the diversity will give insight into different styles and discourses, enable comparisons, and hence also provide a broader perspective on the main topic, all with a view to establishing a common approach to the specific nexus of urban myths, horror genre, and human geography, and thus creating what might be defined as new cultural geography of a distinctive kind. Within the selected narrative, exploring human interaction with the physical and social surroundings allows for a further development of a specific analytical framework, which brings an understanding of the complex ways in which horror narratives, through their frequent reliance on urban myths and legends, shape our comprehension of real places and spaces of social reality. Therefore, this collection calls for contributions which through a detailed multi-methodological analysis (discourse analysis, content analysis, etc.) of selected narratives explore the ways in which horror genre (de)constructs or transcends temporal and spatial limitations, thus not only reflecting but also influencing and/or shaping the broader social, cultural, and political context.

Essays may explore but are not limited to the following topics:

• representation and perception of urban myths in anglophone horror films and other media forms, such as comics and video games
• urban myths and spatiality/human geography
• geographical roots of urban myths
• haunted spaces/places
• questions of identity and representation in relation to urban myths/mythologies
• urban myths and new narrative forms
• urban myths and the creation of new cultural and historical paradigms
• the political discourses of urban myths
• urban myths and place identity
• gender and urban myths in horror
• reshaping of a national contemporaneity through urban myth narratives
• comparative analysis of different mediatic representations
• urban legends about media told through media
• intersections of real and fictional spaces within urban myths
• social dynamic established between urban myths and legends on the one hand, and their reinterpretations in horror narratives on the other
• new theoretical practices and understandings of the cultural geography of horror
• the intersection of folklore and horror
• digital narratives and the digitalization of urban myths
• spatial horror in video games
• cinematic techniques and spatial horror
• visual constructions and perceptions of spatiality within urban myths

We invite all interested scholars to send their proposal (400-500 words) and short bio (max. 200 words, including author’s academic affiliation) to urbanmythsculture@gmail.com by November 15th 2023. Full essays should be 7000-8000 words (incl. references, notes and citations) and use the MLA style guide. University of Wales Press has expressed interest in the volume as part of their Horror Studies series.

Notification of acceptance: November 20th 2023.

Deadline for essay submission: January 20th 2024.

The editors would like to invite chapters of 7,000 words for an edited collection, to be submitted to
Routledge’s Children’s Literature and Culture Book Series. We aim to publish the collection in 2025.

Readers have always interacted with texts to create unique interpretations. Imitations, adaptations, and
transformations–from reading texts aloud to dramatising them, from sequels in manuscript and print
to new media, from drawing characters for fun to making animated films–have long been central to
readers’ interactions with texts, particularly for girls and young women. These include, for example,
early modern girls’ adaptations of romances, Victorian girls’ creation of magazine clubs, and
contemporary fan fiction communities. Yet many of these practices have often been dismissed as
‘amateur’ and ‘girly’, with their authors and creators doubly marginalised due their age and gender. 
They have, therefore, not always received the sustained critical attention they merit. This collection
seeks to retrieve girls’ and young women’s ‘amateur’ and ‘girly’ imitative, adaptive, and
transformative writing practices in diverse genres through time and across the globe.

Textual engagement is often at the heart of the educational and recreational cultures of young people,
with even the basic practices of becoming literate affording opportunities for creative response.  Anne
Haas Dyson points out that copying is ‘not a reproductive task, but an intrinsic part of the production
process’ for young people (12). Similarly, Jackie Marsh writes that ‘children do not just adopt […]
narratives in an unreflective manner. They build on and develop […] narratives in interesting, creative
ways’ (32). Henry Jenkins’ phrase ‘textual poachers’ also illuminates children’s propensity to take
textual scaffolds and utilize them for their own creative purposes. We suggest that this practice,
though determined by historical context, has happened across time and space. In this landmark essay
collection, we wish to chart the history of girls’ textual participatory cultures from 1500 to the present
day.

Although work on the histories of girls’ and women’s transformative works exists, these practices and
communities–especially those predating the twentieth century–remain understudied (but see, e.g.,
Glosson, 2020; Hellekson, 2023; Rosenblatt & Pearson, 2017; Willis, 2016). This collection provides
fresh histories of ‘girly’ textual practices, considering how girls and young women have appropriated,
imitated, adapted, and transformed (popular) texts across time. In doing so, it seeks to create a deeper
history of modern-day fannish practices, one that spans centuries and continents.  

Girls and young women, especially those who are further minoritised by race, class, sexuality, or
location, have been particularly drawn to participatory cultures, and especially to appropriative
writing. However, their writing has, historically, been relegated to the sidelines, and its histories and
trajectories are only now being recovered. Practices deemed ‘amateur’, such as creating homemade
magazines and writing fan fiction, are often lambasted, with female fans derided as ‘frenzied,’
‘hysterical,’ ‘dangerous,’ and ‘excessive’ (Busse 73–4). As scholars such as Melissa Click, Kristina
Busse, and Matt Hills have argued, fans who are both female and young are particularly pathologized,
with accusations of ‘girliness’ having been used as a basis for the widespread dismissal of many
cultural practices throughout time.  We understand ‘girls and young women’ broadly and suggest that
how these categories are understood may vary depending on geographical or temporal contexts. As
such, we encourage abstracts that consider racialized, neurodivergent, disabled, LGBTQ+, or
otherwise minoritised groups of young people.  

Contributions may include (but are not limited to) considerations of:

• Amateur and professional textual adaptations and transformations by girls and young women,
• from theatre performances and songs to commonplace books, magazines and fan fiction to
• film and social media 
• The gendered and aged dimensions of rewriting and revising texts throughout time
• Authoring “official” and “unofficial” sequels
• Manuscript magazines and amateur printing
• Creating “Pickwick clubs” and other literary societies
• Revisiting and revising childhood reading and writing in adulthood
• Fanzines and participatory internet cultures
• Editorials, letters to the editor, and other literary critical correspondence
• Theoretical reflections on intertextuality and adaptation
• Theoretical reflections on age
• Theoretical and historical reflections on ideas of authorship and intellectual property

We invite the submission of abstracts of 350 words and brief author bio by 31 January 2024.

Accepted essays of 7,000 words will be due by 1 June 2024.

Editor feedback on essays: Fall 2024

Revised essays due: Spring 2025
 
Estimated publication: 2025

To be emailed to editors Lois Burke (l.m.burke@tilburguniversity.edu), Jennifer Duggan
(jennifer.duggan@usn.no) and Edel Lamb (e.lamb@qub.ac.uk). 

References
Busse, Kristina. 2013. “Geek Hierarchies, Boundary Policing, and the Gendering of the Good Fan.”
Participations 10(1): 73–91. https://www.participations.org/10-01-06-busse.pdf.

Click, Melissa. “‘Rabid,’ ‘Obsessed,’ and ‘Frenzied’”: Understanding Twilight Fangirls and the
Gendered Politics of Fandom.” Flow: A Critical Forum on Media and Culture.
https://www.flowjournal.org/2009/12/rabid-obsessed-and-frenzied-understanding-twilight-fangirls-and-the-gendered-politics-of-fandom-melissa-click-university-of-missouri/.

Glosson, Sarah. 2020. Performing Jane: A cultural history of Jane Austen fandom. Louisiana State
University Press.

Haas Dyson, Anne. 2010. ‘Writing childhoods under construction: Re-visioning ‘copying’ in early
childhood’, Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 10(1), 7–31. DOI: 10.1177/1468798409356990. 

Hellekson, Karen. 2023. “Fandom, Fanzines, and Archiving Science Fiction Fannish History.”
Proceedings from the Document Academy 10(1). https://doi.org/10.35492/docam/10/1/2.

Hills, Matt. 2012. “Twilight Fans Represented in Commercial Paratexts and Inter-fandoms: Resisting
and Repurposing Negative Fan Stereotypes.” In Genre, Reception, and Adaptation in the Twilight
Series, edited by Anne Morey, 113–29. Ashgate.

Marsh, Jackie. 2010. Childhood, Culture and Creativity: A Literature Review. Newcastle-upon-Tyne:
Creativity, Culture and Education. 

Rosenblatt, Betsy, and Roberta Person (Eds.). 2017. Sherlock Holmes, Fandom, Sherlockiana, and the
Great Game (special issue). Transformative Works and Cultures 23.
https://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/issue/view/27.

Willis, Ika (Ed.). 2016. The Classical Cannon and/as Transformative Work (special issue).
Transformative Works and Cultures 21.
https://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/issue/view/23.