transformativeworksandcultures

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TWC 45: Sports Fandoms [Special Issue]

Editorial

Jason Kido Lopez, Lori Kido Lopez; Beyond the game: New perspectives on sports fandom

Article

Laura Nyhart Broman; Fandom, speculation, and capitalist space-time at the Crypto.com Arena

Júlia Zen Dariva, Natália Brauns Cazelgrandi Ferreira; "What a bust": Character selection and the possibilities of failure in hockey RPF

Seth S. Tannenbaum; The historical marginalization of Black fans at Major League Baseball games

Brendan O'Hallarn; The legend of Taylor Heinicke: An autoethnography of unexpected, passionate fandom

Natalie Le Clue; Controversy, social media, and Formula One: Examining #VoidLap58

Sammy Roth; Institutionally appointed fan-athletes: The hegemonic performativity, commodification, and consumption of scholastic dance teams

Cameron Michels, Deepa Sivarajan; "Pass it to your girlfriend!": A collaborative autoethnography of a friendship through women's sports fandom

Symposium

Dafna Kaufman; Everyone watches women's sports

Tom Z. Bradstreet; The implicated supporter: Complicity and resistance in contemporary football fandom

Alexander Kupfer; Detroit wants Ty Tyson: National and regional fandom and the 1934 NBC World Series radio broadcast

Emry Sottile; Fanception on ice!!!: Cycles of choreographic adaptation and fandom in figure skating

Book review

Tess Tianzi Chen; “Queer transfigurations: Boys love media in Asia,” edited by James Welker

Allison McCracken; "A queer way of feeling: Girl fans and personal archives of early Hollywood," by Diana W. Anselmo

Multimedia

Laís Limonta Gonçalves, Gabriela Lopes Gomes; The commodification of affections among Taylor Swift's and Travis Kelce's fan communities and the Cetaphil Super Bowl 2024 advertisement

Chloe Bond; "Who's afraid of little old me?": A Swiftie theory of monstrous femininity

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CFP: Latin American Fandoms

Latin American fandom is a topic that rarely appears in peer-reviewed articles in English and irregularly in Spanish. Phenomena such as fan fiction (fanfic), cosplay, and online communities allow us to explore the representation (Aranda et al., 2013) and appropriation (Yucra-Quispe et al., 2022) of national content (telenovelas and narcocorridos) as well as content from other countries, whether it be movies or streaming platforms.    

Despite its unifying name, Latin America is home to diverse panoramas and forms of expression. This territory contains countless sources of scholarly tradition that analyzes practices and content derived from entertainment products (books, films, games, among others), called prosumer practices, which are the result of the creativity of Internet users (Fernández Castrillo, 2014), under the approach of Digital Humanities. This space represents fertile ground for Spanish-speaking researchers to apply multidisciplinary methods and theories.    

This call opens the door to studies that delve into the uncharted territory of Latin American fan practices. Fandom studies include the analysis of the impact of influencers, the modernization of heritage works, trends in the publishing industry (such as slow-burn romance novels) that function as a space for identification, allegiance or rebellion (Vargas Vargas, 2022), multilingualism in the digital world, and teaching practices that use elements of popular culture, from fairy tales to anime, to promote new literacies in the classroom.    

This call for papers invites researchers, students, and fandom participants to share their analysis of fandom practices from the multidisciplinary perspective of fan studies, as well as literary criticism of transformative works written in Spanish, focusing on intersectional perspectives of race, gender, class, and nationality in the study of fandom content. The publishing language is English.  

Texts will be received in English and may include, among other topics:

Fandom and Communities: analysis of prosumer entertainment practices (discussion forums, Discord, cosplay) and the different discourses that are woven into them from an appropriation perspective of mass media content.   

New Techniques; Evergreen Knowledge: mono- or multidisciplinary research on the role of new technologies in the creation of meaning, communication and safeguarding of native digital content.  

Literature on the Internet: reflections on how platforms, archives or transformative works expand or complement the Latin American literary tradition.  

Literary Criticism of Fandom Works and Practices: critical explorations from decolonial, feminist, critical discourse analysis perspectives, etc.  

Fandom in the Classroom: description of fandom practices in the development of critical thinking, multimedia and academic literacy.

Submit final papers directly to Transformative Works and Cultures by January 1, 2026.

Submission Guidelines

Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC, http://journal.transformativeworks.org/) is an international peer-reviewed online Diamond Open Access publication of the nonprofit Organization for Transformative Works, copyrighted under a Creative Commons License. TWC aims to provide a publishing outlet that welcomes fan-related topics and promotes dialogue between academic and fan communities. TWC accommodates academic articles of varying scope and other forms, such as multimedia, that embrace the technical possibilities of the internet and test the limits of the academic writing genre.

Articles: Peer review. Maximum 8,000 words.

Symposium: Editorial review. Maximum 4,000 words.

Please visit TWC's website (https://journal.transformativeworks.org/) for complete submission guidelines or email the TWC Editor (editor@transformativeworks.org). 

Contact—Contact guest editors Yazmín Carrizales and Libertad Garzón with any questions before or after the due date at fandoms.latam@gmail.com. 

References

Aranda, D., Sánchez-Navarro, J. y Roig, A. (2013). Fanáticos: La cultura fan. Editorial UOC.

Fernández Castrillo, C. (2014).  Prácticas transmedia en la era del prosumidor: Hacia una definición del Contenido Generado por el Usuario (CGU). Cuadernos de Información y Comunicación, 19, 53-67.

Vargas Vargas, J. (2022). Tatakae: El giro espacial del animé en el contexto de la protesta social. Contratexto, 38(038), 43-71.

Yucra-Quispe, L. M., Espinoza-Montoya, C., Núñez-Pacheco, R. y Aguaded, I. (2022). De consumidores a prosumidores: la narrativa transmedia en dos juegos móviles para adolescentes y jóvenes. Revista de Comunicación, 21(1), 433-451.

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TWC 44: Centering Blackness in Fan Studies [Special Issue]

Editorial

Alfred L. Martin Jr., and Matt Griffin, Putting the "Black" in fan studies

Article

Mel Monier and Kristen Leer, "Since the moment pictures could move, we had skin in the game": Black horror podcasters as fans, critics, and creators

Osarugue Otebele, The (anti)fan is Black: Consumption, resistance, and Black K-pop fan vigil labor

Allyson F. Smith, Black fan evangelism and transactional fan participation space in the Hillman Bookstore

Kadian Pow, A true sista: Exploring intraracial fantagonisms among Black women fans of Scandal

Interview

The onus is not on us: Race and fan studies ten years after "African American acafandom and other strangers"

Symposium

Francesca Coppa, Vidding and the oppositional gaze: The pleasures of critique

Cara Marta Messina, "Missandei deserves better": A case study on loving Blackness through critical fan fiction

Onyinyechukwu M. Chidi-Ogbolu, To love and to labor: The Black female fan experience

Book review

Brandon Blackburn reviews "The privilege of play," by Aaron Trammell

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Fans of Color Prize Winner!

Transformative Works and Cultures is pleased to announce Osarugue Otebele as our inaugural Fans of Color Prize award winner for her article “The (anti)fan is black: Consumption, resistance, and black K-pop fan vigil labor”! Otebele’s article will be published in TWC’s upcoming special issue “Centering Blackness in Fan Studies” on December 15th. 

The Fans of Color Prize had 15 submissions, covering the breadth of TWC’s publications from 2021-2024, while providing an incredible glimpse into the impactful work happening in (and outside of) fan studies. Otebele’s submission stood out because, as one reviewer noted, it was “conceptually ambitious.” 

Otebele, a 4th year PhD candidate in the Department of Film & Media at UC Berkeley who goes by Osa among friends and colleagues, is a K-pop fan! She’s been an Epik-High fan since middle school and is also a fan of UKISS, SISTAR, EXO, BOYFRIEND, and others. As a fan, Otebele’s hope is that the K-pop industry will continue to thrive. 

We sat down with Otebele to discuss what brought her to her research, what she’s working on next, and where she sees the field heading. As a little sneak peek to the upcoming issue on “Centering Blackness in Fan Studies,” we’ve shared some of her remarks below. 

TWC: What brought you to this specific research topic? Otebele: I’ve been a K-pop fan since I was in middle school. When I was a younger fan, I wasn’t as aware of the racial tensions in fandom spaces. It wasn’t until I got to high school that I realized that my lack of involvement was also due to not knowing where to locate other Black K-pop fans. This was partly because it was also in high school when words such as “woke” or “conscious” became part of my vocabulary, so I was always looking for ways to bring attention to my Blackness and, as a  K-pop fan, it was difficult to do that. Both the industry and many non-Black fans wanted to escape from having conversations about race.  TWC: Could you briefly explain the key problem or question your article, “The (anti)fan is black: Consumption, resistance, and black K-pop fan vigil labor,” addresses?  Otebele: My article is interested in the ways Black K-pop fans engage instances of appropriation within the industry (from artists and fans), while also attempting to maintain their status as fans. Some of the key questions of my article were, “what makes an anti-fan?” and “how do Black K-pop fans employ digital media platforms to perform their fannish affect?”  TWC: Were there any unexpected challenges you encountered during your research? Otebele: I would say the biggest challenge was working against my own knowledge and love for the industry to write an article that was quite critical of it. In a way, this challenge is also what my article describes, because I’m really invested in how, for Black fans, the identities fan and anti-fan often require their simultaneous performance.  TWC:��Are you planning any follow-up research or new projects based on this article?  Otebele: Yes! I’m currently working on another article focused on narrative coherence in the aesthetic performances in K-pop eras. In that paper, I examine how K-pop engenders a critical addition to the instability of cultural identity while on the other hand, it necessitates and reproduces the fungibility of Blackness, where groups can enter in and out of a performance of Blackness that best fits a particular era. My concerns are with how the narrative coherence of each era (hip-hop era, afro-beat era, Y2K, or house music era) requires a commitment to the performance demanded from these various musical genres.  TWC: Where do you see the field heading in the next few years, and how do you hope your work contributes to that?  Otebele: I think much of K-pop studies is focused on transnational fandoms and cross-cultural exchange, but we should also be having the difficult conversations about cultural extraction, about race, about gender and their relationship to fan labor. The industry is growing even more global with many K-pop idols emerging from the United States, Canada, Japan, and more. We really have to turn our attention to the kind of social ideologies that these idols are bringing from their various cultures and locations and how that changes not only the sound and look of the industry but also its fandom. 

Otebele also emphasized to us that receiving this award as a grad student really gave her work a sense of validity and importance, while also encouraging her to continue working on Black fan experience of K-pop. When asked if she had any advice for early career researchers aiming for impactful publications, Otebele shared: “Revise, revise, revise!” 

We can’t wait for you all to get to read Osa Otebele’s award-winning article, “The (anti)fan is black: Consumption, resistance, and black K-pop fan vigil labor,” which will be published in our upcoming special issue “Centering Blackness in Fan Studies” on December 15. Congratulations again, Osa, from everyone at Transformative Works and Cultures! 

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CFP: Gaming Fandom

The study and analysis of creative fan production (e.g., fanfiction, fanart, cosplay, etc.) is a cornerstone of fandom studies. These practices enable fans to assert a level of authorship over their favorite media – to reimagine, recontextualize, and reconceptualize their canons to better reflect their desires, wants, interests, and demands. They provide voice to individuals who cannot necessarily shape source texts directly (Vinney & Dill-Shackleford, 2018), allowing fans to carve out space for themselves within the pop-culture landscape that celebrates/embraces their identities. This is particularly poignant for marginalized fans. As such, we can understand fan practices as unique and invaluable forms of cultural critique (Jenkins, 2006; McCullough, 2020). 

This active engagement – arguably – is magnified within gaming fandoms and communities because the act of play is inherent to the source texts, whether that play comes in the form of hitting keys on a keyboard, moving joysticks on controllers, rolling dice, etc. Gaming seemingly provides fans an inherent sense of authorship over source texts as the players’ actions, choices, and skill shape the outcomes and narrative progression; thus, gaming fandom presents a strong opportunity to explore the idea of fan creativity as cultural critique and our understanding of authorship, ownership, and identity across the pop-cultural landscape. This strength is only increased by the critical reality of many gaming communities and spaces; criticism leveraged at games, gamers, and gaming communities is commonplace with topics like the lack of representation, the focus on hegemonic masculinity that often takes a turn towards toxicity, and the vitriol directed towards gender and sexual orientation politics being frequent points of discussion both by scholars/researchers, by journalists and reviewers, and by those within these communities. Of course, not all gaming criticism focuses on the cultural and political; some emphasize mechanical, financial, and performance issues.

 This special issue of Transformative Works and Cultures will explore fan creativity as critique in gaming fandoms; while we are construing the term ‘gaming fandom’ broadly, we are primarily interested in analyses and scholarly discussions of and related to fan-made works and productions, including fanfiction, fanart, cosplay, mods, fan-made games and series, etc. We welcome all forms from methodology – quantitative and qualitative, empirical and theoretical, etc. Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

Exploration of how fan-made works address and critique gender norms and sexual identities within gaming communities.

Exploration of fanfiction as a means of reclaiming and reshaping game lore and canon.

Analysis of LGBTQ+ representation and narratives in gaming fanfiction and fanart.

Case studies of specific mods (i.e., modifications) that have sparked significant discussion or controversy.

Investigation into how cosplay challenges or reinforces cultural stereotypes and representations.

The role of cosplay in expressing identity and critiquing game character design.

Study of fan-created games that offer alternative perspectives or critique the original game.

Exploration of intersectional critiques in fan-made content.

Investigation into how the act of play influences and enhances fan creativity and critique.

Study of how fan productions are received by broader gaming communities and the original creators.

The impact of fan critique and creativity on game development and industry response.

Examination of the ethical considerations and legal challenges in creating and sharing fan-made works.

Discussion of intellectual property and the boundaries of fan authorship.

Study of how digital platforms (e.g., YouTube, Twitch, Discord) facilitate and shape fan creativity and critique.

The role of social media in disseminating and discussing fan-made works.

Comparative analysis of fan creativity and critique across different gaming franchises or genres.

Examination of regional differences in fan production and cultural critique.

Submission Guidelines

Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC, http://journal.transformativeworks.org/) is an international peer-reviewed online Diamond Open Access publication of the nonprofit Organization for Transformative Works, copyrighted under a Creative Commons License. TWC aims to provide a publishing outlet that welcomes fan-related topics and promotes dialogue between academic and fan communities. TWC accommodates academic articles of varying scope as well as other forms, such as multimedia, that embrace the technical possibilities of the internet and test the limits of the genre of academic writing.

Submit final papers directly to Transformative Works and Cultures by January 1, 2025.

Articles: Peer review. Maximum 8,000 words.

Symposium: Editorial review. Maximum 4,000 words.

Please visit TWC's website (https://journal.transformativeworks.org/) for complete submission guidelines, or email the TWC Editor (editor@transformativeworks.org). 

Contact—Contact guest editors Hayley McCullough and Ashley P. Jones with any questions before or after the due date at hmccullough.popculture@gmail.com and ashley.jones@wartburg.edu .

Bibliography

Dill-Shackleford, Karen E., Cynthia Vinney, and Kristin Hopper-Losenicky. 2016. “Connecting the Dots between Fantasy and Reality: The Social Psychology of Our Engagement with Fictional Narrative and Its Functional Value.” Social and Personality Psychology Compass 10, no. 11: 634–46.

Goodman, Lesley. 2015. “Disappointing Fans: Fandom, Fictional Theory, and the Death of the Author.” The Journal of Popular Culture 48, no. 4: 662–76.

Jenkins, Henry. 2006. Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture. New York: New York University Press.

McCullough, Hayley. 2020. “The Diamonds and the Dross: A Quantitative Exploration of Integrative Complexity in Fanfiction.” Psychology of Popular Media 9, no. 1: 59–68.

Vinney, Cynthia, and Karen E. Dill-Shackleford. 2018. “Fan Fiction as a Vehicle for Meaning-Making: Eudaimonic Appreciation, Hedonic Enjoyment, and Other Perspectives on Fan Engagement with Television.” Psychology of Popular Media Culture 7, no. 1: 18–32.

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CFP: Disability

 Special Issue CFP for TWC: Disability

Robert McRuer writes in Crip Theory that at some point in every person’s life, if they live long enough, they will be disabled. Yet, while disablement is an extremely common experience and ableism a hegemonic form of marginalization, disability is largely understudied across fields (Minich 2016, Ellcessor 2018). Fan studies has neglected to consistently explore disability or acknowledge the presence of ableism, resulting in a dearth of peer-reviewed publications on this intersection and a silencing of crip critique from disabled fans and scholars.

Disability studies formed in critique of the medical model of disability, which views disability as a problem to be solved. Most of the field’s critical work historically centers the social model, which frames disability not as a medical condition but as a social process discursively situated in histories of power (Siebers 2008). Contemporary disability scholarship more frequently works from Kafer’s (2013) political-relational model of disability, which clarifies that disability and impairment are both socially constructed, while also making explicit room for material realities of disablement, such as chronic pain and fatigue, and the inextricable mental-physical experiences of the bodymind, such as aging and neurodivergence (Price 2015). Approaching disability across the humanities has produced diverse modes of analyzing disability as identity (Shakespeare 1997), community (Clare 2017), and mediated representation (Garland-Thomson 1997), leading to crip theories exploring disability intersectionality to critique the ideology of ability (Samuels 2003, McRuer 2006). Disability studies especially draws from queer theory, building on the concept of compulsory heterosexuality—the hegemonic framework which renders heterosexuality the only thinkable option—to propose compulsory able-bodiedness, the requirement that disabled bodies perform as able and desire ability, highlighting homophobia and ableism as intersecting oppressions (McRuer 2006, Clare 2017). Further intersectional crip critique comes from Puar (2017) and other postcolonial and antiracist scholars (Schalk 2018), who describe how the violence of ableism is inequitably applied across multiply marginalized populations, illustrating how disability is not only missing from many intersectional theories of identity, but intersectionality has been lacking in disability theories.

We, as the editors of this issue, understand disability within the framework of the intersectional political-relational model, and believe that fan studies is well situated to contribute to discussions of disability. For example, Sterne and Mills (2017) propose “dismediation” as one mode of aligning media and disability studies’ often divergent goals through recognizing disability and media as co-constitutive—media concepts are awash with metaphors of disablement, and disabilities are so often figured against the cultural narratives and technological specifications of media. Further, fan studies’ continued claims to fandom’s transformative capacity and attention to “bodies in space” (Coppa 2014) desperately require the incorporation of disability critique. Fan studies has not entirely neglected disability as a marginalized identity, as fan scholars have begun to explore the accessibility of online fandom (Ellcessor 2018), examine the disability implications of fanfic as care labor (Leetal 2019), and advocate for thinking with disability to become a “default setting” in our field (Howell 2019). However, the disciplinary lacuna between these two fields has made it difficult for these conversations to develop a strong institutional foothold. By centering disability in fan studies’ discussions, this special issue can foster an encouraging environment for emerging dialogue between the fields to develop, as well as a supportive space for marginalized scholars and fans who do not see themselves represented in media, fan communities, or scholarship spaces.

We encourage submissions from scholars writing about disability from a fan studies perspective, as well as disability scholars writing about topics intersecting with fans/audiences/reception practices. We especially welcome intersectional perspectives that engage with disability as it operates in relation to intersecting identities such as race, gender, sexuality, class, and nationality (Bell 2016). Pieces for this special issue may explore questions of disability and fandom from an embodied, textual, or discursive perspective, for instance: What are the experiences of various disabled fans in fandom? What discourses of disability are circulated, perpetuated, and/or critiqued in fan spaces? How do fans negotiate portrayals of disability in their subjects of fandom, from movies to podcasts to celebrities? How has disability accessibility figured in various fandoms and fan spaces? How do rhetorics of disability, illness, and health affect fan communities and discussions? How does disability identity intersect with fan identity, and/or other marginalized identities?

Submissions may involve but are not limited to:

Fans/fandom and…

Dis/ability

Impairment

Neurodivergence

Chronic pain and/or illness

Mental illness and/or Mad perspectives

Bodyminds

Health

Bodily norms/Normativity

Discourses/narratives/representations of any of the above topics

Accessibility, in digital spaces (Tumblr, Dreamwidth, etc.) and/or physical spaces (conventions, industry, etc.)

Fan mediums with particular relationships to disability, such as cosplay or podfic

Submission Guidelines

Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC, http://journal.transformativeworks.org/) is an international peer-reviewed online Diamond Open Access publication of the nonprofit Organization for Transformative Works, copyrighted under a Creative Commons License. TWC aims to provide a publishing outlet that welcomes fan-related topics and promotes dialogue between academic and fan communities. TWC accommodates academic articles of varying scope as well as other forms, such as multimedia, that embrace the technical possibilities of the internet and test the limits of the genre of academic writing.

Submit final papers directly to Transformative Works and Cultures by January 1, 2025.

Articles: Peer review. Maximum 8,000 words.

Symposium: Editorial review. Maximum 4,000 words.

Please visit TWC's website (https://journal.transformativeworks.org/) for complete submission guidelines, or email the TWC Editor (editor@transformativeworks.org). 

Contact—Contact guest editors Olivia Johnston Riley and Lauren Rouse with any questions before or after the due date DisabilityFandomTWC@gmail.com. 

Works Cited

Bell, Chris. 2016. “Is Disability Studies Actually White Disability Studies?” In The Disability Studies Reader edited by Lennard Davis, 406-425. New York: Routledge.

Clare, Eli. 2017. Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure. Durham: Duke University Press.

Coppa, Francesca. 2014. “Writing Bodies in Space: Media Fan Fiction as Theatrical Performance.” In The Fan Fiction Studies Reader, edited by Karen Hellekson and Kristina Busse, 218-238. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.

Davis, Lennard. 1995. “Introduction: Disability, the Missing Term in the Race, Class, Gender Triad.” In Enforcing Normalcy: Disability, Deafness, and the Body, 23-49. London and New York: Verso.

Ellcessor, Elizabeth. 2018. “Accessing Fan Cultures: Disability, Digital Media, and Dreamwidth” in The Routledge Companion to Media Fandom, edited by Melissa A. Click and Suzanne Scott, 202-211. New York: Routledge.

Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie. 1997. Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature. New York: Columbia University Press.

Howell, Katherine Anderson. 2019. “Human Activity: Fan Studies, Fandom, Disability and the Classroom.” Journal of Fandom Studies 7(1). https://doi.org/10.1386/jfs.7.1.3_2 

Kafer, Alison. 2013. Feminist, Queer, Crip. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

Leetal, Dean Barnes. 2019. “Those Crazy Fangirls on the Internet: Activism of Care, Disability and Fan Fiction.” Canadian Journal of Disability Studies 8 (2). https://cjds.uwaterloo.ca/index.php/cjds/article/view/491  

McRuer, Robert. 2006. Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability. New York and London: New York University Press.

Minich, Julie Avril. 2016. “Enabling Whom? Critical Disability Studies Now.” Lateral: Journal of the Cultural Studies Association, 5.1. https://csalateral.org/issue/5-1/forum-alt-humanities-critical-disability-studies-now-minich/.

Price, Margaret. 2015. "The Bodymind Problem and the Possibilities of Pain." Hypatia 30, no. 1: 268-284.

Puar, Jasbir. 2017. The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

Samuels, Ellen. 2003. “My Body, My Closet: Invisible Disability and the Limits of Coming Out Discourse.” GLQ 9, no.1-2: 233-255.

Schalk, Sami. 2018. Bodyminds Reimagined. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

Shakespeare, Tom. 1996. “Disability, Identity and Difference.” Exploring the Divide, edited by Colin Barnes and Geof Mercer:  94-113.

Siebers, Tobin. 2008. Disability Theory. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.

Sterne, Jonathan and Mara Mills. 2017. “Dismediation: Three Proposals, Six Tactics.” In Disability Media Studies, edited by Elizabeth Ellcessor and Bill Kirkpatrick. New York: NYU Press.

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TWC 42: Fandom and Platforms [Special Issue]

Editorial

Maria K. Alberto, Effie Sapuridis, and Lesley Willard; Putting forward platforms in fan studies

Article

David Kocik, PS Berge, Camille Butera, Celeste Oon, and Michael Senters; "Imagine a place:" Power and intimacy in fandoms on Discord

Kimberly Kennedy; "It's not your tumblr": Commentary-style tagging practices in fandom communities

Axel-Nathaniel Rose; #web-weaving: Parallel posts, commonplace books, and networked technologies of the self on Tumblr

Sam Binnie; Using the Murdoch Mysteries fandom to examine the types of content fans share online

Gamze Kelle; How Covid-19 has affected fan-performer relationships within visual kei

Rhea Vichot; The expression of sehnsucht in the Japanese city pop revival fandom through visual media on Reddit and YouTube

Welmoed Fenna Wagenaar; Discord as a fandom platform: Locating a new playground

Sourojit Ghosh and Cecilia Aragon; Leveraging community support and platform affordances on a path to more active participation: A study of online fan fiction communities

Paul Ocone; Fandom and the ethics of world-making: Building spaces for belonging on BobaBoard

Amber Moore; Analyzing an archive of allyish distributed mentorship in "Speak" fan fiction comments and reviews

Jionghao Liu and Ling Yang; Censorship on Japanese anime imported into mainland China

Lin Zhang; Boys’ love in the Chinese platformization of cultural production

Matt Griffin and Greg Loring-Albright; Platforming the past: Nostalgia, video games, and A Hat in Time

Irissa Cisternino; Players, production and power: Labor and identity in live streaming video games

Symposium

Yvonne Gonzales and Celeste Oon; Public versus private aca-fan identities and platforms: An academic dialogue

Dawn Walls-Thumma; The fading of the elves: Techno-volunteerism and the disappearance of Tolkien fan fiction archives

Martyna Szczepaniak; The differences between author’s notes on FanFiction.net and AO3

Muxin Zhang; Fandom image-making and the fan gaze in transnational K-pop fan cam culture

Sabrina Mittermeier; "One day longer, one day stronger": Online platforms, fan support and the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes

Book review

Sebastian F. K. Svegaard reviews "Vidding: A history" by Francesca Coppa

Laurel P. Rogers reviews "Fandom, the next generation," edited by Bridget Kies and Megan Connor

Axel-Nathaniel Rose reviews "Mediatized fan play: Moods, modes and dark play in networked communities," by Line Nybro Petersen

Multimedia

Naomi Jacobs, Katherine Crighton, and Shivhan Szabo; Building the spear: A demonstration in faking and remaking real feelings for an imaginary work

Rachel Loewen; "Darkness never prevails": Doctor Who Covid-19 videos as keystones for pandemic engagement

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Fans of Color Research Prize

Transformative Works and Cultures is now seeking submissions for the 2024 Fans of Color Research Prize. The award recognizes the best peer-reviewed article about fans and/or fandoms of color published in TWC in the preceding 3 years (for 2024, no earlier than 2021) and furthers the journal’s goal to support scholars whose work fills critical gaps in fan studies literature about racially marginalized and/or non-western fans. The winner will receive a $500 cash prize.

Submission details:

The submission must be about fans of color. This designation includes both groups that are racially marginalized, such as Latine fans in the US, and fans in nonwestern international contexts, such as Chinese fans in China.

It must have been published no earlier than 2021.

Only one article per author will be considered. 

Authors may self-nominate, or articles may be nominated by someone else. Authors nominated by third parties will be asked whether they consent to participate.

Submissions must include the submitter’s name, article title, and DOI or link and are due to twc-prize@tw.org no later than May 1, 2024 (Anywhere on Earth).

A prize committee composed of members of the TWC editorial board will evaluate submissions. 

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TWC 41: Chinese Fandoms [Special Issue]

Editorial

Zhen Troy Chen and Celia Lam, Special issue on Chinese fandoms: Prosumers, communities, and identities

Article

Yidong Wang and Yilan Wang, Dangai fandoms under crossfire: The making of queer love in a permeable and convergent media ecology

Kexin Sun, The politicization of Chinese celebrity fandoms: A case study of discursive practices in the 227 Movement

Agata Ewa Wrochna, Best TV show you have never seen: Maintaining collective identity among the Twitter fandom of Chinese dangai drama Immortality

Dania Shaikh, Reimagining queer Asias: Performativity, censorship and queer kinship in the fandoms of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation and The Untamed

Tingting Hu, Chenchen Zou, Erika Ningxin Wang, A male idol becoming a girl? Nisu fans' sexual fantasy about male stars

Yijia Du, Doing feminism through Chinese online fiction fandom

Meihua Lu, From Cinderella to i-woman: Web novels, fandom, and feminist politics in China

Yuhang Sheng and Qing Xiao, "Play with me!" Zhan jie as productive fans in the Chinese idol industry

Leiyuan Tian and Fan Liang, Cultural porters and banyun in Chinese fandoms on Bilibili

Symposium

Qing Xiao, Yuhang Zheng, “Are we friends or opponents?” Chinese idol fans’ relationship changes from online to off-line

Zhuwen Zhang, Crossing swords and cutting sleeves: The cross-cultural impact of Chinese fandom fan fiction on Asian American youths

Roland Wang and Peilin Li, Warhammer fandom in China: A brief introduction

Dongni Huang, "Treat male idols as toys": A case study of Chinese self-centered shipper communities

Book review

Kelsey Morgan Entrikin, "Dubcon: Fanfiction, power, and sexual consent," by Milena Popova

[transformativeworksandcultures]

TWC Expanded Masthead [Press Release]

Transformative Works and Cultures is pleased to announce the expansion of its editorial masthead.

First, we welcome both Taylore Nicole Woodhouse and Tanya D. Zuk to the newly created role of Assistant Editors. Coeditor Mel Stanfill elaborates on this new addition: “Expanding the editorial structure to take on one or more Assistant Editors who are senior PhD students or early career scholars was one of the things that was part of our plan from when we applied to be editors, so I'm glad that after a year of getting our bearings we've been able to do that. Our overall purpose was to both strengthen fan studies as a field by helping cultivate more leaders who are ready to step in either in TWC or another journal, and to help boost some people who are early in their careers, and I hope that's what we're able to do.”

Taylore and Tanya are looking forward to shaping this role and making it their own. They’ve also prioritized specific goals which are in line with the journal’s current trajectory: “We hope to elevate historically marginalized voices in academia and fandom by providing support to the editors and the mission of the journal. Ideally we are looking to diversify the scholarly work, the fans we investigate, and the formats we present to readers.”

Second, Transformative Works and Cultures is also welcoming three new editors to the Symposium team: Jennifer Duggan, Adrienne Raw, and Khaliah Reed. The editorial team is excited about what an expanded team will mean for this section of TWC. When asked, the new Symposium coeditors shared their own goals: “We aim to increase the diversity of symposium authors, to offer opportunities for authors to provide translations of their articles so that symposia are accessible in multiple languages, and to diversify the media authors can use in the symposium section to allow both for a wider reflection of fans’ modes of communication and for broader interactivity with symposium files.”

We look forward to your continued readership and engagement with Transformative Works and Cultures.

[transformativeworksandcultures]

TWC 40: GENERAL ISSUE (2023)

Editorial

Mel Stanfill, Poe Johnson, Fan studies state of the field 2023

Article

Rachel Marks, Fan perspectives of queer representation in DC's Legends of Tomorrow on Tumblr and AO3

Joseph Packer, Ethan Stoneman, The White Knight: Batman as esoteric hero for the dissident right

Leandro Augusto Borges Lima, Bertalan Zoltán Varga, Motivations for nostalgia in the Nintendo fandom

Cody T. Havard, Carissa Baker, Daniel L. Wann, Frederick G. Grieve, Welcome to the magic: Exploring identification, behavior, socialization, and rivalry among fans of Disney’s theme parks

Kelsey Entrikin, Predatory seduction: Scenting as a catalyst for power hierarchy in omegaverse fan fiction

Symposium

O.C. Cuenca, Producers, prosumers, and the expansion of the Chinese IP engine

Noah Cohan, What blaseball fandom can teach us about baseball and fandom

Martine Mussies, Artificial intelligence and the production of fan art

Book review

Francesca Coppa, "Supersex: Sexuality, Fantasy, and the superhero," edited by Anna F. Peppard

Rusty Hatchell, "Social TV: Multi-screen content and ephemeral culture," by Cory Barker

[transformativeworksandcultures]

Ship Sunday: Kon-El/Tim Drake

[ID: Artwork of Kon-El putting his hand on Tim Drake's shoulder, with both wearing focused, serious expressions. In the background are numerous comic panels of the two interacting. The two characters' names, 'Kon-El' and 'Tim Drake' appear in between them with an X behind them, with the words 'Ship Sunday' below. In the bottom left corner is the Fanlore logo with the words 'Comics Month'. /End ID]

This Ship Sunday we're spotlighting Kon-El/Tim Drake from DC Comics.

Tim Drake was the third Robin; Kon-El, also known as Conner Kent, was the original Superboy. Together they were founding members of Young Justice, and later members of the Teen Titans, and became good friends as a result. This ship has been attracting fans for over two decades. Fans love to create fanworks featuring fluff, High School AUs, and fics focusing on their first time together.

Are you a fan of this superpowered pair? Come check out their Fanlore page, and while you're there, maybe leave a few fanwork examples!

---

We value every contribution to our shared fandom history. If you’re new to editing Fanlore or wikis in general, visit our New Visitor Portal to get started or ask us questions here!

[transformativeworksandcultures]

Resignation of OTW Director

Per this announcement, Board Director Heather McGuire has just stepped down from her role. The OTW wishes her good luck in her future endeavors. Read more at https://otw.news/63f09e

বাংলা • English • français • italiano • português brasileiro • português europeu • Română • Русский • Српски

[transformativeworksandcultures]

CFP: AI and Fandom

Unfortunately, this special issue will not be moving forward. All submitted pieces are being considered for our general issue. 

Due in part to well-publicised advancements in generative AI technologies such as GPT-4, there has been a recent explosion of interest in – and hype around – Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies. Whether this hype cycle continues to grow or fades away, AI is anticipated to have significant repercussions for fandom (Lamerichs 2018), and is already inspiring polarised reactions. Fan artists have been candid about using creative AI tools like Midjourney and DALL-E to generate fan art, while fanfiction writers have been using ChatGPT to generate stories and share them online (there are 470 works citing the use of these tools on AO3 and 20 on FanFiction.net at the time of writing). It is likely the case that even greater numbers of fans are using such tools discreetly, to the consternation of those for whom this is a disruption of the norms and values of fan production and wider artistic creation (Cain 2023; shealwaysreads 2023). AI technology is being used to dub movies with matching visual mouth movements after filming has been completed (Contreras 2022), to analyse audience responses in real-time (Pringle 2017), to holographically revive deceased performers (Andrews 2022; Contreras 2023), to build chatbots where users can interact with a synthesised version of celebrities and fictional characters (Rosenberg 2023), to synthesise celebrities’ voices (Kang et al. 2022; Nyce 2023), and for translation services for transnational fandoms (Kim 2021).

Despite the multiple ways in which AI is being introduced for practical implementations, the term remains a contested one. Lindley et al (2020) consider “how AI simultaneously refers to the grand vision of creating a machine with human-level general intelligence as well as describing a range of real technologies which are in widespread use today” (2) and suggest that this so called ‘definitional dualism’ can obscure the ubiquity of current implementations while stoking concerns about far-future speculations based on media portrayals. AI is touted as being at least as world-changing as the mass adoption of the internet and, regardless of whether it proves to be such a paradigm shift, the strong emotions it generates make it a productive site of intervention into long-held debates about: relationships between technology and art, what it means to create, what it means to be human, and the legislative and ethical frameworks that seek to determine these relationships.

This special issue seeks to address the rapidly accelerating topic of Artificial Intelligence and machine learning (ML) systems (including, but not limited to Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), Large Language Models (LLMs), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and speech, image and audio recognition and generation), and their relationship to and implications for fans and fan studies. We are interested in how fans are using AI tools in novel ways as well as how fans feel about the use of these tools. From media production and marketing perspectives we are interested in how AI tools are being used to study fans, and to create new media artefacts that attract fan attention. The use of AI to generate transformative works challenges ideas around creativity, originality and authorship (Clarke 2022; Miller 2019; Ploin et al. 2022), debates that are prevalent in fan studies and beyond. AI-generated transformative works may present challenges to existing legal frameworks, such as copyright, as well as to ethical frameworks and fan gift economy norms. For example, OpenAI scraped large swathes of the internet to train its models – most likely including fan works (Leishman 2022). This is in addition to larger issues with AI, such as the potential discrimination and bias that can arise from the use of ‘normalised’ (exclusionary) training data (Noble 2018). We are also interested in fan engagement with fictional or speculative AI in literature, media and culture.

We welcome contributions from scholars who are familiar with AI technologies as well as from scholars who seek to understand its repercussions for fans, fan works, fan communities and fan studies. We anticipate submissions from those working in disparate disciplines as well as interdisciplinary research that operates across multiple fields.

The following are some suggested topics that submissions might consider:

The use of generative AI by fans to create new forms of transformative work (for example, replicating actors’ voices to ‘read’ podfic)

Fan responses to the development and use of AI including Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT (for example, concerns that AO3 may be part of the data scraped for training models)

Explorations of copyright, ownership and authorship in the age of AI-generated material and transformative works

Studies that examine fandoms centring on speculative AI and androids, (e.g. Her, Isaac Asimov, WestWorld, Star Trek)

Methods for fan studies research that use AI and ML

The use of AI in audience research and content development by media producers and studios

Lessons that scholars of AI and its development can learn from fan studies and vice versa

Ethics of AI in a fan context, for example deepfakes and the spread of misinformation 

Submission Guidelines

Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC, http://journal.transformativeworks.org/) is an international peer-reviewed online Gold Open Access publication of the nonprofit Organization for Transformative Works, copyrighted under a Creative Commons License. TWC aims to provide a publishing outlet that welcomes fan-related topics and promotes dialogue between academic and fan communities. TWC accommodates academic articles of varying scope as well as other forms, such as multimedia, that embrace the technical possibilities of the internet and test the limits of the genre of academic writing.

Submit final papers directly to Transformative Works and Cultures by January 1, 2024. 

Articles: Peer review. Maximum 8,000 words.

Symposium: Editorial review. Maximum 4,000 words.

Please visit TWC's website (https://journal.transformativeworks.org/) for complete submission guidelines, or email the TWC Editor (editor@transformativeworks.org).

Contact—Contact guest editors Suzanne Black and Naomi Jacobs with any questions before or after the due date at AIandFandomTWC@gmail.com. 

Due date—Jan 1, 2024, for March 2025 publication.

Works Cited

Andrews, Phoenix CS. 2022. ‘“Are Di Would of Loved It”: Reanimating Princess Diana through Dolls and AI’. Celebrity Studies 13 (4): 573–94. https://doi.org/10.1080/19392397.2022.2135087.

Cain, Sian. 2023. ‘“This Song Sucks”: Nick Cave Responds to ChatGPT Song Written in Style of Nick Cave’. The Guardian, 17 January 2023, sec. Music. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/jan/17/this-song-sucks-nick-cave-responds-to-chatgpt-song-written-in-style-of-nick-cave.

Clarke, Laurie. 2022. ‘When AI Can Make Art – What Does It Mean for Creativity?’ The Observer, 12 November 2022, sec. Technology. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/12/when-ai-can-make-art-what-does-it-mean-for-creativity-dall-e-midjourney.

Contreras, Brian. 2022. ‘A.I. Is Here, and It’s Making Movies. Is Hollywood Ready?’ Los Angeles Times, 19 December 2022, sec. Company Town. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2022-12-19/the-next-frontier-in-moviemaking-ai-edits.

———. 2023. ‘Is AI the Future of Hollywood? How the Hype Squares with Reality’. Los Angeles Times, 18 March 2023, sec. Company Town. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2023-03-18/is-a-i-the-future-of-hollywood-hype-vs-reality-sxsw-tye-sheridan.

Kang, Eun Jeong, Haesoo Kim, Hyunwoo Kim, and Juho Kim. 2022. ‘When AI Meets the K-Pop Culture: A Case Study of Fans’ Perception of AI Private Call’. In . https://ai-cultures.github.io/papers/when_ai_meets_the_k_pop_cultur.pdf.

Kim, Judy Yae Young. 2021. ‘AI Translators and the International K-Pop Fandom on Twitter’. SLC Undergraduate Writing Contest 5. https://journals.lib.sfu.ca/index.php/slc-uwc/article/view/3823.

Lamerichs, Nicolle. 2018. ‘The next Wave in Participatory Culture: Mixing Human and Nonhuman Entities in Creative Practices and Fandom’. Transformative Works and Cultures 28. https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2018.1501.

Leishman, Rachel. 2022. ‘Fanfiction Writers Scramble To Set Profiles to Private as Evidence Grows That AI Writing Is Using Their Stories’. The Mary Sue, 12 December 2022. https://www.themarysue.com/fanfiction-writers-scramble-to-set-profiles-to-private-as-evidence-grows-that-ai-writing-is-using-their-stories/.

Lindley, Joseph, Haider. Akmal, Franziska Pilling, and Paul Coulton. 2020. ‘Researching AI legibility through design’. In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-13). https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376792 

Miller, Arthur I. 2019. The Artist in the Machine: The World of AI-Powered Creativity. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

Noble, Safiya Umoja. (2018) Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. New York, USA: New York University Press.

Nyce, Caroline Mimbs. 2023. ‘The Real Taylor Swift Would Never’. The Atlantic, 31 March 2023. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/03/ai-taylor-swift-fan-generated-deepfakes-misinformation/673596/.

Ploin, Anne, Rebecca Eynon, Isis Hjorth, and Michael Osborne. 2022. ‘AI and the Arts: How Machine Learning Is Changing Artistic Work’. Report from the Creative Algorithmic Intelligence Research Project. University of Oxford, UK: Oxford Internet Institute. https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/news-events/reports/ai-the-arts/.

Pringle, Ramona. 2017. ‘Watching You, Watching It: Disney Turns to AI to Track Filmgoers’ True Feelings about Its Films’. CBC, 4 August 2017. https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/disney-ai-real-time-tracking-fvae-1.4233063.

Rosenberg, Allegra. 2023. ‘Custom AI Chatbots Are Quietly Becoming the next Big Thing in Fandom’. The Verge, 13 March 2023. https://www.theverge.com/23627402/character-ai-fandom-chat-bots-fanfiction-role-playing.

shealwaysreads. 2023. “Fascinating to see…” Tumblr, March 28, 2023, 11:53. https://www.tumblr.com/shealwaysreads/713032516941021184/fascinating-to-see-a-take-on-a-post-about-thehttps://www.tumblr.com/androidsfighting/713056705673592832?source=share

[transformativeworksandcultures]

The Archive of Our Own Reaches 11 Million Fanworks!

The OTW is pleased to announce that the 11 millionth fanwork has been posted to the Archive of Our Own. From fic to fanart to podfic, every fanwork on AO3 is the result of someone’s love for and dedication to transformative fandom, and we’re grateful for each and every one of your contributions. AO3 wouldn’t be what it is without you!

We’ve hit 11 million fanworks just six months after reaching 10 million fanworks last October. In those six months, Accessibility, Design & Technology has rolled out the ability to mute works, bookmarks, and comments from specific users; Open Doors has imported over 16,000 fanworks from at-risk and offline archives; Tag Wrangling has wrangled over two million tags; and Policy & Abuse and Support have answered approximately 10,000 tickets each. We’re excited to continue to grow and support fans in the coming months, and we look forward to seeing what you create as we do!

[transformativeworksandcultures]

2023 OTW Election Timeline & Membership Deadline

The OTW Elections committee is pleased to announce the timeline for the 2023 election for new members of the Board of Directors. This year’s election will be held August 11-14. For information about the election schedule and voter eligibility, read more at https://otw.news/10817a

[transformativeworksandcultures]

Five Things Jennifer Duggan Said

In Five Things Jennifer Duggan discusses being a copyeditor for TWC and guest editing its March 2023 issue on trans fandom. Read more at https://otw.news/a41928