francescacoppa

[francescacoppa]

Blogging at Fanhackers

Hi - doing something new at OTW, blogging for Fanhackers. Hopefully on Sundays (more or less.)  Gonna try to be here more too. 

Intro post here: https://tmblr.co/ZxUk-td-mhNUum00

[francescacoppa]

Call for papers on The Dark Fantastic

I don’t normally post CFP, but this seemed like an interesting collection: Liverpool University’s journal Science Fiction Film & Television is seeking essays for a forthcoming special issue dedicated to thinking about Ebony Elizabeth Thomas’s book, The Dark Fantastic.  The issue intends to pay specific attention to Black girl protagonists in science fiction and film, and invites “contributions that engage meaningfully with the key concepts, methods, and proposals from The Dark Fantastic.” Abstracts are due May 31; more information can be found here:https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/pb-assets/documents/Journals/sfftv_Black%20Fantastic%20CFP-1682698592.pdf

[francescacoppa]

actual ad from when Subaru was marketing directly to lesbians in the 90s

[francescacoppa]

THE GREATEST is long, fast-cut vid not only made up entirely of characters of color (hundreds of them!) but the kind of wildly heroic genre fiction characters that fandom loves... It is 4:27 minutes of fabulous power walks, hero shots, bold looks, and big emotions, with characters of color finally getting, en masse, to experience the wonders of saving the world and exploring the universe. There is also love: bironic ends the vid with a montage of hugs and kisses, loving families and sexy relationships, het and slash. Bironic also released the vid with a subtitle track that identifies the characters and shows, so the vid also functions as a recruiter vid for stories featuring diverse characters.

Read more of Vidding: A History (@UofMPress, 2022) at: https://www.fulcrum.org/concern/monographs/hq37vq792

[francescacoppa]

TO TOUCH THE FACE OF GOD is a vid about the space program, and Destina uses the classical/epic music of E. S. Posthumus to invoke emotions like awe and humility at images too often used as mere backdrops for comic book violence: earth, the moon, the surfaces of other planets, rocket ships, the star field. TO TOUCH THE FACE OF GOD uses both real and cinematic footage to narrate mankind’s desire for flight, moving us from Chuck Yeager’s breaking of the sound barrier through the various Mercury and Apollo missions to the achievement of the moon. The vid is, to quote Destina, “a tribute to manned space flight, and to the sometimes unheralded dreamers, technicians, engineers, science geeks, and support staff (and test pilots) who made it possible.” 

Read more of Vidding: A History (@UofMPress, 2022) at: https://www.fulcrum.org/concern/monographs/hq37vq792

[francescacoppa]

In PAUL MCCARTNEY, jarrow edits footage from Will & Grace so that the characters bounce and gyrate, gesticulate, snap, and boogie together.

There is joy in creating and observing these kinds of patterns. As jarrow recollects, “I decided to start by grouping similar clips together (fainting, victorious arm pumps, hugs and kisses, gasping in shock, dances, etc.) and see if I could make sense of it. . . . When I was rewatching the episodes, I grabbed interesting motion-y bits with absolutely no idea that they would be paralleled later (by other characters or themselves). It was such a delightful surprise to end up with something like twenty different clumps of paralleled motion.”

Read more of Vidding: A History (U Michigan Press, 2022) at: https://www.fulcrum.org/concern/monographs/hq37vq792

[francescacoppa]

*waves arms in the air wildly*. It took ten years to write, but here it is finally both in print and in a free to read, expanded, online edition with vids and art included!  Read it here: https://t.co/KU1fjBjLGG!! 

[francescacoppa]

Three vids by three master vidders (all of whom are discussed in my forthcoming book, Vidding: A History.) Three different styles, three different stories, three different aesthetics.  My book is already in press or OMG, is there a chapter right here!  (I might write a mini essay on each of these, actually; they’re each so brilliant in their own way.)  WATCH AND ENJOY.  

[francescacoppa]

Cannot WAIT to make the Columbo villains fanvid that the internet has been absolutely CLAMORING for

[francescacoppa]

And now....for my next trick! :D.  Forthcoming!  (They’re building it!) (It’s going to be free to read!) (It’s got vids embedded!) (It features so many amazing vidders!)  

[francescacoppa]

While many people think fanfiction is about inserting sex into texts (like Tolkien’s) where it doesn’t belong, Brancher sees it differently: “I was desperate to read about sex that included great friendship; I was repurposing Tolkien’s text in order to do that. It wasn’t that friendship needed to be sexualized, it was that erotica needed to be … friendship-ized.” Many fanfiction writers write about sex in conjunction with beloved texts and characters not because they think those texts are incomplete, but because they’re looking for stories where sex is profound and meaningful. This is part of what makes fan fiction different from pornography: unlike pornography, fanfic features characters we already care deeply about, and who tend to already have long-standing and complex relationships with each other. It’s a genre of sexual subjectification: the very opposite of objectification. It’s benefits with friendship.

Francesca Coppa, “Introduction to The Dwarf’s Tale,” The Fanfiction Reader (via francescacoppa)

[francescacoppa]

I realize I didn’t reblog this here - this is the other side of my career - but it occurs to me that some of you might be willing to donate toward putting up a statue of gay, working class playwright Joe Orton.  Orton’s career is a mess of defiance and criminality and fuck-the-system bravado and problematic sexual tourism and sparkling wit, but he was defiant and unashamed at a moment when that was a damn near impossible thing to be. They didn’t call him the Oscar Wilde of Welfare State Gentility for nothing, and Wilde’s got a statue! Plus Ian McKellen is on the team, as is Stephen Fry and Kenneth Cranham and Alec Baldwin and a lot of other fan favorites who have played Orton roles over the years (including David Tennant, who played Nick in What the Butler Saw.)

[francescacoppa]

Co-founded by English Professor Francesca Coppa, the site is a community for artists, a fan-built social network and a female-designed and -led software project.

[francescacoppa]

I have given talks about our “curated folksonomy,” which is what it’s called, to librarians and archivists! And @cfiesler has done great work re: tags and such!

I just spent 2 hours debating and testing and arguing in circles and bitching about library catalogs with two colleagues and I just want to say

AO3’s website is really, really, really impressive, functional and ergonomic and cohesive. the tag system is INCREDIBLE and AMAZINGLY maintained. this is my professional librarian appraisal.

I’ve found 1 library catalog that meets my standards. even the national library of France’s catalog is shitty in comparison to ao3.

praise.

[francescacoppa]

We’re making some overdue improvements to the code that powers our login system. When we make these changes, all Archive users will be logged out of their accounts.

To avoid permanently losing access to your account, please make sure you know your password and/or can receive password reset emails by December 13.

For full details, please refer to the post.