The Fan Studies Network

Call for Papers
7th Biennial Slayage Conference on the Whedonverses
Kingston University, Kingston upon Thames, England, UK

7-10 July 2016

Slayage: The Journal of the Whedon Studies Association, the Whedon Studies Association, and conveners Stacey Abbott and Tanya R. Cochran solicit proposals for the seventh biennial Slayage Conference on the Whedonverses (SCW7). This conference dedicated to the imaginative universe(s) of Joss Whedon will be held on the campus of Kingston University, Kingston upon Thames, England, UK, 7-10 July 2016. Simon Brown of Kingston University will serve as local arrangements chair, supported by the Euroslayage organizing committee Bronwen Calvert, Lorna Jowett, and Michael Starr.

We welcome proposals of 200-300 words (or an abstract of a completed paper) on any aspect of Whedon’s television and web texts (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, FireflyDr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, DollhouseMarvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.); his films (Serenity, The Cabin in the Woods, Marvel’s The Avengers, Much Ado About Nothing); his comics (e.g. Fray; Astonishing X-Men; Runaways; Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Nine, and Ten; Angel: After the Fall; Angel & Faith Season Nine andTen); or any element of the work of Whedon and his collaborators. Additionally, a proposal may address paratexts, fandoms, or Whedon’s extracurricular—political and activist—activities, such as his involvement with Equality Now. As this is the firstSlayage conference to take place in Europe, we also welcome proposals about Whedon’s work in relation to notions of Britishness, heritage, globalization, language, as well as its transnational and international reception. We invite presentations from the perspective of any discipline: literature, history, communications, film and television studies, women’s studies, religion, linguistics, music, cultural studies, and others. In other words, multidisciplinary discussions of the text, the social context, the audience, the producers, the production, and more are all appropriate. A proposal/abstract should demonstrate familiarity with already-published scholarship in the field, which includes dozens of books, hundreds of articles, and over a dozen years of the blind peer-reviewed journal Slayage.

An individual paper is strictly limited to a reading time of 20 minutes, and we encourage, though do not require, self-organized panels of three presenters. Proposals for workshops, roundtables, or other types of sessions are also welcome. Submissions by graduate and undergraduate students are invited; undergraduates should provide the name, email, and phone number of a faculty member willing to consult with them (the faculty member does not need to attend). Proposals should be submitted online through the SCW7 website and will be reviewed by program chairs Stacey Abbott, Tanya R. Cochran, and Rhonda V. Wilcox.Submissions must be received byMonday, 4 January 2016. Decisions will be made by 1 March 2016. Questions regarding proposals can be directed to Rhonda V. Wilcox at the conference email address: slayage.conference@gmail.com

Society for Cinema and Media Studies, 2016 Conference
Atlanta, GA, March 20—April 3, 2016

 This panel seeks to explore the cultural production of girl fans across media, history, and global geographies, while shedding new light on the ways young female fan labor has contributed to economically profitable media industries.

Possible paper topics include, but are not limited to:

The cultural significance of young female audiences’ affective labor 

Fan labor and gift economies 

Teen magazines and girls’ contributions

Girls’ movie clubs and other fan organizations

Girl fandoms and the negotiation of alternative identities

Girl fans and queerness

Girl fandoms and feminisms: Riot Grrrls, Tavi Gevinson, Rookie webzine

The antecedents of girls’ DIY culture: the archive of girl fandoms

Fandom and manual work: mix tapes, zines, bedroom wall art, collages, handmade toys

Digital culture: gaming, youtube tutorials, blog posts, image-centered applications (Pinterest, Instagram), fan-made tribute websites, fan fiction

Researching the ways girls worship media idols across the globe: The Beatles, Taylor Swift, Shirley Temple, One Direction, Justin Bieber, KPop, the Twilight series, and much more.

Please send a 250-word abstract and a short bio to Dr. Diana Anselmo-Sequeira at danselmo@uci.edu by June 15, 2015. Decisions will be communicated by June 25.

Led by renowned comic writers Leah and Alan Moore, The Electricomics project launched in May 2014 with funding from The Digital R&D Fund for the Arts. Now, as the project nears the conclusion of its initial research and development stage, we seek to establish a new academic symposium through which to share our findings and expand discussion and debate around the field of digital comics research.

The Comic Electric: A Digital Comics Symposium will be held at The University of Hertfordshire on Wednesday 14th October 2015. As part of this symposium participants are sought to present papers across a wide range of topics that relate to comics scholarship and digital media. Appropriate subject areas include:

·         New and emergent digital comic forms and technologies.

·         Changes to the underlying structures of the form as a result of digital mediation.

·         Crossovers, adaptation and hybridisation between comics and other digital media.

·         Acts of reading and the impact of digital mediation.

·         Aesthetic and literary analysis of digital comic narratives.

·         Digital distribution, changes in the industry and the threat of piracy.

·         Webcomics, widening readerships, minority voices and fan cultures.

·         Multimodality and comics relationship with larger transmedia narratives.

Other areas relevant to the study of digital comics will also be considered. Abstracts of no more than 300 words for papers of 20 minutes in length should be submitted via e-mail to Daniel Merlin Goodbrey and Alison Gazzard at electric@e-merl.com by Monday 27th July 2015. If you have any questions about the symposium or need clarification on any aspect of this call for participation, please also contact us via the above e-mail address.

About Electricomics

The focus of the Electricomics project has been the creation of a new digital comic anthology app and an open source toolkit for the creation of digital comics. Towards this goal, the project has examined how the language, tropes and production processes of traditional comics are impacted by digital technologies.  Our research has also explored how an easy to use and openly available toolset might facilitate content creation both in the comics sector and amongst a wider arts community.

Electricomics is collaborative project between arts, technology and research partners. Arts partner Orphans of The Storm was founded by comic writer Alan Moore and film director and producer Mitch Jenkins. Technology partner Ocasta studios are responsible for the creation of the Electricomics app and comic creation toolset. The research partners on the project are Alison Gazzard from the London Knowledge Lab at the UCL Institute of Education and Daniel Merlin Goodbrey from the University of Hertfordshire’s School of Creative Arts.

The Comic Electric is a joint symposium between three of the School of Creative Art’s research groups; TVAD (Theorising Visual Arts and Design), G+VERL (Games and Visual Effects Research Lab) and The Media Research Group. It is held in conjunction with the DARE (Digital Arts Research Education) research centre at the UCL Institute of Education.

About the Digital R&D Fund for the Arts

The Digital R&D fund for the Arts is a £7 million fund to support collaboration between organisations with arts projects, technology providers, and researchers. It is a partnership between Arts Council England (www.artscouncil.org.uk), Arts and Humanities Research Council (www.ahrc.ac.uk) and Nesta (www.nesta.org.uk).

We want to see projects that use digital technology to enhance audience reach and/or develop new business models for the arts sector. With a dedicated researcher or research team as part of the three-way collaboration, learning from the project can be captured and disseminated to the wider arts sector. Every project needs to identify a particular question or problem that can be tested. Importantly this question needs to generate knowledge for other arts organisations that they can apply to their own digital strategies.

The UK publisher Intellect is now seeking chapters for Fan Phenomena: The Twilight Saga, the next edition in its Fan Phenomena book series.

Fan Phenomena: The Twilight Saga will be an edited collection of essays about the forces that contributed to the global popularity and commercial success of the books, films and graphic novels of The Twilight Saga. Chapters will explore Twilight’s unique appeal to fans as well as its impact on people, literature, film, music, television and social issues. Suggested topics include but are not limited to the following areas:

Creative Legacy:
– The Twilight series reignited the popularity of vampire and werewolf lore worldwide, prompting numerous books, television shows and movies. Explore Twilight’s creative and commercial impact on these industries.
– Explore the role of music in both Twilight’s appeal and success, considering the groups and songs that inspired the author or were commissioned for the movies. What lasting impact did Twilight have on its musicians and the world of music?
– Was there something unique about Twilight or its fandom that enabled the massive success of its fan fiction (i.e. Fifty Shades of Grey) plus the follow-on Storytellers project? What is Twilight’s artistic legacy?

Social Impact:
– Why did Twilight’s appeal cross generations, unexpectedly embracing “Twilight Moms” as well as teens? What was the impact of this disparate fandom on Twilight’s commercial success and social acceptance? Was Twilight’s demographic diversity unique among fandoms?
– Several conservative family values, such as the soul, redemption, abstinence, marriage, family and preserving life, laced the Twilight series. How did the books’ messages influence the development of young readers’ moral principles and the popularity of the story?
– Explore Stephenie Meyer’s presentation of the strong female and its contribution to Twilight’s uniqueness, popularity, success and social impact.

Media and Marketing Explosion:
– Explore the factors that sparked Twilight’s explosive fame and pervasive media presence around the world.
– Explore Twilight fans’ stratification of Team Edward vs. Team Jacob. What was its impact on the fandom, the franchise’s success and commercial merchandising?
– Was the Kristin Stewart and Robert Pattinson off-screen romance a genuinely serendipitous coincidence or a carefully crafted pairing? What was its impact on the fandom, including the fans’ romantic dedication to the story during the movies’ releases and post-production dissolution of fan conventions?

The Fan Phenomena series explores the greatest popular culture stories of our time. The collection already includes 16 iconic titles, including Star Wars, Star Trek, Sherlock Holmes, Batman, Lord of the Rings, Dr. Who, James Bond, Harry Potter, The Hunger Games and Supernatural. The Twilight Saga is a perfect addition to this collection. Since the release of the first Twilight novel in 2005, The Twilight Saga has generated billions of dollars in book and franchise sales1. Ten years later, the fandom’s loyal devotion to the story led to the launch of the Twilight Storytellers project, a contest in which spin-off films based on Twilight fan fiction will ultimately be judged by Twilight fans. The Twilight Saga’s enduring popularity is truly a unique and global phenomenon that demands attention, examination and celebration within the Fan Phenomena series.

This targeted anthology is intended to be an enlightening and fun addition to Twilight fans’ collections, as well as a resource for universities. As such, papers should be written for a broad audience of academics and fans. Final chapters will be 3000 – 3500 words. Questions, abstracts (maximum 400 words) and author biographies should be directed to Laurena Aker at LSAker@att.net by June 15, 2015. Final paper submissions will be due Oct. 1, 2015. Scheduled publication date is 4th quarter 2016.

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/FanPhenomenaTwilight
Website: https://sites.google.com/site/fanphenomenathetwilightsaga/home

Call for Papers: Frames Cinema Journal 

Going Viral: The Changing Faces of (Inter)Media Culture

Guest Editor: Dr William Brown (University of Roehampton)

In the age of social media, signs of an ever-growing online culture permeate contemporary media aesthetics, discourses and practices in a way that re-shapes understandings of representation and communication, thereby breaking frames and challenging traditional definitions of cinema. Developments in the production, distribution and reception of moving images range from video-sharing websites like YouTube and Vimeo to the growing presence of crowd-funded works within the festival circuit (i.e. Iron Sky) to the emergence of specific mobile (phone) festivals. As we are increasingly consuming moving images on digital devices and mobile screens, we have entered what Nanna Verhoeff calls a “visual regime of navigation”—a guiding principle which defines our creative interaction with screen interfaces, and which, according to Francesco Casetti, provokes the “relocation” of cinema itself.

Within this vast participatory network, not only “users” but also various media forms aesthetically influence and interact with each other, thereby creating a complex referential system that allows for the instant propagation of information. This encourages fan based culture, stimulates discussion and even allows for ways to avoid censorship, as seen with Leslee Udwin’s controversial documentary India’s Daughter (2015). Digital forms and practices have also affected the shape academic reflections take, promoting  new forms of analysis such as the video essay and the increased call for more creative and interactive forms of presentation. As the practice of sharing texts, images and videos online provokes and multiplies reactions on a global scale, it can be defined as contagious—enabling any possible content to “go viral.”

 In the 2015 fall issue of Frames we would like to explore the palpable effects of this ‘contagiousness’ on media culture. Topics may include but are not limited to:

–       The influence of New Media on low budget / no budget filmmaking and studio advertising strategies

–       Piracy and copyright issues

–       Online film reception and its influence on fan culture

–       Changes in film and media studies through online scholarship, digital humanities and social media

–       Modifications in cultural participation (festival blogs, online polls, the creation of specific online communities)

The issue will be guest-edited by Dr William Brown (University of Roehampton), author of Supercinema: Film-Philosophy for the Digital Age (Berghahn 2013) and a zero-budget filmmaker, whose films include En Attendant Godard (2009), Selfie (2014) and The New Hope (2015).

We seek full article submissions for our features section (5,000-7,000 words) and our POV section (1,000-3,000 words) as well as video contributions enquiring the proposed topics. Video submissions may be sent to the editors in the form of a link using an online streaming source (Vimeo, YouTube, etc.).

 All submissions (including a brief biographical note) should be sent by 14 September, 2015, to:

Eileen Rositzka and Amber Shields (editors-in-chief)

E-mail: framesjournal@gmail.com

 Notification will follow by 14 October, 2015.

 About Frames

Frames Cinema Journal, based at the University of St Andrews, is an online biannual publication offering a space for cutting edge research and ongoing discussions among media scholars and those interested in intellectual discussions about the ever changing frames of the field.

http://framescinemajournal.com/

Editors: William Proctor (Bournemouth University) & Richard McCulloch (Regent’s University London)

Foreword by Mark J.P. Wolf

Writing for the New York Times, A.O. Scott states that ‘today there are hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps millions of people whose grasp of the history, politics and mythological traditions of entirely imaginative places could surely qualify them for an advanced degree’ (2002).

However, as Mark J.P. Wolf remarks, such ‘imaginary worlds, which rank among the most elaborate mediated entities, have been largely overlooked in Media Studies despite a history spanning three millennia’ (2012: 2). Wolf’s Building Imaginary Worlds and Michael Saler’s As If (2012) are certainly illustrative of a turning point in the study of world-building across media platforms, but research to date has tended to restrict itself to understanding how ‘geographies of the imagination’ (Saler, 2012: 4) function at the level of text. The relationship between these worlds and those who engage with them – the knowledgeable people to whom Scott refers – has yet to be explored in significant detail.

Accordingly, this special section of Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies invites contributions that focus on the various ways in which audiences explore, interpret and respond to imaginary worlds.

What are the most significant features of these fictional spaces and places for the world-explorers themselves? How do audiences navigate and negotiate concepts of canon and continuity, and to what extent these impact on engagement and enjoyment? Do audiences ‘rummage for micro-data,’ as Bordwell puts it, and, if so, through what methods and means is this achieved? How do audiences feel about reboots, retcons, and other narratives that may contradict, disregard or alter pre-established continuities?

We are interested in articles that engage with audiences as opposed to speculative accounts or textual analyses – research that maps specific communities and their rich relationships with world-building. Materials in circulation, as in web forums and the like, can be utilized, as can audience research conducted by the researcher. If building an argument about how audiences might respond, researchers should consider how to test and verify their claims. We would also welcome proposals for methodological articles that address the practical and/or ethical challenges raised by this kind of research.

Subjects may vary considerably – this list is not exhaustive and the editors welcome proposals that fit within the widest possible purview of this project. Similarly, this should not indicate any single medium but any medium (or combination of media) that engages with story-worlds and world-building: examples include prose fiction, comic books, TV, film, theme parks, and any other that meets the requirements of this special section.

Examples of imaginary worlds may include (but are certainly not limited to):

Lego; Coronation Street; Fifty Shades of Grey; Star Wars; Star Trek; Eastenders; Game of Thrones; Tolkien; Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Comic Book Multiverses/Universes; China Mieville; the Alien universe; The Simpsons; Twin Peaks; Jurassic Park; Discworld; the Marvel (Cinematic) Universe; Grey’s Anatomy; Ghostbusters.

The deadline for abstracts of 300 words is 26th June 2015, and notifications of acceptance will be sent out the week commencing 6th July.

First drafts will be due by November 1st 2015, with publication scheduled for May 2016. Following peer-review, final draft deadline will be April 1st 2016. Email abstracts to both editors: William Proctor (bproctor@bournemouth.ac.uk), and Richard McCulloch (mccullochr@regents.ac.uk>)

Tourism: Visuality and Memory.
An interdisciplinary conference

University of Plymouth 3 – 5thAugust 2-015

Call for papers

From the early days of the Grand Tour and the collecting of paintings and drawings, to the advent of the first still and movie cameras, via postcards, travel posters and travel documentaries to our contemporary use of digital cameras, camcorders, camera phones and travel blogs, tourism has always been intertwined with the technology of visual imagery. The use of such technology is more than a means to simply record and remember events and places, as it is embedded in complex social practices that encompass notions of both private and cultural memory as much as the creation and consumption of leisure time/spaces.

The aim of this interdisciplinary conference is to examine the relationship between tourism, personal and cultural memory and the technologies of visual imagery in a number of interrelated ways: first, to focus on the social practices involved in the production and consumption of tourist imagery in both contemporary and historical contexts; and secondly, to address the relationship between public and private memory and tourist imagery, and thirdly, to address the use of visual methods in tourism research.

Possible themes include film and TV tourism, including documentaries and films about tourism; the ways in which the visual informs tourist behaviour; the use of personal photographs, home movies and videos; the use of digital images in travel blogs; using photography and video as a research method; analysing photo and film archives and tourism history; analysing postcards and visual memorabilia such as travel posters and other ephemera.

We welcome contributions from a range of disciplines including filmmakers/video producers and photographers who have focussed on tourism or who have worked with the tourism industry in the production of visual promotional material.

Submissions:  Abstracts of no more than 250 words can be submitted to members of the organising committee by June 5th

In addition we strongly encourage people to offer works for screening and exhibition as well as posters, for further details please send an outline of you proposed exhibition/screening to Kevin Meethan / Graham Busby

Organising Committee:

Kevin Meethan           Plymouth University kmeethan@plymouth.ac.uk

Hazel Andrews           Liverpool John Moore’s UniversityH.J.Andrews@ljmu.ac.uk

Graham Busby            Plymouth University  gbusby@plymouth.ac.uk

Les Roberts                 Liverpool University  les.roberts@liverpool.ac.uk

Matthew Pontin       Fotonow, Plymouth   matt@fotonow.org