Transformative Works and Cultures - TWC (Organization for Transformative Works)
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852 research outputs found
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"Once Upon a Time" in queer fandom
No full textI approach the topic of queer female fandom through the television program Once Upon a Time (2011–) and its femslash fan fiction in order to investigate how fans explore queer scenarios and deal with narrative weaknesses of the canon story line
"Sherlock" (Holmes) in Japanese (fan) works
No full textI explore the history of Japanese writing centered on Sherlock Holmes as a means of interrogating the 2014 BBC Sherlock pastiche John and Sherlock Casebook 1: Jon, zenchi renmei e iku (The stark naked league), written by Japanese Sherlockian Kitahara Naohiko for mainstream publication by the publishing house Hayakawa shobō. I argue that exploration of the Japanese (fan) cultural contexts of Kitahara's book begins to reveal the limits of the Anglo-American-centered framework through which fan studies scholars explore fan/producer relationships
Surrendering authorial agency and practicing transindividualism in Tumblr's role-play communities
No full textThe writer who engages in acts of online role-play or make-believe is often thought to promote him or herself as an individual agent. However, when members of Tumblr's role-play communities engage in play, they create scenes together that prompt surrender of authorial agency. In doing so, they engage in transindividual work, which allows them to work across, among, and between other entities until the boundaries of the self become porous rather than fixed
"Girls' feminist blogging in a postfeminist age," by Jessalyn Keller
No full textReview of Jessalyn Keller, Girls' feminist blogging in a postfeminist age. London: Routledge, 2015, hardcover, £95 (198p) ISBN 978-1138800144, e-book, £24.49 ISBN 9781315755632
Fandom, publishing, and playing the Grand Game
No full textWe explore the characteristics of fandom in the Sherlockian world and why so many people are drawn to participate in Sherlockian critical analysis
Constructing queer female cyberspace: "The L Word" fandom and Autostraddle.com
No full textAutostraddle.com is the most popular independently owned Web site for queer women and a central, organizing force in queer female cyberspace. It also grew out of The L Word fandom, though its appearance now occludes the history of fan recapping that laid its groundwork. In this article, I reconnect Autostraddle to The L Word fandom, tracing the gradual accumulation of online fan activity into a stable Web site and queer female social space. In doing so, I revise dominant conceptions of fan productivity as individual-centered and temporally bound, arguing for a more expansive consideration of the large-scale creations fans can build over time. My intervention is twofold: a plea for history where the Web can seem to be an eternally present medium, and an assertion of fandom's inseparability from the larger landscape of queer female life online
The fan-judges: Clues to a jurisculture of Sherlockian fandom
No full textAmerican judges sometimes encourage other participants in the legal system to behave like Sherlock Holmes. They are relying on a shared culture that both appreciates a literary figure and recognizes a human capacity to emulate an imaginary creature (here, Sherlock) outside the context in which it was created. Consciously or not, the judges are tapping into classic fandom, but do they think of it that way, and should they
Early Sherlockian scholarship: Non/fiction at play
No full textSherlockian scholarship is a display of intellect, wit, and canonical expertise that requires a cunning manipulation of a story world and of nonfiction. This playful style of writing defies easy classification in the terminology of fan and literary studies. Emerging in the early 20th century, Sherlockian scholarship had a tremendous surge in popularity in the late 1920s and early '30s in articles by renowned British and American authors, including Dorothy L. Sayers, Christopher Morley, Sir Desmond MacCarthy, Sir Sydney Castle Roberts, and Ronald A. Knox. The sustained popularity of Sherlockian scholarship owes much to these initial players, whose sparkling prose conjures a bygone era of repartee. In this study, I present a chronological survey of two early periods in Sherlockian scholarship to understand its poetics, popularity, generic identity, and contemporary relevance
A case study of early British Sherlockian fandom
No full textPrevious studies of Sherlock Holmes fandom have concentrated on fan letters as being exemplary of the early beginnings of the Great Game: a fantasy played by fans that acts upon the belief that Sherlock Holmes exists. Fans, while fully comprehending that it is indeed a fantasy or a game, perform fan activities such as historical and literary analysis as if Holmes were real. This paper shifts the focus away from letter writing as the central means of the expression of this ironic belief and looks at the example of collecting autographs as a means of celebration of the canon. It places the autograph in its historical context of being the meeting point between the remnants of the Romantic theory of genius, the development of pseudosciences such as the interpretation of handwriting, and the literary, cultural, and commercial landscape in which Holmes appeared
From co-optation to commission: A diachronic perspective on the development of fannish literacy through "Teen Wolf"'s Tumblr promotional campaigns
No full textHistorically, fan scholars have focused on conducting deep dives into singular cases and revealing trends by comparing cross sections of those cases. While there is undeniable value in conducting close analyses of such instances, the reliance on this method can limit our assessment of long-running trends. By supplementing—or, more productively, combining—specific case studies with diachronic perspectives, we can better situate, contextualize, and trace emerging trends like the evolution of fan/producer dynamics. To model this approach, I analyze 4 years' worth of fan-targeted promotional campaigns on the official Teen Wolf (2011–) Tumblr. The activities—fannish and/or promotional—of all participants in a shared ecological system like Tumblr are significant. They continuously construct, deconstruct, nuance, and challenge the ever-evolving context of fandom and fan/producer dynamics. Supplementing a close analysis of one of Teen Wolf's recent promotional campaigns—the commissioned #TeenWolfExhibit—with a diachronic perspective addresses the ever-evolving ecology of media fandom and traces the evolution of MTV's fannish literacy from 2011 to 2015. The #TeenWolfExhibit reproduces and reflects all the promotional successes, failures, and course corrections that predate it