DOCSLIB.ORG

Erotic Fanfiction As a Form of Cultural

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text

Load more

\Slight dub-con but they both wanted it hardcore": Erotic fanfiction as a form of cultural activism around sexual consent Milena Popova A Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of the West of England for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Faculty of Arts, Creative Industries, and Education University of the West of England, Bristol October 2017 Abstract In this thesis I argue that the treatment of issues of sexual consent in erotic fanfiction can be viewed as a form of cultural activism. Using a combination of traditional, digital and autoethnography, as well as discourse analysis, I trace engagements with sexual consent among readers and writers of erotic fanfiction both in their creative output published on sites such as the Archive of Our Own and in their conversations and day-to-day interactions with each other as well as beyond the fandom community. The original contribution of this work is two-fold. Firstly, it maps in detail some of the ways in which sexual consent, particularly in the presence of power differentials, is treated in erotic fanfiction. I argue that through the use of techniques particular to fanfiction, readers and writers within this community are able to issue powerful challenges to dominant discourses about gender, romance, sexuality, and consent. Secondly, I argue that these engagements can be viewed as a distinct form of cultural activism. While cultural activism is traditionally seen as directed outwards to the general public, the production, circulation, and discussion of fanfiction allows the community to form powerful alternative imaginaries of sexuality and consent, make prefigurative gestures, and establish a praxis of consent within the community itself. The knowledges generated in these ways are then applied to community members' own day-to-day lives and engagements with sexuality, consent, and rape culture. This points to the fanfiction community as a source of a powerful discursive resistance on issues of rape and consent, and supports an expansion of the definition of cultural activism to cover activities directed at challenging internalised dominant discourses within the boundaries of a community. ii Acknowledgements There are so many people without whose encouragement, support, and wisdom I would not be here. Some of you got me to the beginning. Thanks are due to Ada Cable for running out of a room to put her name on a piece of paper, thereby inadvertently starting all this; to Professor Roger Eatwell, for not giving up on me during my wilderness years; to Dr Catherine Baker for early encouragement and feedback on draft research proposals; to Dr Rachael Livermore and Dr Harriet Archer for sharing their experiences. Many more of you made sure I got to the end. I would like to thank my amazing supervision team: Professor Jonathan Dovey for being the most challenging and most supportive of critics, and for getting excited about my work; Dr Esther MacCallum-Stewart for becoming the critical writing voice in my head; Estella Tincknell for making sure I had good answers to questions about why I didn't do things differently. No supervisors were cried on in the making of this thesis. This is to their credit more than mine. Thank you to my examiners, Professor Clarissa Smith and Dr Sherryl Wilson, for engaging with my work on its own merits and making my viva a genuinely constructive and collaborative experience. Huge thanks to my partner, Dr Paul Wady, for the epistemology squabbles and asking about the scatter plots, for valuable comments and practical help, and above all for the unwavering support in all my undertakings. Thanks also to my parents, Mimoza Popova and Ivo Popov, and my grandmother Stanka Daskalova for moral and financial support (and particularly to my father for asking \Are you writing?" every time he spoke to me over the course of three years|I look foward to returning the favour). I am grateful to Dr Martin Nyx Brain for trying to talk me out of this and, once that had failed, providing advice, expertise, and invaluable material support. Thanks to Charlie Ann Page for, despite having a name designed to fuck with citation systems, fixing mine. iii Thank you to my amazing support network who made sure I got out of the house and spoke to actual humans once in a while: Charlie (again), Fi, Tory, Debbie; Dom, Judith, Warren, Weeza, Mead, Andy, Carina; Rose and Joe. Thanks to Luke Rudge for supporting my endeavours to foster a PhD community. Thanks to Jackie Barker for starting the Bath Shut Up And Write group, for sharing and halving sorrows, for generously proofreading the almost-final draft, and for an amazing friendship. Thank you to Bethan Jones for her collegial support and being an awesome partner in crime. Cultural Theorist Cat was with me through all of this, so very nearly up to the viva. He graciously let me live with him and slightly-less-graciously let me look after him, sometimes. His praxis of consent was an inspiration, and he is sorely missed. Finally, I have greatly appreciated the caffeination and office space that Comins Teahouse have provided over the last 18 months. Contents 1 Introduction 5 1.1 The grey areas of rape culture . 6 1.2 Erotic fanfiction and consent . 8 1.3 Aims and objectives . 10 1.4 Structure of the work . 11 2 Literature Review 16 2.1 Introduction . 16 2.2 Power, oppression, and resistance in culture . 17 2.2.1 The audience and the message . 17 2.2.2 From hegemony to discourse . 19 2.2.3 Representation and resistance: approaches from the margins . 21 2.2.4 Cultural activisms . 25 2.3 Sexual consent . 27 2.3.1 Power/agency: two approaches to consent . 27 2.3.2 Attempts to reconcile power and negotiation: unwanted sex . 30 2.3.3 The different discourses of sex: the law . 32 2.3.4 The different discourses of sex: psychology . 36 1 CONTENTS 2 2.3.5 Culture's dual role in constructing sex: porn, romance, consent . 39 2.4 Fan studies . 44 2.4.1 Studying texts/studying fans . 44 2.4.2 Meaning-making in fanfiction: dense intertextuality/communal practices . 46 2.4.3 Slash: sexualising equality/romancing porn? . 52 2.5 Research questions . 56 3 Methodology 58 3.1 Introduction . 58 3.2 Ethnography and discourse analysis: an unlikely partnership? . 59 3.3 The role of the ethnographer in online settings . 61 3.4 From site to journey: ethnography for the internet . 66 3.5 Follow the trope . 71 3.6 Temporality . 78 3.7 afk . 81 3.8 Conclusion . 84 4 \Dogfuck Rapeworld" 86 4.1 Introduction . 86 4.2 The Omegaverse . 87 4.3 Sexual scripts . 90 4.4 Three stories representing the Omegaverse . 93 4.5 Sexual scripts in the Omegaverse: the question of gender . 95 4.6 Negotiating disjunctures in sexual scripts . 98 4.7 Porn, affect, and the Omegaverse as an analytical tool . 104 4.8 Conclusion . 108 CONTENTS 3 5 Rewriting the Romance 110 5.1 Introduction . 110 5.2 Romance, work, emotion . 113 5.3 Thor/Loki Arranged Marriage . 121 5.4 Thor/Loki and the inequalities of marriage . 123 5.5 Emotion Work and the Happily Ever After . 129 5.6 Marriage consummation . 133 5.7 Conclusion . 139 6 Blurred Lines 141 6.1 Introduction . 141 6.2 Real Person(a) Fiction in the wider fanfiction context . 142 6.3 Rape: culture, perception, the law . 144 6.4 Home ice: studying my fandom . 145 6.5 Humanising the law . 148 6.6 Living our values . 159 6.7 Conclusion . 166 7 The Praxis of Consent 167 7.1 Introduction . 167 7.2 Schr¨odinger'sauthor: dead and alive . 169 7.3 Mainstream media, fanfiction, consent . 171 7.4 Exploring sexuality|breaking defaults|challenging the law . 178 7.5 From practice to text/from text to praxis . 189 7.6 Conclusion . 196 CONTENTS 4 8 Epilogue 198 8.1 Summary of findings . 198 8.2 Limitations and future directions . 204 8.3 Impact/activism . 209 A Interview Questionnaire 211 Chapter 1 Introduction You know what the magic word| the only thing that matters in American sexual mores today is one thing. You can do anything. The left will promote, and understand, and tolerate anything as long as there is one element. Do you know what it is? Consent. If there is consent on both or all three or all four, however many are involved in the sex act, it's perfectly fine, whatever it is. But if the left ever senses and smells that there's no consent in part of the equation then here come the rape police. But consent is the magic key to the left. Rush Limbaugh, October 2016 (Media Matters, 2016) This is a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20 plus years of life. The fact that he now has to register as a sexual offender for the rest of his life forever alters where he can live, visit, work, and how he will be able to interact with people and organizations. Dan A. Turner, June 2016 (Cleary, 2016) It is not clear how anyone is supposed to prove that consent was given. Is the CPS really suggesting that you have to get a signed statement off someone before they have sex? Philip Davies MP, January 2015 (Drury, 2015) 5 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 6 1.1 The grey areas of rape culture American talk radio host Rush Limbaugh defends then Presidential candidate Donald Trump for boasting about how he can \grab [women] by the pussy" (Jacobs, Siddiqui and Bixby, 2016) by casting the idea of sexual consent as a strange, outlandish, immoral invention of \the left".
Recommended publications
  • Gender and Consent in Supernatural Fanfiction's Alpha/Beta/Omega

    Gender and Consent in Supernatural Fanfiction's Alpha/Beta/Omega

    i Just Go Find Yourself a Nice Alpha: Gender and Consent in Supernatural Fanfiction’s Alpha/Beta/Omega Universe by Tessa Barone A THESIS submitted to Oregon State University Honors College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Honors Baccalaureate of Arts in English (Honors Scholar) Honors Baccalaureate of Arts in History (Honors Scholar) Presented May 28, 2019 Commencement June 2019 ii iii AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF Tessa Barone for the degree of Honors Baccalaureate of Arts in English and Honors Baccalaureate Arts in History presented on May 28, 2019. Title: Just Go Find Yourself a Nice Alpha: Gender and Consent in Supernatural Fanfiction’s Alpha/Beta/Omega Universe. Abstract approved:_____________________________________________________ Rebecca Olson Shows, books, and media are constantly negotiating power with their fans. Who decides what is canon? To whom does the story belong?? The answer has traditionally been in favor of producers. However, in the age of the internet, fans now hold considerably more power than they ever have before, and some shows, like the CW’s Supernatural, respond by participating in “fanservice.” Many fans of this show strongly support slash and incest pairings, and by allowing such interpretations to be acknowledged in the narrative Supernatural makes increasingly transgressive readings available to the audience. The trope known as “Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics” is extremely popular, borderline pornographic, and virtually eradicates women from the narrative—instead depicting a relationship between men that is highly heterosexual in dynamic. This trope deconstructs the gender binary by assigning gender roles based on behavior, rather than biology, and appeals to an animal code of ethics in order to indulge in problematic, sexist, and abusive sexual situations.
  • Digital Fanfic in Negotiation: Livejournal, Archive of Our Own, and the Affordances of Read-Write Platforms

    Digital Fanfic in Negotiation: Livejournal, Archive of Our Own, and the Affordances of Read-Write Platforms

    Digital fanfic in negotiation: LiveJournal, Archive of our Own, and the affordances of read-write platforms. Introduction Fanfiction is the unauthorized rewriting or adaptation of popular media narratives, utilizing corporately owned characters, settings and storylines to tell an individual writer’s own story (self-ref, 2017). It is often abbreviated to fanfic or even fic, and exists in a thoroughly grey legal area between copyright infringement and fair use (Tushnet 1997, McCardle 2011). Though there were a few cases of cease-and-desist letters sent to fan writers in the twentieth century, media corporations now understand it is useless to attempt to prosecute fanfic writers – for one thing, there are simply too many of us,1 and for another it would be terrible publicity. Though modern fanfic can be reliably dated to the 1960s (Jenkins 1992), it is now primarily an online practice, and the fastest growing form of writing in the world (self ref). This paper uses participant observation and online ethnography to explore how fanfiction archives utilize digital affordances. Following Murray, I will argue that a robust understanding of digital read-write platforms needs to account for the social and legal context of digital fiction as well as its technological affordances. Whilst the online platform LiveJournal in some ways channels user creativity towards a more self-evidentially ‘digital’ texts than its successor in the Archive of Our Own (A03), the Archive encourages greater reader interactivity at the level of archive and sorting. I will demonstrate that in some ways, the A03 recoups some of the cultural capital and use value of print.
  • Front Matter Template

    Front Matter Template

    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by UT Digital Repository Copyright by Birch Griesse 2019 The Report Committee for Birch Griesse Certifies that this is the approved version of the following Report: Mediating Conflicting Values in a Community Archives Setting APPROVED BY SUPERVISING COMMITTEE: Amelia Acker, Supervisor Patricia K. Galloway Mediating Conflicting Values in a Community Archives Setting by Birch Griesse Report Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Information Studies The University of Texas at Austin May 2019 Acknowledgements I would like to thank Dr. Amelia Acker for her hard work in helping me navigate the process of researching and writing this report, including helping me overcome several obstacles along the way. I would also like to thank my mother, Janet Titus, for her continuous love and support. iv Abstract Mediating Conflicting Values in a Community Archives Setting Birch Griesse, M.S. Info. St. The University of Texas at Austin, 2019 Supervisor: Amelia Acker This report examines conflicts within the user community of the online fanwork repository Archive of Our Own (AO3). The site is a nonprofit venture with the ambitious goal of serving the large heterogeneous community of fandom writ large. Tensions among subsets of the Archive’s user group have flared up at various points in its ten-year history, forcing its volunteer-based staff into the position of arbiter of community values. These conflicting values have influenced, sometimes asymmetrically, the functionality of the Archive and are now embedded in its design.
  • Radicalizing Romance: Subculture, Sex, and Media at the Margins

    Radicalizing Romance: Subculture, Sex, and Media at the Margins

    RADICALIZING ROMANCE: SUBCULTURE, SEX, AND MEDIA AT THE MARGINS By ANDREA WOOD A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2008 1 © 2008 Andrea Wood 2 To my father—Paul Wood—for teaching me the value of independent thought, providing me with opportunities to see the world, and always encouraging me to pursue my dreams 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank Kim Emery, my dissertation supervisor, for her constant encouragement, constructive criticism, and availability throughout all stages of researching and writing this project. In addition, many thanks go to Kenneth Kidd and Trysh Travis for their willingness to ask me challenging questions about my work that helped me better conceptualize my purpose and aims. Finally, I would like to thank my friends and family who provided me with emotional and financial support at difficult stages in this process. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...............................................................................................................4 LIST OF FIGURES .........................................................................................................................7 ABSTRACT .....................................................................................................................................9 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................11
  • Boys' Love, Cosplay, and Androgynous Idols

    Boys' Love, Cosplay, and Androgynous Idols

    Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics, 3(1-2), 19 ISSN: 2542-4920 Book Review Boys’ Love, Cosplay, and Androgynous Idols: Queer Fan Cultures in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan Jenny Lin 1* Published: September 10, 2019 Edited By: Maud Lavin, Ling Yang, and Jing Jamie Zhao Publication Date: 2017 Publisher: Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, Queer Asia Series Price: HK $495 (Hong Kong, Macau, Mainland China, and Taiwan) US $60 (Other countries) Number of Pages: 292 pp. hardback. ISBN: 978-988-8390-9 If, like me, you were born before 1990 and are not immersed in online fan cultures, you may never have heard of the acronyms BL and GL that comprise the primary thrust of Boys’ Love, Cosplay, and Androgynous Idols: Queer Fan Cultures in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan (hereafter Queer Fan Cultures). Fortunately, this captivating anthology’s editors Maud Lavin, Ling Yang, and Jing Jamie Zhao define ‘BL (Boys’ Love, a fan subculture narrating male homoeroticism)’ and ‘GL (Girls’ Love, a fan subculture narrating female homoeroticism)’ (p. xi) at the outset in the Introduction. Lavin, Yang, and Zhao expertly unpack and contextualise these and other terms that may be new to the less enlightened reader – ‘ACG (anime, comics, and games)’ (p. xii); ‘slash/femslash (fan writing practices that explore male/female homoerotic romances)’ (p. xiv); and Chinese slang ‘tongzhi (gay), guaitai (weirdo), ku’er (cool youth)’ (p. xix) – which reappear in fruitful discussions in the following chapters. I recently assigned Queer Fan Cultures in a seminar, and my millennial students, who enthusiastically devoured the book, already knew all about BL, GL, and ACG, as well as related concepts like “cosplay” (costume play, as when people dress like manga and anime characters) and “shipping,” which denotes when fans couple two seemingly heterosexual characters in a same-sex relationship.
  • K-Pop Idols of K-Pop Fans in Thailand

    K-Pop Idols of K-Pop Fans in Thailand

    ปัจจัยที่ส่งผลให้แฟนเคป๊อปชาวไทยนิยมเขียนแฟนฟิคชันศิลปินไอดอลเคป๊อป แนวชายรักชายหรือหญิงรักหญิง THE MOTIVATING FACTORS OF WRITING SLASH FANFICTION OF K-POP IDOLS OF K-POP FANS IN THAILAND ปัจจัยที่ส่งผลให้แฟนเคป๊อปชาวไทยนิยมเขียนแฟนฟิคชันศิลปินไอดอลเคป๊อปแนวชายรักชาย หรือหญิงรักหญิง THE MOTIVATING FACTORS OF WRITING SLASH FANFICTION OF K-POP IDOLS OF K-POP FANS IN THAILAND นันท์นภัส กิจธรรมเชษฐ์ วิทยานิพนธ์นี้เป็นส่วนหนึ่งของการศึกษาตามหลักสูตร นิเทศศาสตรมหาบัณฑิต สาขาวิชาการสื่อสารการตลาดดิจิทัล มหาวิทยาลัยกรุงเทพ ปีการศึกษา 2561 © 2561 นันท์นภัส กิจธรรมเชษฐ์ สงวนลิขสิทธิ์ ฉ กิตติกรรมประกาศ วิทยานิพนธ์ฉบับนี้เดินทางมาถึงยังจุดหมายปลายทางได้ด้วยความกรุณาอย่างสูงของ ผศ.ดร.ปฐมา สตะเวทิน อาจารย์ที่ปรึกษาวิทยานิพนธ์ที่ให้ความใส่ใจและค าชี้แนะในการท า วิทยานิพนธ์แก่ผู้วิจัยด้วยความตั้งใจดีเสมอมา ผู้วิจัยตระหนักรู้ถึงความทุ่มเทและความตั้งใจดีของ อาจารย์อยู่เสมอและขอกราบขอบพระคุณอาจารย์ด้วยความซาบซึ้งใจเป็นอย่างสูงไว้ ณ ที่นี้ ขอขอบพระคุณอาจารย์ที่ปรึกษาร่วม รศ.ดร.โยธิน แสวงดี รวมถึง ผศ.ดร.ธรรญธร ปัญญ โสภณ และ ผศ.ดร.วรัชญ์ ครุจิต ที่กรุณาเป็นกรรมการสอบวิทยานิพนธ์ ตลอดจนให้ค าแนะน าจน วิทยานิพนธ์ฉบับนี้ส าเร็จลุล่วงได้ในที่สุด ขอขอบพระคุณผู้ให้สัมภาษณ์ทั้ง 11 ท่านที่สละเวลาและมอบข้อมูลอันเป็นประโยชน์และมี ค่ายิ่งแก่วิทยานิพนธ์ฉบับนี้จนท าให้วิทยานิพนธ์ฉบับนี้ส าเร็จลุล่วงตามวัตถุประสงค์ ขอบคุณเพื่อน นักเรียนไทยในเกาหลีทุกคนที่คอยตอบค าถามมากมายเกี่ยวกับวงการเคป๊อป ขอบคุณเจ้าหนูมารีมีลูก แมวเหมียวที่ช่วยอธิบายค าศัพท์ภาษาญี่ปุ่นที่จ าเป็นให้อยู่หลายครั้งหลายครา ขอบคุณเพื่อนๆพี่ๆ น้องๆนักศึกษาภาควิชาการสื่อสารการตลาดดิจิทัล รุ่นที่1 ทุกคนที่คอยให้ก
  • Sameness Attracts, Novelty Disturbs, but Outliers Flourish in Fanfiction

    Sameness Attracts, Novelty Disturbs, but Outliers Flourish in Fanfiction

    SAMENESS ATTRACTS,NOVELTY DISTURBS, BUT OUTLIERS FLOURISH IN FANFICTION ONLINE APREPRINT Elise Jing1, Simon DeDeo2, and Yong-Yeol Ahn3 1Department of Informatics, Indiana University 2Social and Decision Sciences, Dietrich College, Carnegie Mellon University 3Department of Informatics, Indiana University April 17, 2019 ABSTRACT The nature of what people enjoy is not just a central question for the creative industry, it is a driving force of cultural evolution. It is widely believed that successful cultural products balance novelty and conventionality: they provide something familiar but at least somewhat divergent from what has come before, and occupy a satisfying middle ground between “more of the same” and “too strange”. We test this belief using a large dataset of over half a million works of fanfiction from the website Archive of Our Own (AO3), looking at how the recognition a work receives varies with its novelty. We quantify the novelty through a term-based language model, and a topic model, in the context of existing works within the same fandom. Contrary to the balance theory, we find that the lowest-novelty are the most popular and that popularity declines monotonically with novelty. A few exceptions can be found: extremely popular works that are among the highest novelty within the fandom. Taken together, our findings not only challenge the traditional theory of the hedonic value of novelty, they invert it: people prefer the least novel things, are repelled by the middle ground, and have an occasional enthusiasm for extreme outliers. It suggests that cultural evolution must work against inertia — the appetite people have to continually reconsume the familiar, and may resemble a punctuated equilibrium rather than a smooth evolution.
  • What Does Gender Mean in Regendered Characters

    What Does Gender Mean in Regendered Characters

    What Does Gender Mean in Regendered Characters Author Baker, Lucy Published 2017-12-31 Thesis Type Thesis (PhD Doctorate) School School of Hum, Lang & Soc Sc DOI https://doi.org/10.25904/1912/2211 Copyright Statement The author owns the copyright in this thesis, unless stated otherwise. Downloaded from http://hdl.handle.net/10072/380299 Griffith Research Online https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au WHAT DOES GENDER MEAN IN REGENDERED CHARACTERS Ms Lucy Irene Baker, BA (Hons), MAppSci(Lib&InfoMgmt) School of Humanities, Languages, and Social Science Griffith University Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 31 December 2017 21 Abstract This thesis examines the ways regendering, or ‘genderswapping’, is performed as an adaptational creative choice for fans and creators. Regendered works, such as the TV series Elementary, illustrate the complexity of representation, and the ongoing imbalanced landscape of media. I develop a more cohesive understanding of the fannish counterpublic and its complex approaches to creativity and gender by grounding the research and data collection in fan studies, gender studies, and literary theory. This thesis uses interviews, surveys, and observations of fannish communities, and close readings of regendered texts and media, to develop two theories of regendered effects. One: the position of regendered work within fannish counterpublics is one centred on the conflicts and tensions between lived experiences and the media landscape, performed through the creative forms that characterise their communities. Fannish experiences of gender and sexuality influence their reception of those works, and how they practice regendering as a creative process. Two: these works then reinforce that counterpublic by correcting the gender imbalance of the initial work, and re-othering the expectations of that work.
  • Taylor Boulware a Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of The

    Taylor Boulware a Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of The

    Fascination/Frustration: Slash Fandom, Genre, and Queer Uptake Taylor Boulware A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2017 Reading Committee: Thomas Foster, Chair Anis Bawarshi Katherine Cummings Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Department of English Fascination/Frustration: Slash Fandom, Genre, and Queer Uptake by Taylor Boulware The University of Washington, 2017 Under the Supervision of Professor Dr. Thomas Foster ABSTRACT This dissertation examines contemporary television slash fandom, in which fans write and circulate creative texts that dramatize non-canonical queer relationships between canonically heterosexual male characters. These texts contribute to the creation of global networks of affective and social relations, critique the specific corporate media texts from which they emerge, and undermine homophobic ideologies that prevent authentic queer representation in mainstream media. Intervening in dominant scholarly and popular arguments about slash fans, I maintain a rigorous distinction between the act of reading homoerotic subtexts in TV shows and writing fiction that makes that homoeroticism explicit, in every sense of the word.This emphasis on writing and the circulation of responsive, recursive texts can best be understood, I argue, through the framework of Rhetorical Genre Studies, which theorizes genres and the ways in which they are deployed, modified, and circulated as ideological and social action. I nuance the RGS concept of uptake, which names the generic dimensions of utterance and response, and define my concept of queer uptake, in which writers respond to a text in ways that refuse its generic boundaries and status, motivated by an ideological resistance to both genre and sexual normativity.
  • A Portrait of Fandom Women in The

    A Portrait of Fandom Women in The

    DAUGHTERS OF THE DIGITAL: A PORTRAIT OF FANDOM WOMEN IN THE CONTEMPORARY INTERNET AGE ____________________________________ A Thesis Presented to The Honors TutoriAl College Ohio University _______________________________________ In PArtiAl Fulfillment of the Requirements for Graduation from the Honors TutoriAl College with the degree of Bachelor of Science in Journalism ______________________________________ by DelAney P. Murray April 2020 Murray 1 This thesis has been approved by The Honors TutoriAl College and the Department of Journalism __________________________ Dr. Eve Ng, AssociAte Professor, MediA Arts & Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Thesis Adviser ___________________________ Dr. Bernhard Debatin Director of Studies, Journalism ___________________________ Dr. Donal Skinner DeAn, Honors TutoriAl College ___________________________ Murray 2 Abstract MediA fandom — defined here by the curation of fiction, art, “zines” (independently printed mAgazines) and other forms of mediA creAted by fans of various pop culture franchises — is a rich subculture mAinly led by women and other mArginalized groups that has attracted mAinstreAm mediA attention in the past decAde. However, journalistic coverage of mediA fandom cAn be misinformed and include condescending framing. In order to remedy negatively biAsed framing seen in journalistic reporting on fandom, I wrote my own long form feAture showing the modern stAte of FAndom based on the generation of lAte millenniAl women who engaged in fandom between the eArly age of the Internet and today. This piece is mAinly focused on the modern experiences of women in fandom spaces and how they balAnce a lifelong connection to fandom, professional and personal connections, and ongoing issues they experience within fandom. My study is also contextualized by my studies in the contemporary history of mediA fan culture in the Internet age, beginning in the 1990’s And to the present day.

  • W41 PPB-Web.Pdf

    The thrilling adventures of... 41 Pocket Program Book May 26-29, 2017 Concourse Hotel Madison Wisconsin #WC41 facebook.com/wisconwiscon.net @wisconsf3 Name/Room No: If you find a named pocket program book, please return it to the registration desk! New! Schedule & Hours Pamphlet—a smaller, condensed version of this Pocket Program Book. Large Print copies of this book are available at the Registration Desk. TheWisSched app is available on Android and iOS. What works for you? What doesn't? Take the post-con survey at wiscon.net/survey to let us know! Contents EVENTS Welcome to WisCon 41! ...........................................1 Art Show/Tiptree Auction Display .........................4 Tiptree Auction ..........................................................6 Dessert Salon ..............................................................7 SPACES Is This Your First WisCon?.......................................8 Workshop Sessions ....................................................8 Childcare .................................................................. 10 Children's and Teens' Programming ..................... 11 Children's Schedule ................................................ 11 Teens' Schedule ....................................................... 12 INFO Con Suite ................................................................. 12 Dealers’ Room .......................................................... 14 Gaming ..................................................................... 15 Quiet Rooms ..........................................................
  • Art Happens Not in Isolation, but in Community’: the Collective Literacies of Media Fandom

    Art Happens Not in Isolation, but in Community’: the Collective Literacies of Media Fandom

    Jenkins, H. 2019. ‘Art Happens not in Isolation, But in Community’: The Collective Literacies of Media Fandom. Cultural Science cultural science Journal, 11(1), pp. 78–88. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/csci.125 RESEARCH ‘Art Happens not in Isolation, But in Community’: The Collective Literacies of Media Fandom Henry Jenkins University of Southern California, US [email protected] When the Archive of Our Own (AO3) received a prestigious Hugo Award from the World Science Fiction Convention in Dublin the summer of 2019, this moment represented a recognition by the literary science fiction community of an alternative model of authorship – one which operates outside the publishing world or academia, one where authorship is collective rather than individual, and one where artworks are appropriative and transformative rather than “original.” Using this occasion as my starting point, I will discuss here the ways that the literacies associated with fandom may be understood as illustrative of the new forms of expression that have taken shape in a networked era. Keywords: fandom; literacy; mentorship; science fiction All fanwork, from fanfic to vids to fanart to podfic, centers the idea that art happens not in isolation, but in community….all of our hard work and contributions would mean nothing without the work of the fan creators who share their work freely with other fans, and the fans who read their stories and view their art and comment and share bookmarks and give kudos to encourage them and nourish the community in their turn. – Naomi Novik on behalf of the Archive of Our Own at the Hugo Awards, Aug.