The Fan Studies Network

Deadline for submissions: September 1, 2017

Over the past few years, a loosely defined group that has since come to be referred to as “the alt-right” began to receive increased attention and scrutiny in the American media. The group presents itself to the public as an alternative to the mainstream conservatism of the contemporary Republican Party, and is an amorphous mass of people, largely associated with Internet social media platforms. The alt-right appears to be motivated by white nationalism, antigovernment conspiracy theory, xenophobia, and an opposition to identity politics. Its existence is linked with news sites like Breitbart News, the white supremacist site American Renaissance, and the neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer (among others), and with movements like the Men’s Rights, neo-Nazi and anti-immigrant movements. In 2017, Donald Trump’s presidential election has arguably legitimized and further publicized alt-right figures and ideologies, most clearly demonstrated by the rise of Trump Aid Steve Bannon, former Breitbart chairman, to the White House. In this cultural moment, it is essential that scholars and thinkers of the contemporary begin critical explorations of the formation, influences and attitudes that comprise a cultural understanding of the alt-right and niche internet groups as a political and social phenomenon. Intrinsic to this study is the interrogation of various modes of toxic masculinities associated with these internet platforms and their popularization of both fascist and nihilistic political and social paradigms. This volume calls for full-length essays that will contribute to this interrogation. I plan to approach university presses with this volume, which will pioneer the serious study of the alt-right within the academy. This collection is the first of its kind.

Topics may include but are not limited to:

• Alt-right leaders and their treatment in the media
• The relationship between alt-right and nihilism
• The alt-right and fascist iconography and influences
• The alt-right and its growing antithesis, an emerging “alt-left”
• The emergence of the alt-right and its forebears/predecessors
• Media focus on figures like Milo Yiannapoulos/Richard Spencer
• Literary/critical/philosophical influences on the alt-right
• The alt-right and popular genres, specifically science fiction and fantasy
• The alt-right and configurations of toxic masculinities
• Artist pushback against alt-right groups/anti-fascist art installations and output
• Street art (both alt-right & anti-fascist)
• Commercial/mainstream response to alt-right ideologies

This collection will be interdisciplinary, and is open to scholars in Media Studies, Film Studies, Literary and Historical Studies, Women’s Studies, Queer Studies, Gender Studies, Philosophy, Cultural Studies, and beyond.

Please send an abstract (450-700 words) and a short bio to Katlyn Williams (katlyn-e-williams@uiowa.edu) by September 1st, 2017.

This volume will call for completed essays of 5,000-7,000 words by March 1st, 2018.

Deadline for submissions: June 1, 2017

In the last two decades, scholarly attention to transmedia storytelling (TS) has increased dramatically. Approaches to the topic vary widely, ranging from a focus on the effects of TS on narratives and texts (Harvey, Mittell); explorations of paratexts, metatexts, intertexts, and pretexts (Gray, Clarke); and the increase in fan participation and agency with regard to narrative agency since the transmedia turn (Jenkins, Geraghty, Hills). More recently, scholars such as Raúl Rodríguez-Ferrándiz have returned to what might be considered the beginning, looking to Gerard Genette’s discussion of paratexts and building on Genette’s print-bound ideas with transmediated frames. This edited collection aims to open a conversation about the ways in which the extended Whedonverse crosses narrative platforms, combines authorial voices, and blurs the boundaries between and among issues of production, dissemination, and consumption.

Whedon stands as a transmedia icon. His role in advancing transmedial narratives includes media code switching from movies to TV to comic books to web texts as well as his tendency to encourage fan inclusion and agency. While not exhaustive, Whedon scholars have addressed transmedia activism (Cochran), authorial and audience agency (Hadas, Kociemba), semiotics (Beddows), hyperdiegsis (Buckman), and narrative destabilization (McCormick). Whedon scholars have placed their TS scholarship in various, broader edited collections and journals; however, Transmediating the Whedonverse seeks to advance these conversations while showcasing the extent of Whedon’s influence on TS.

The anticipated collection seeks to showcase a range of theoretical lenses and approaches to transmedial world-building, branding and franchising, and research including but not limited to feminism(s), posthumanism, new materialism(s), and speculative realism(s), in order to frame the significant conflicts and contributions of the meta- and paratextual Whedonverse. Successful proposals will explore the constructions of, complications with, and relations between and among narratives across media, possibly including effects on audience-consumers, creator-producer(s), and user-disseminators.

Key ideas this text aims to address include, but are not limited to the following:

• Narrative conflicts and complications created by or resolved through transmediation
• Production, dissemination, and consumption of transmediated materials
• The relationship between creator-text-audience/producer-product-consumer
• The impact of transmediation on Whedon scholarship and classroom pedagogies
• Complications with real-world representations of creator, audience, and texts (i.e. social media, Save the Day, public appearances, speeches, etc.)
• Fan-created content as narrative instantiation (i.e. mash-ups, wikis, fan fiction, etc.)

Editors Juliette Kitchens and Julie Hawk invite query letters and abstracts for proposed chapter-length original work (300-500 words); please send to transmedia.verse@gmail.com (subject line: Whedon Transmedia Collection) no later than June 1, 2017. Selected contributors will be notified by July 1, 2017. 

American ​Literature and Culture Secton (Department of English Studies, University of Wrocław) and New Media and Popular Literature Secton (Department of Polish Studies, University of Wrocław) invite paper abstracts for “Generaton BioWare,” a conference focused exclusively on the Canadian developer and their games.

Founded in 1995, BioWare have been responsible for some of the most acclaimed ttles in the history of the industry. The studio’s games are famous for mult-layered narratves and complex characters, both of which originated in ttles set in the well-established worlds: Faerûn from the Dungeon and Dragons pen-and-paper RPG system and the Star Wars universe. Since their release, Baldur’s Gate (1998), Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn (2000), and Knights of the Old Republic (2003) have enjoyed critcal and commercial success and the two franchises have enabled the studio to create its own proprietary worlds in Jade Empire (2005), Mass Effect (2007), and Dragon
Age: Origins (2009) as well as to further refne story-telling structures, character writng, karmic
mechanics, and worldbuilding techniques. 

The positve recepton of BioWare ttles has been accompanied by the development of a dedicated fanbase, whose general video game literacy was centrally shaped by BioWare’s design decisions and techniques. As a result, BioWare games have come to be regarded as templates for many western RPGs: the recent Kickstarter success of Divinity Original Sin (2014), Pillars of Eternity (2015), and Tyranny (2016) can be partly ascribed to the impact the Baldur’s Gate series had on these ttles.

Consequently, BioWare’s impact on the medium as well as the industry can be perceived as nothing short of critcal. To address this influence, we would like to create a platorm for academic exchange and invite submissions from scholars and researchers across disciplines, including game studies, literary studies, linguistcs, fan studies, media studies, sociology, and cultural studies.

Suggested areas of research include but are not limited to:
• narratology and character research,
• literary and ludological dimensions,
• sociology of BioWare games and their fan communites,
• BioWare games and classic RPGs,
• worldbuilding techniques,
• narratve techniques,
• gameplay design,
• poetcs of BioWare games,
• ethical and moral issues in BioWare games,
• localizaton and adaptaton,
• paratextuality and transmediality,
• video game market and the evoluton of BioWare as a studio,
• Interplay, BlackIsle, Troika, and Obsidian as compettors and creators of alternatve worldbuilding
and narratve techniques,
• narratve and character design methods,
• visuality and sound in BioWare games.

Registration form: https://generationbioware.wordpress.com/conference-registration-form/

Abstract submission deadline: 30.09.2017

Notfcaton of acceptance: 10.10.2017

Conference registraton due: 15.11.2017

Conference fee: 100 EUR (fee transfer details will be provided with the notfcaton of acceptance)

Main event: 5-7.12.2017

Netflix’s meteoric rise as an online content provider has been well documented and much debated in the popular press and in academic circles. It has been praised as the future of television (Auletta, 2014) and as “the most feared force in Hollywood” (Villarreal & James, 2016), while also decried as the end of “TV’s Golden Age” and blamed for ushering in an era where “TV shows may be briefer, lower-budget and filled with the kind of product-placement ads that audiences hate and advertisers pay for” (Thielman, 2016). Interestingly though, amongst the academic inquiry thus far, much of this research has dealt primarily with the algorithmic culture and nature of Netflix (Hallinan & Striphas, 2016; Gomez-Uribe & Hunt, 2016; Amatriain, 2013), binge watching (Jenner, 2015, 2016; Pittman, & Sheehan, 2015), engagement, (Groshek, & Krongard, 2016; Matrix, 2014); and the future of television, (Auletta, 2014).

The editors seek contributions to this collection that will broaden this discussion greatly, focusing on Netflix in three specific ways:

•      platform – How does the nature of Netflix streaming change our relationship to media? How does Netflix’s interface design impact media consumption? How does Netflix change our media consumption in mobile contexts? What are the cultural implications of Netflix’s business model?

•      content – What kind of content does Netflix privilege? How does the streaming model change serialized programming? What are these effects on narrative? Does Netflix’s streaming model prelude a more diverse offering for consumers interested in “quality TV?” Do representations in Netflix offerings differ from traditional broadcast programming? Is there a “Netflix genre,” shows produced by Netflix can be recognized as such?

•      viewer practices – What kind of viewing practices does Netflix encourage? What is the nature of viewer discourse surrounding binging and other streaming viewing practices? How do fans discuss and build community around Netflix programs? How do fans incorporate social media into their viewing habits? Do users utilize social media as a second screen when discussing their favorite programs?

Submission Process:

Interested authors should submit an initial proposal of 500 words (exc. references) by July 15, 2017. This should be sent as a Word or PDF document to editors Theo Plothe (tplothe@walsh.edu) and Amber M. Buck (ambuck@ua.edu) for consideration.

We invite presentation proposals for the Stardom, Celebrity and Fandom Conference, to be held at Texas Christian University (Fort Worth, Texas) November 10-11, 2017.

The conference organizers are seeking contributions that explore various realities associated with living in the limelight and/or admiring those who do, insightful analyses of individual stars and/or celebrities, and in-depth analyses of intriguing media offerings that examine and represent stardom, celebrity and/or fandom, during any historical era.

Given adequate participant interest and high-quality submissions, we are hoping to publish selected papers (with author’s permission) in a special collection of essays pertaining to the conference theme.

Participants are encouraged to interpret the conference theme quite broadly and innovatively. Possible topics may include (but are certainly not limited to) achieving fame, active vs. passive fan phenomena, addiction and destructive behaviors as coping mechanisms, authenticity, celebrity culture, challenges associated with continual media attention, cult of personality, dynamics of celebrity and stardom, falling from grace, gossip and innuendo, Hollywood’s Golden Age, the illusion of intimacy, instant celebrity status, fandom realities and pleasures, media (over)saturation, micro-celebrity, noteworthy stars and celebrities, scandals, social mobility and the American Dream, stalkers and other obsessive admirers, the studio system, television stardom, and trends in social media.

We encourage submissions from scholars, educators, and students at all levels, and from disciplines including art, communication, cultural studies, film and video studies, history, journalism, LGBTQ studies, media studies, music, political science, popular culture, sociology, television studies, and women’s studies, among others. Individual paper presentations will be limited to 25 minutes in length.

Please e-mail presentation proposals containing (a) a one-page abstract with complete contact information (name, institutional affiliation, e-mail address, and contact telephone number) and (b) a one-paragraph author biography to Professor Kylo-Patrick Hart (k.hart@tcu.edu) on or before Tuesday, August 1, 2017.

Decisions regarding the status of submitted proposals will be made and communicated as quickly as possible following the submission deadline, and certainly no later than August 15, 2017. For specific inquiries prior to submitting a proposal, please contact Dr. Hart at your convenience by e-mail (k.hart@tcu.edu).

This edited collection aims to re-examine horror in an era of remakes, reboots and re-imaginings. There have been many developments in the horror genre and whilst much of it has been reliant on previous material, there are also many shifts and changes such as:

• cross-over of genres (for example, teen romance paired with vampires and werewolves, or horror in space);
• new formats such as Netflix, and cinema no longer being the only place we see horror;
• a resurgence of stories of hauntings and ghosts;
• and the popularity of ‘found footage’.

We wish to focus specifically on horror from 1995 to the present, as after a brief hiatus in the mainstream, the 1990s saw the return of horror to our screens – including our TV screens with, for example, Buffy The Vampire Slayer – and with horror and its characters more knowing than before.

We are happy for you to compare older material with newer versions, such as the recent Netflix version of The Exorcist (2016) with the original film The Exorcist (1973). The main requirement is that you interrogate whether the portrayal of gender has changed in horror – it may look like something different (more positive?) is happening, but is it?

We hope to encourage diverse perspectives and we welcome early career researchers and new voices to offer a different light on classic material, in sole- or multi-authored chapters.

We’d also like to gently remind potential authors that ‘gender’ doesn’t only apply to women, it applies to men and masculinities, and it encompasses non-binary identities and experiences, as well as issues about ‘race’, ethnicities and class.

The schedule is as follows:

• You send your chapter title, 200 word abstract and brief bio by the end of May 2017.
• The finalised proposal will be sent to the publisher Emerald in early summer.
• Your final first draft chapter (approx 7000 words) should be sent to us by January 31st2018 (reminder/s will be sent).
• We will return any comments/revisions by the end of March 2018, and ask that you send us the final revised chapter by the end of June 2018.
• The completed manuscript will be submitted in July 2018 for publication in early 2019.

Please send your chapter titles, 200 word abstracts and a brief bio to the book editors by the end of May.

If you have any queries, or would like to contribute but need to tweak the schedule, please email us.

Editors:

Dr Samantha Hollands.holland@leedsbeckett.ac.uk

Dr Steven Gerrard  S.D.Gerrard@leedsbeckett.ac.uk

Prof Robert Shail   R.Shail@leedsbeckett.ac.uk

If you are not familiar with the publisher, Emerald are an independent publisher, established by academics in 1967 and committed to retaining their independence.

And for your future reference: All hardback monograph publishing will be available in paperback after 24 months, and all books are available as ebooks. Emerald commission and cover the cost of indexing if authors don’t want to do it themselves; use professional designers for each individual book jacket; and aim to exceed the royalties of other publishers. They have international offices, but pride themselves on not being a ‘corporate machine’.

Inside the World of Harry Potter is a proposed interdisciplinary, multi-contributer volume born of the robust field of Harry Potter Studies and the community of collaborators that exists within the Southwest Popular/American Culture Association.

This proposed volume will cover a range of topics within the works of J.K. Rowling. The Harry Potter series is such a rich text for analysis, particularly of social issues that can be extrapolated to real-world, non-fictional settings. The scholarship being produced surrounding the Harry Potter series is phenomenal.

As such, this call for chapters invites interested scholars to submit papers and/or proposals for publication consideration in this edited volume.

Contributions should use the works of JK Rowling (the Harry Potter series, or companion works such as The Tales of Beedle the Bard, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, or Quidditch Through the Ages) to address a social or political issue, such as race, class, gender, sexual orientation, societal structure, age, muggle vs. wizard relations, technology, religion, and so forth. Work using paratexts, such as Pottermore, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Potter Puppet Pals, and the like will be accepted as well. All themes will be considered as related to the overall direction of the volume. In addition, work related to fan practices, or application to real-world issues are always welcome.

Proposals from any academic discipline will be considered. Emerging and early career scholars are especially encouraged to submit. Final papers should be no longer than 30 pages, including references, and should be scholarly in nature yet accessible in language and tone.

For consideration, please submit an abstract/proposal of no more than 500 words to Dr. Christopher Bell, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, at cbell3 uccs.edu. Abstracts/proposals should be sent as Word Document attachments, and should include the author(s)’s name, affiliation, title and email contact information. Abstracts/proposals should be submitted no later than May 1, 2017. Final papers will be due September 1, 2017.

Special Issue: Fan Cultures and Cinephilia in Southeast Asian
Transmedia Contexts

Issue Editors: Wikanda Promkhuntong (wikanda.pro@mahidol.ac.th)
and Bertha Chin (bchin@swinburne.edu.my)

Responding to the shifting focus from audiences as consumers to their role
as cultural producers aided by various technological developments, fan studies have gained significant attention as a sub-field in media and film studies in the early 1990s. Despite extensive works that have shed light on fan practices surrounding Western
cultural products, limited accounts have paid attention to transcultural exchanges and fans within a specific regional context. Lori Morimoto and Bertha Chin’s work that put forward a theory of transcultural fandom (2013) points to the need to expand ways
of exploring fandom by engaging with alternative models of fan practices across different geographical contexts. This special issue seeks to extend further the discussion on fandom within a small but vibrant region of Southeast Asia, as well as Southeast Asia
in relation to other parts of the world.

Existing literature on cultural studies have begun to explore
how fans in different Southeast Asian countries have embraced and appropriated popular cultures, particularly pop music and television series from Japan and South Korea. Meanwhile, festival films from Southeast Asia have been discussed as part of the renewed
attention on global cinema and cinephilia studies. To address various practices within the increasingly transmedia cultures in the region, this special issue highlights the crossover between fans, cinephiles and other committed audience groups. Therefore,
we welcome a wide range of papers that seek to explore fans of various cultural products within the Southeast Asian context (i.e. film, music, television drama, video-game, animation and other transmedia content) and fans of different personalities (i.e. film
director, producer, star, idol, celebrity). Possible papers can focus on fan activities, as well as textual, aesthetics and performative aspects of fans/cinephiles.

Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

• Fan vids/mashups/tributes/video essays and transformative works
  in relation to Southeast Asian transmedia context
• Fan re-enactments and performances in Southeast Asian context
• Fan meet-ups, fan clubs, cons and festivals in Southeast Asia
• Fan tourism/cinephile pilgrimage in Southeast Asia
• Crowd and fan funding in Southeast Asia context
• Fan subtitling and other activities as part of distribution
  networks in Southeast Asia
• The relationship between fans and producers/filmmakers/stars/idols
  within Southeast Asia
• Anti-fans and conflicts within Southeast Asian transmedia cultures
• Fan activism in Southeast Asian context

Submission details
can be found at
http://www.plarideljournal.org/information-for-authors/

Submissions are to be e-mailed to the Issue Editors and the
Managing Editor in MS Word format without any identifying information such as author(s) name and institutional affiliations. Authors should also submit a separate title page with the manuscript title, author name(s), institutional affiliation and contact information
for the corresponding author.

Deadline: 05 May 2017

​The University of Hull is pleased to announce the Queer/ing Animation Symposium!

When: 26 July, 2017

Keynote Speaker: Nichola Dobson from the University of Edinburgh will be presenting the keynote speech, discussing her biographical work on animation master Norman McLaren and the impact his sexuality had on his life and work.

Official Call for Papers:

In his article “No Place Like Home: The Transgendered Narrative of Leslie Feinberg’s Stone Butch Blues,” Jay Prosser states that “queerness effects an opening of the borders between genders, disturbs the discrete categories of lesbian, gay, man, woman – undoing their identity narratives – and, as a result, enables the formation of new political, cultural, and social coalitions” (486).  In Prosser’s view, “queer” is a call for plasticity, for flexibility, within society’s heteronormative understand of gender and sexuality.  Those who identify as “queer” frequently use their identities to criticize and disrupt these notions, demanding acknowledgement when society ignores them, representation when they and other LGBT+ individuals are erased.
Animation operates in a similar way: its plasticity allows the medium to move freely between the realism of Walt Disney to the absurdity of Jan Švenkmajer, constantly searching for new possibilities of expression.  Paul Wells explains, ‘the animated film has the capacity to redefine orthodoxies of live-action narrative and images, and address the human condition with as much authority and insight as any live-action film’ (1993: 4).  In other words, animation’s elasticity opens a realm where ideas of normalcy are disrupted and hidden potentials are revealed much in the same way that queer theory disrupts common understandings of gender and sexuality to explore other options in regards to embodiment and expression.
How, then, can concepts of queerness be applied to animation?  If queer and LGBT+ individuals are frequently erased, where can they be found in animated films and animation history?  This conference seeks to answer these questions and more.  Applicants are invited to submit papers on the following topics:

• Queer animators (i.e. erasure of queer identity, impact sexuality or identity has on their work)
• Studios’ relationship with queer communities (ex. treatment of queer employees, interaction with queer fans, marketing practices aimed specifically at the queer community)
• Queer representation within animation (ex. positive representation, gaps in representation, possible examples of queerbaiting)
• Animation as a tool for queer activism
• Applications of queer theory to animation as a medium
• Queer fan communities and their relationship to a particular animated text (ex. queer interpretations of a character, slash and femslash communities)

Please send a 250-word abstract and a 100 word bio to Kodi Maier atqueeringanimation@outlook.com

The deadline for abstracts is 14 April 2017.

September 2nd and 3rd 2017

The Institute of the Humanities and the Gendered Subjects Research Group at Northumbria University, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK

Keynote speaker: Prof. Jack Halberstam (University of Southern California)

We invite submissions which tackle diverse aspects of queer representation, and that question the extent to which the new influx of queer on-screen visibility works at once both to liberate
and obfuscate certain queer identities and cultures. How, for example, should we perceive representations of the legalization of gay marriage in numerous countries, while taking into account that these changes in law also mark the entrance of queer individuals
into reproductive and familial time? In England and Wales, 2017 marks the 50th anniversary of the Sexual Offences Act, which decriminalized private homosexual acts between male individuals aged 21 or over. As such, this anniversary comes at what is arguably
a troubling time; one where right-wing nationalism spreads across the US and Europe and ‘homonationalism’ (Puar, 2007) allows for the appropriation of queer and feminist discourses so as to legitimize xenophobia and contemporary colonialism.

We encourage submissions dealing with queer representation in any on-screen form (ranging from the established forms of film and TV to gaming, music videos, advertisement,
web-series, and social media, amongst others) in what can be broadly defined as a contemporary context, promoting both explorations of the historical development of queer visibility and of its recent media examples. Additionally, we welcome further explorations
of what it means to be ‘queer’ on screen, to gaze queerly, and the value of queerness as not only a political but aesthetic term. Topics may include yet are not limited to:

● Queer intersectionality on contemporary screens
● Queer temporalities and geographies
● Specific regional, national or transnational contexts of queer representation
● The relationship between various media platforms and queer visibility
● Representations of queer activism and the (re)framing of activist debates
● The queer body and its relationship to the neoliberal context
● Adaptations and appropriations that queer canonical authors and texts
● Queering notions of success and failure in neoliberalism
● Homonationalism and its role in representation
● Queer anarchism. Queerness as a vehicle for change. Queer utopias and potentialities.

Organizers: Anamarija Horvat (anamarija.horvat@northumbria.ac.uk) &
Inmaculada N. Sánchez-García (inmaculada.garcia@northumbria.ac.uk)

Please send 300-word abstracts for 20-minute presentations and a biographical note to queerscreens2017@gmail.com by May 1st 2017.

For further information check our website: https://queerscreens2017.wixsite.com/conference

Follow us on:

https://twitter.com/queerscreens17

https://www.facebook.com/queerscreens17/