CFP: Centre for Media and Celebrity Studies Bridging Gaps Conference

November 8, 2015 by

This updated version has corrected dates.

CALL FOR PAPERS

Bridging Gaps: What are the media, publicists, and celebrities selling?

Red Room, Four Points by Sheraton Barcelona Diagonal

Barcelona, Spain

July 3rd – 5th, 2016

Public personalities hold the power to draw attention to products, services, and charities through their endorsement. Celebrity activists, for example, can help to change the world. From Elizabeth Taylor to George Clooney, celebrities have proven that their status can help raise awareness and funds for issues such as aids, poverty and global warming. However, many activists have also gained fame by standing up for their beliefs such as Harvey Milk, Dian Fossey, Malala Yousafzai, and Rosa Parks, thereby bridging gaps between celebrity activists and activists as celebrities. Thanks to social media, people today have a platform to share their views and gain a following, meaning activism is now in the power of the people. They can bring communities together from around the world to make a difference.

We invite you to send in abstracts about media control, activism, and celebrity status to interrogate, draw attention to the good that is being done, and suggest ways we can improve the world. What actions need to be taken and how can celebrity status help achieve this? How much power does a celebrity really have? Can someone create celebrity status through their activism? What role does public relations and the media play in promoting messages from beauty ideals to saving the planet?

The Centre for Media and Celebrity Studies (CMCS) Bridging Gapsconference series aims to connect scholars with industry professionals and generate a discussion and practice that will inspire change. CMCS in association with sponsors Centre for Ecological, Social, and Informatics Cognitive Research (ESI.CORE) and WaterHill Publishing, invite academics, filmmakers, journalists, publicists, advertisers, charity organizers, and guests to attend, speak and collaborate at the international conference. Attendees may present papers, take part in a workshop or create a roundtable discussion on the theme of celebrity activism, media ethics and endorsements.

Extended versions of selected papers will be published in an edited book by WaterHill Publishing, while others will be invited for the opportunity to publish work in the CrossBridge Journal.

We also invite people to send in videos for the Celebrity Chat Award. The best video/documentary will be selected based on its ability to draw attention to a significant matter, be relevant to the conference theme and inspire change.

Registration includes: Your printed conference package, catered lunch, coffee / tea breaks, evening drinks, professional development workshop, access to evening receptions, eligibility to publish in edited book, and consideration for the $100 best paper and screen awards.

Submission guidelines:

250-word abstract or workshop / roundtable proposalInclude a title, your name, e-mail address, and affiliation if applicable. Submit to conference Chairs Dr Jackie Raphael and Dr Celia Lam at email address: celeb.studies@gmail.com
Deadline for abstract submission: December 20, 2015
Notification of acceptance: January 20, 2016
Full text due: June 4, 2016
Pre-Conference Reception: July 3, 2016
Conference presentation: July 4-5, 2016
Publication of edited book:Approximately November 30, 2016

Celebrity Chat Video Submissions:

Video length should be 10-20 minutes. Include a title, your name, e-mail address, and affiliation if applicable. Submit to conference Chairs Dr Jackie Raphael and Dr Celia Lam at email address: celeb.studies@gmail.com
Deadline for submission: December 20, 2015
Notification of acceptance: January 20, 2016
Conference screening: July 4-5, 2016

Topics include but are not limited to:

Mass media and social media
Public relations and publicity
Social Advocacy
Human rights and animal rights
Environmental sustainability
Celebrity activists 
Activists as celebrities
Endorsements
Advertising
Branding
Persona
Journalism and newsworthy topics
Fame and Fortune
Beauty Ideals
Interviews
Audiences
Fandom
Literature
Film and Video
Television
Photography
Laws and Policies
Theory and Methods
Research Agenda
Business Models
Ethics and Morality
Cognition and Memory
Media Literacy
Social Innovation and Change
Education and Advocacy
Community Building
Business and Community Partnerships

Conference Chairs: Dr Jackie Raphael and Dr Celia Lam

Conference Committee Members: Dr Samita Nandy, Dr Louis Massey, Josh Nathan, and Andrea Marshall

Conference URL http://cmc-centre.com/conferences/barcelona/

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CFP: 3rd International Celebrity Studies Conference: Authenticating Celebrity

October 19, 2015 by

3rd International Celebrity Studies Conference: Authenticating Celebrity

June 28-30, 2016
University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam
http://celebritystudiesconference.com/

Routledge, Celebrity Studies Journal, and the University of Amsterdam are pleased to announce the third Celebrity Studies conference. The conference will take place in Amsterdam, June 28th-30th, and will be organized by Gaston Franssen, James Bennett, Hannah Hamad, Su Holmes, and Sean Redmond.

The 3rd International Celebrity Studies Conference will be themed on the question of ‘Authenticating Celebrity’. This subject will run through our plenaries and form a strand running throughout the conference. 

Drawing on the strength of the CSJ editorial team, the conference welcomes submissions from a broad range of disciplines that generate new ways of thinking and understanding celebrity: from film, television, literary, digital media and theatre studies through to psychology, sociology, politics, and business studies.

We invite abstracts for individual 20-minute papers or pre-constituted panels of 3 x 20-minute papers on any topic related to the conference theme.

Confirmed Keynote Speakers:
• David Giles, University of Winchester
• Joke Hermes, University of Amsterdam/Inholland University of Applied Sciences
• Jo Littler, City University London
• Alice E. Marwick, Fordham University
• Ginette Vincendeau, King’s College London

A Special Issue of the best papers from the conference will be published inCelebrity Studies in 2017. Stipends to help with conference costs will be awarded for the best PhD abstracts submitted.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
• Celebrity and the experience of authenticity
• Sincerity and stardom
• Committed celebrity
• The phenomenology of fame
• Authenticating celebrity and gender, race, class, ethnicity
• Reality-tv celebrity
• Audience and affect
• Representations of talent and genius
• Fame in virtual reality
• Socializing celebrity
• Online authenticity
• Disingenuous and/or exposed celebrity
• True fans/anti-fans
• Trusting celebrity
• Gossip culture
• Celebrity hoaxes
• Celebrity facts, celebrity fictions
• Sport stars, performance and authenticity
• (In)sincerity and political celebrity
• Memory and celebrity authenticity.
• The will to truth: stories of the celebrity self
• Auto-ethnography and reflections of the real
• Fandom and the search for celebrity authenticity
• Celebrity pilgrimages
• Illness and celebrity
• Marketing authenticity
• Celebrity do-gooders and ambassadors
• Documenting the celebrity
• Rock idols and rebellion

Deadline for abstracts: November 6th, 2015 (250 words, plus a 50 word biography)

Successful abstracts will be notified by: December 11th, 2015

Enquiries/abstracts to: celebritystudies@gmail.com

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CFP: Revisiting Audiences: Reception, Identity, Technology

October 12, 2015 by

Revisiting Audiences: Reception, Identity, Technology

9th – 10th, June 2016

Second MFCO Early Career-Graduate Conference hosted by the Department of Media, Film and Communication, University of Otago, New Zealand

Featuring: Associate Professor Sean Redmond (Deakin University, Australia) & Associate Professor Catherine Fowler (University of Otago, New Zealand)

Conference conveners: Owain Gwynne and Kevin Fletcher

We are surrounded by media texts – films, television shows, songs, comics, videogames to name but a few. With the growing range of technologies at our disposal, our relationships with media texts and practices are continually evolving, opening up new avenues for inquiry into audiences and reception research. What do these texts mean to us? How do they shape our lives and experiences? Rather than merely receive the texts they encounter, audiencesexperience texts, not as commodities, but as instances of intense emotional or affective engagement. Texts shape our understanding of the world and the ways we experience it – they make us laugh, cry, think and dream. They delight and infuriate. They have the power to help us create realities, to relive the past, or to stir us to action and activism. Our everyday interactions with media take many forms and range from identity performance on social media, to nostalgic attachments, and to fandoms. This conference is interested in new ways of making sense of these special relationships between texts and audiences, taking into account how such textual interactions are situated culturally, transnationally and historically.

This interdisciplinary conference invites papers to address the ways in which audiences receive, create, engage withand experience texts. Papers that address (but are not limited to) new approaches to the following topics / questions are welcome:

·  Youth audiences – How might younger audiences engage with texts in different ways than older audiences? Does new media affect generational engagement?

·  Fandom – What does it mean to be a ‘fan’ of something? How are different fandoms enacted / performed, including in an academic context? What is the distinction between research and fandom?

·  Celebrity culture – How does contemporary celebrity culture inform industrial shifts in media production and consumption? What are the racialised and geographical dimensions of celebrity and star production?

·  Paratexts – How do people take up paratexts (e.g., trailers, prequels, conventions)? How do paratexts construct frameworks of expectations or redefine the meanings of the primary text?

·  Relocating moving images – How are accepted models of viewing and reception changed by the ‘relocation’ of cinema in art galleries, museums, public and private spaces?

·  Audience research and methodologies – What new research and technological developments are being employed in the study of audiences? How do new technologies such as eye tracking, virtual and augmented reality contribute to reception studies?

·  Affective audiences – How do debates about embodiment and cognition offer new ways of understanding viewer engagement with texts in both domestic and theatrical contexts? How does phenomenological research intersect with moving-image culture?

·  Audiences and intellectual property – What is the audience’s role in contributing marketing labour to media companies in the contemporary global copyright regime? How do fan-activists use copyrighted texts to promote counter-hegemonic interests?

·  Audiences and space – What is the role of space in fandom, cinephilia and telephilia? How do diasporic people engage with texts from the ‘homeland’?

·  Old versus new media in audience studies – How does the focus on new media displace the continuing importance of old media for audiences? Does engaging with ‘old’ media through new media platforms complicate that engagement, and if so how? What do ‘new’ media forms reveal about ‘older’ audience practices?

The conference is free for accepted presenters and open to interested attendees. There will also be a masterclass led by Associate Professor Sean Redmond on June 8, and a workshop on audience study methodologies by Dr. Rosemary Overell. The masterclass and workshop are also free but are open to a limited number of participants. For more information on the masterclass and the workshop, and how to register, please contact the conference conveners below.

Presenters at Revisiting Audiences will be offered the opportunity for a refereed publication in Working Paper Series in the Department of Media, Film and Communication’s flagship journal (http://www.otago.ac.nz/mfco/research/otago040229.html)

Please contact the conference conveners with any enquiries and / or expressions of interest. Abstracts of about 200 words with an accompanying bio of no more than 50 words should be submitted as an email attachment in Microsoft Word to the conference email address: mfco_ecg@otago.ac.nz by April 15, 2016. A response to all submissions will be sent by May 1, 2016

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CFP: Kick Starting Media: Cultures of Funding in Contemporary Media Industries

October 6, 2015 by

CALL FOR PAPERS

Kick Starting Media: Cultures of Funding in Contemporary Media Industries

One-Day Conference: 9 June 2016

Media Futures Research Centre, Bath Spa University

Held at Bath Spa University, Newton Park Campus, Newton Park, Newton St Loe, Bath, BA2 9BN

Confirmed keynotes:
Professor Gillian Doyle, University of Glasgow
Dr James Cateridge, Oxford Brookes University

With recent threats of change to the BBC’s future public funding regime, not to mention news of the British broadcaster’s former Top Gear presenters signing to subscription-based streaming service Amazon Prime, the subject of new media funding models and their impact on how audiences can – or should – consume media has become a point of public discussion. Trends such as crowdfunding and co-creation – where producers and audiences share responsibility for financing and producing media – as well as subscription-based platforms like Netflix and video-on-demand services such as iTunes have all made media more sharable and personal, but all of these trends and services also raise further questions about the funding priorities, strategies and policies in the arts, media and culture sectors. It is thus timely to take stock of the cultures of funding in contemporary media industries, and this conference provides a platform for analysing the impact of these contemporary funding cultures, be it on texts, audiences, technologies or industries.

Recent public debates over funding in the media industries seem tied to the impact of digitalisation, which has provided a catalyst for change in terms of how media is now produced and consumed across multiple platforms. As such, basic business models for funding media are changing. While digitalisation is seen to have redefined ideas of ownership amidst shifts from a top-down corporate-driven model to a more bottom-up consumer-driven model (Jenkins 2006), how is such a shift continuing to shape the type of media now being financed? Moreover, how are digitised media interfaces – bringing greater individualised choice for media audiences (Tryon 2013) – impacting funding patterns and creative imperatives for such media? What is the impact of convergences and the need to spread content across multiple platforms on license fee funding? Equally, emerging digitalised funding models such as co-creativity raise questions about entrepreneurship in the media but also about unequal power structures as audiences may come to function as free labour (Scholz 2013; Smith 2015). In what ways, then, might such blurring of power structures redefine basic notions of media funding? And how do different media industries now orchestrate, manage and perceive the turn towards crowdfunded, video-on-demand or co-created content as business models of the future?

To address these questions, the conference organisers invite proposals for 20-minute papers from both researchers and media practitioners. As well as exploring the broader questions above, proposals can be on, but are not limited to, the following topics:
Contemporary film funding (e.g. Hollywood franchise-based models of financing, independently-financed productions, crowdfunding platforms such as Kickstarter, public/private sector film financing, etc)
Contemporary television funding (e.g. subscription-based streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, public service/license fee funding models, new sponsorship models, product placement, TV promo companies, video-on-demand services such as iPlayer, etc)
Contemporary videogame funding (e.g. co-creation, social media gaming production, etc)
Contemporary comics and book funding (e.g. digital/motion comics, online publishing trends, etc)
Contemporary music funding and new economic models (e.g. live-touring, streaming, downloading platforms such as iTunes, etc)
Contemporary advertising and transmedia funding (e.g. social media marketing, online apps, intermediary agency funds, branded entertainment, etc)
Impacts of contemporary funding practices on audiences (e.g. exploitability of co-creativity, crowdfunding as fandom, fan-fiction, binge watching, etc)
Impacts of contemporary funding practices on media texts (e.g. changing narrative formats, participatory content, etc)

A Special Issue devoted to the conference theme of ‘Funding in the Convergence Era’ will be published in The International Journal on Media Management in February 2017, co-edited by Matthew Freeman and journal editor Bozena Mierzejewska. Conference speakers will be invited to submit their papers to this Special Issue for consideration.

Please send proposals (300 words plus a 100 word bio) to Dr Matthew Freeman (m.freeman@bathspa.ac.uk) by no later than15 January 2016. Delegates will be informed of acceptance by mid-February 2016.

This event is part of the Media Futures Research Centre ‘Economic Futures’ 2015-16 programme of activities at Bath Spa University.  

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Seminar | Participating in Fiction: Why We Speak Klingon, Play Quidditch, and Shop at Kwik-E-Mart: ACLA 2016 | Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

September 21, 2015 by

Seminar | Participating in Fiction: Why We Speak Klingon, Play Quidditch, and Shop at Kwik-E-Mart
http://www.acla.org/node/5354

This panel focuses on the intersection of fictionality and participatory culture. Specifically, we will explore the impact of public participation on the reception and ontological status of fictional entities.
As readers and text consumers, we have a propensity to actualize fiction. That is, we regularly interact with originally fictional entities in ways that effectively bring them across the ontological border, rendering them actual. Examples are myriad and multimedial: consider Quidditch (no longer a fictional sport, as it is played on scores of university campuses), Klingon (no longer a fictional language now that it is spoken by non-fictional people), and Buzz Cola (available for purchase outside of The Simpsons’ Springfield). It is becoming increasingly important to foreground the connection between the public and the humanities, and vital to this is a study of how participation and narrative are mutually influential. This session welcomes papers that address the role of participatory culture in the phenomenon of actualized fiction, and situate the reader’s propensity within existing scholarship on fictionality, popular culture, and media studies.
Paper topics could include but are not limited to the following:

 Narratives that come to life in theme parks; theme parks as adaptations
 The use of originally fictional products in marketing stories and franchises (Buzz Cola; Wonka
bars; Spın̈al Tap albums; Radioactive Man comics)
 The proliferation of communication, courses, and books in originally fictional languages
(Klingon; Sindarin; Quenya; Na’vi; Dothraki)
 The International Quidditch Association
 Google Maps’ inclusion of fictional locales such as the TARDIS and Diagon Alley
 Subway maps of fictional locales such as Westeros and Wonderland

Organizer: Rhona Trauvitch, Florida International University

http://www.acla.org/node/5354.
Potential presenters should submit proposals by midnight PST, September 23.

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CFP: Stardom and Fandom, SW PCA/ACA (11/1/15; 2/10-13/16)

September 21, 2015 by

CFP: Stardom and Fandom, SW PCA/ACA (11/1/15; 2/10-13/16)

Join us for the 37th Annual Southwest Popular Culture and American Culture Association Conference, February 10 – 13, 2016 at the beautiful Hyatt Regency in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The Area Chair for Stardom and Fandom invites paper or panel proposals on any aspect of stardom or fandom.

Proposal submission deadline: November 1, 2015.

The list of ideas below is limited, so if you have an idea that is not listed, please suggest the new topic. We are an interdisciplinary area and encourage submissions from multiple perspectives and disciplines. Topics might include:

Studies of individual celebrities and their fans
Studies focused on specific fandoms
The reciprocal relationship between stars and fans
Impact of celebrity and fame on identity construction, reconstruction and sense of self
Reality television and the changing definition of ‘stardom’
The impact of social media on celebrity/fan interaction
Celebrity/fame addiction as cultural change
The intersection of stars and fans in virtual and physical spaces (Twitter, Tumblr, conventions)
Celebrity and the construction of persona
Pedagogical approaches to teaching stardom and fandom
Anti-fans and ‘haters’
Fan shame, wank, and fandom policing
Gendered constructions of stars and fans
Historical studies of fandom and fan/celebrity interaction

Submit 250 word paper proposals, or proposals for multi-paper panels, to: http://conference2016.southwestpca.org Choose the area “Stardom and Fandom” and input your information as directed. Deadline for proposal submissions: November 1, 2015. Earlier proposals are welcomed!

Please remember that there are monetary awards for the best graduate student papers – we encourage you to apply! Papers in the Stardom and Fandom area could qualify for several awards, including the Diana Cox Award for best paper on images of women in popular culture, Euro Pop Award for best presentation on European popular culture, Peter C. Rollins Award for best paper dealing with a popular culture issue, Richard Tuerk Science Fiction and Fantasy Award for outstanding essay related to science fiction and fantasy, and the Post Script Award in film studies. You can see the full list at: http://southwestpca.org/conference/graduate-student-awards/

Conference hotel:

Hyatt Regency Albuquerque
330 Tijeras
Albuquerque, NM 87102
Phone: 1.505.842.1234
Fax: 1.505.766.6710

Register early for discounted conference registration and hotel rates, and to reserve space at the conference hotel as discounted rooms fill quickly. For more details on the conference, please visit the Southwest Popular Culture/American Culture Association: http://www.southwestpca.org.

Direct questions to:
Dr. Lynn Zubernis
Area Chair, Stardom and Fandom
lzubernis@wcupa.edu

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Transformative Works and Cultures 20th issue celebrations

September 7, 2015 by

Press release from the Organisation for Transformative Works:

TRANSFORMATIVE WORKS AND CULTURES REACHES 20th ISSUE MILESTONE
Peer reviewed academic journal enlarges the field of fan studies

New York, N.Y. — The Organization for Transformative Works will be celebrating its eighth year this September with another big milestone: the release of the 20th issue of its journal. This special anniversary issue of the journal Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC) comes at a time when fandom and its works – including fan fiction, fan films, and fan art – are becoming more visible.

The OTW will be celebrating throughout September, starting with a feature highlighting a unique aspect of TWC’s publication, the Symposium section, which allows contributors to bridge the gap between academic study and fan dialogue about their own activities.

The issue itself will be released September 15, and it will be followed by reflections from several contributors on its history on the 17th. Celebrations will culminate with a live chat featuring several of TWC’s early contributors on September 19. The chat will be held in The OTW’s public chatroom from 16:00 UTC to 18:00 UTC.

Transformative Works and Cultures is an online peer-reviewed Gold Open Access journal that specializes in articles about transformative works, media studies, and the fan community. It encourages a variety of critical approaches, including feminism, postcolonial theory, and literary criticism, among others. Past issues have covered topics such as anti-fan activism, the interaction of race and gender in fandom activities, and special issues on gaming and fan videos. The TWC also has published The Fan Fiction Studies Reader with The University of Iowa Press. The reader gathered essential foundational works in the field of fan studies in one place, making many of these articles accessible to mainstream audiences for the first time.

Founded in 2007, the Organization for Transformative Works is a nonprofit organization established by fans to serve the interests of fans by providing access to and preserving the history of fanworks and fan culture in its myriad forms. Supported by members and volunteers internationally, the OTW advocates that fan works are transformative and that transformative works are legitimate. More information can be found at http://transformativeworks.org.

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CFP: BAFTSS 2016 Trans/media: Trans/national Screens

September 5, 2015 by

BAFTSS 2016 University of Reading April 14-16 2016

Trans/media: Trans/national Screens

Individual and Panel Proposals are invited for the April 2016 BAFTSS conference at the University of Reading. At a time when distinctions between national boundaries and between media platforms are increasingly fluid, we wish to interrogate the many ‘in-betweens’ that this fluidity gives rise to. We also want to embrace the very concept of how not only form but identity is in a state of flux and transports us from one position to another. Keynote speakers (to be announced in due course) embrace and question these spaces and networks and, as more academic works from a new generation of screen analysts who identify with neither old nor new media come to the forefront, being trans- seems to encapsulate post-postmodernity. Examples of topics can be found below, but papers are invited examining all screen forms and subjects beyond the thematic list below. 

Transmedia
Adaptation
Transnational stars
International television and the impact of the contemporary epic
Questioning national identities
European identities
Policy, Regulation and Funding
Transnational genres on all screen platforms
Trans… identities
Transnational versus international
Historical transnationality (e.g. early cinema, émigré directors and performers, industry collaborations)

To submit a proposal, email Anna Claydon at eac14@le.ac.uk for a proposal form. The deadline for proposals in October 14th 2015. Proposals will be reviewed and decisions communicated during December.

We aim to keep the conference fee as low as we can and there will be a substantial discount for PGR, non-salaried and retired conference attendees but the conference fee (which will not include accommodation or the conference dinner) will not be announced until we have a rough idea of numbers based on paper submissions and can set the price accordingly.

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CFP: Sex and Sexualities in Popular Culture: Feminist Perspectives

August 24, 2015 by

Sex and Sexualities in Popular Culture: Feminist Perspectives

Call for Papers for a 1-day postgraduate symposium hosted by the Digital Cultures Research Centre

Abstract deadline: September 27th, 2015

Conference date and location: November 7th, 2015, Digital Cultures Research Centre, The Watershed, Bristol

Eligibility: Postgraduate students (MA/MSc onwards) and creative practitioners

Send abstracts to:milena2.popova@live.uwe.ac.uk and bethanvjones@hotmail.com

Popular culture, as can be seen through the GamerGate controversy for one example, has a profound impact on feminist issues and discourses. Representations of sex and sexualities influence public opinion and individual attitudes and perceptions. Discussions – in both media and academia – are continuing to take place about the impact of Fifty Shades, sexism and misogyny in computer game and comic book fandom, the sexualisation of girls and the sexual desires of both young and adult women. Moral panics abound surrounding Fifty Shades and the “irrational” behaviour of One Direction fans, while LGBTQIA+ identities and sexualities are often represented tokenistically at best. Creative practitioners can easily come under fire for poor representations of sex and sexualities, as evidenced most recently by the reception of Joss Whedon’s treatment of Black Widow in The Avengers: Age of Ultron; equally they can be celebrated for their efforts, as was the case with BioWare’s inclusion of a consent negotiation scene in Dragon Age: Inquisition.

This one-day symposium will open up debates and explore the nuances of sex and sexualities within popular culture and will afford a platform for postgraduate students (MA/MSc onwards) and creative practitioners exploring these areas to meet peers, share work and learn from each other. We aim to create a space safe for experimentation – both with new ideas and with presentation formats. We therefore encourage a range of submissions, including workshops, discussions, pecha kucha, as well as the traditional 20-minute paper format.

Possible topics include but are not limited to:
– Representations of women’s desire and sexualities in popular culture
– Non-cis- and heteronormative sexualities in popular culture, especially beyond “gay and lesbian”
– Representations of sex work
– Infertility and sexual dysfunction
– Sexual intersections: race, disability, religion, class and socioeconomic status, gender
– Sex and sexualities in gaming
– Sexual pleasure in popular culture
– Invisibility: (a)sexualities unrepresented
– Sex, sexualities and social media
– Sex and sexualities in fan and transformative works

Please submit a 300-word abstract and a 100-word bio to milena2.popova@live.uwe.ac.uk and bethanvjones@hotmail.com by September 27th, 2015.

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Call For Papers: Virtual/Physical Fan Spaces for Special Edition of the Journal of Fandom Studies

July 21, 2015 by

CFP: Virtual/Physical Fan Spaces for Special Edition of the Journal of Fandom Studies

As proven by the popularity of this year’s San Diego Comic Con, fan spaces are increasingly important culturally and financially. Media creators and producers have come to acknowledge the significance of their fans and the need to communicate with them, particularly through social media. Fans, however, also insist upon their own self-contained spaces where they can share their opinions and observations, as well as their transformative works, metatexual analyses, and cosplay. These spaces exist both physically (as, for example, fan run or commercial conventions, fan meet ups, and pilgrimage sites) and virtually through social media platforms such as Tumblr, twitter, and Archive of our Own.

Papers on virtual and physical fan spaces are being sought for a proposed Special Edition of the Journal of Fandom Studies. Possible topics may include, but are not limited to:

-creating or delineating fan spaces
-fan shrines or pilgrimage sites
-for-profit conventions such as San Diego Comic Con, Wizard World, or any run by Creation
-fan run conventions such as Otakon, 221bCon, or GallifreyOne
-policing and harassment in fan spaces
-virtual fan spaces including Tumblr, twitter, Archive of our Own, and fanfiction.net
-fan spaces functioning as or failing to function as “safe spaces”
-cosplay and crossplay
-authenticity of mediated and live fan spaces
-language of fan spaces
-theorizing fan spaces
-differences/similarities between virtual and physical fan spaces

Priority will be given to papers that go beyond introductory level treatment of their topics. In order to round out our existing selection of papers, priority will also be given to those focusing on the physical side of fan spaces. We are especially interested in articles dealing with conventions.

Abstract submissions should be sent to elizabeth.j.nielsen@gmail.com by 1 November 2015 and should include the author’s CV, a short biography (100-150 words), and their abstract (250-500 words).

Articles will be due 1 March 2016. For more information on the Journal of Fandom Studies, check out http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-Journal,id=213/view,page=0/

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