Transformative Works and Cultures - TWC (Organization for Transformative Works)
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852 research outputs found
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Welcome to the magic: Exploring identification, behavior, socialization, and rivalry among fans of Disney’s theme parks
No full textThe current study qualitatively investigates how fans of the Disney Theme Parks are introduced to the brand and how they perceive Disney and Universal Parks. Findings indicate that family plays a very important role in both introducing and building loyalty toward Disney and the Disney Parks. Further, both family and positive memory play an integral role in encouraging fans to continue their fandom of the Disney Parks. Finally, fans report favoritism toward the Disney Parks brand compared to Universal Theme Parks, but they refrain from displaying the level of out-group negativity and derogation toward the rival brand present in other fandom settings. Discussion focuses on the implications of the current study while introducing future areas of investigation
Turing tests, catfishing, and other technologies of transgender rage
No full textThis autoethnography traces Susan Stryker’s articulation of transgender rage through the monstrous cyborg figure of the catfish (people who pretend to be someone else online), examining the passing politics of the Turing Test and its trans foundations. The author’s disidentification with catfish characters in Glee, Pretty Little Liars, and Gossip Girl allows these characters to transmit and produce transgender rage, illustrating the strengths and weaknesses of taking a disidentificatory approach to transphobic texts
"edmund is trans he told me himself": Recognition in transgender Shakespeare fan fiction
No full textRecent years have seen a rise in transgender fiction—especially transgender fan fiction. In the latter practice, we find characters reimagined as transgender subjects with their unique circumstances remolded or recontextualized to make sense as a trans* narrative. This is a look at the process of recognition taking place in the creation of these works of fan fiction—both in the way of recognizing a character's suitability to carry transgender meaning and in how recognition plays a part in the transgender narrative presented
Trans fandom
No full textEditorial for "Trans Fandom," edited by Jennifer Duggan and Angie Fazekas, special issue, Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 39 (March 15, 2023)
What blaseball fandom can teach us about baseball and fandom
No full textI trace the development of the internet browser–based baseball simulator known as Blaseball from its origins as an attempt to fill the entertainment void left by the suspension of spectator sports in North America during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic to the conclusion of season 24 in July 2021. Along the way, Blaseball changed the way that tens of thousands of fans understand the narrative possibilities of the sport of baseball, albeit in a virtual realm
Warhammer fandom in China: A brief introduction
No full textWarhammer is a UK tabletop war game that was introduced to China in the twenty-first century. Its fan culture in China is different from that in the UK and is shaped by a combination of limited personal income, the development of digital technology, media censorship, and nationalist sentiment
The politicization of Chinese celebrity fandoms: A case study of discursive practices in the 227 Movement
No full textTaking the 277 Movement as an example, I examine how recent Chinese fandoms have become familiar with political discussion by appropriating political issues. It may alter the tribal essence of fandom to share interests in the political communities that pursue social influence and navigate agenda-setting. Under such circumstances, fandom becomes a place for political expression, which has long been considered lost among Gen Z in China. Specifically, I attempt to unwrap politicized discursive practices by sampling and analyzing relevant tweets on Chinese social media Weibo from the perspectives of the social structure of traditional Chinese society, cyberspace policies, and political indifference among Gen Z
Archive-lensing of fan franchise histories: Chronicle, guide, catalyst
No full textArchives of fan knowledge for pop-culture franchises serve as important historical repositories of knowledge that are created, curated, and maintained by passionate fans. The archive—both historically and in the contemporary form of the fan wiki—serves as an important motivation in terms of creating further fan knowledge and nostalgically returning to knowledge that has already been historicized. Fan archives serve as important narrative and cultural-history touchstones. We investigate Star Trek's wiki, Memory Alpha; the Battlestar Galactica wiki; and the Xena: Warrior Princess AUSXIP archive as examples of current and historical archives. Collectively, they articulate the concept of archive-lensing, whereby three distinct modes of fan franchise archive engagement can be seen: the archive as chronicle, providing new information; the archive as guide, orienting new and old fans to franchise content; and the archive as catalyst, stoking a return—nostalgic or otherwise—to a franchise that has been dormant
Femslash fan fiction’s expansive erotic imaginary
No full textAs a genre largely unregulated by market trends and commercial interests, fan fiction can explore forms of bodily pleasure that might not otherwise be viewed as viable in mainstream pornography or romance. Fics from three significant but understudied femslash fandoms—Once Upon a Time (2011), Supergirl (2015), and The Devil Wears Prada (2006)—serve as case studies for analyzing the queer theoretical work fic writers do in interrogating dominant sexual scripts. These authors present an expansive queer erotic imaginary that untethers pleasure, desire, and intimacy from mainstream spaces and practices. In the fan works I examine, sexual connections are often routed through external objects like ink, fabric, and water. The canonical presence of magic, futuristic technology, and nonhuman characters also allows for the imagination of bodily morphologies and sexual practices untethered from both hetero- and homosexual norms, creating polymorphous pleasures that need not be tied to genital sexuality at all
"Otaku and the struggle for imagination in Japan," by Patrick W. Galbraith
No full textPatrick W. Galbraith, Otaku and the struggle for imagination in Japan. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2019, paperback, $27.95, (336 p), ISBN 978-1-4780-0629-9