Transformative Works and Cultures - TWC (Organization for Transformative Works)
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Wikipedia and participatory culture: Why fans edit
No full textOnline, fans of popular culture media partake in participatory culture in various ways, such as writing fan fiction and scrutinizing media on message boards. Another way they do so is by editing relevant articles in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. In fact, research has shown that Wikipedia articles skew heavily toward pop culture, suggesting that fans of pop culture are among the most enthusiastic of Wikipedia's editors. Of course, the question emerges: Why are pop culture fans in particular so interested in editing Wikipedia? Building on previous research, I argue that fans want to take part in the production of the media that they enjoy, that Wikipedia allows editors to create their own paratext (i.e., the Wikipedia article) in relation to a main text (e.g., a movie, a television show, a book series), and that this paratext may be heavily used by the general public. Such usage is a form of implicit approval that affirms the editors' knowledge and encourages them to make more edits. Thus, Wikipedia validates the fan editor's work in a way that other outlets for participatory culture (e.g., fan fiction, fan art, songwriting) cannot
Swan Queen, shipping, and boundary regulation in fandom
No full textThere are a number of fan activities and practices that are subject to regulation. The mechanisms of regulation in shipping, however, are not always clear. Shipping, the fan activity of romantically pairing two fictional characters, has become a popular and contentious facet of fan interaction. The case that will be examined in this article is that of the Swan Queen ship, which pairs two female characters from Once Upon a Time (2011–). The lengths that fans have gone to support and promote this ship led to rather intense discussion and infighting among members of the Once Upon a Time fandom. I utilize comments and posts made on Tumblr to examine the mechanisms that dictate inclusion and exclusion in shipper communities. In doing so, I hope to identify the kinds of shipper activities that are subject to regulation and the kinds of boundaries that this regulation establishes. Shipping is dictated not only by fans' imaginations but also by boundaries that are performed and regulated on digital forums
Homophobia, heteronormativity, and slash fan fiction
No full textI analyze the relationship between homophobia/heteronormativity and slash fan fiction. Through reading and coding almost 6,000 pages of Kirk/Spock fan fiction written from 1978 to 2014, I illuminate shifts in how normative gender and sexuality are portrayed by K/S authors. Writers of K/S, while ostensibly writing about the 23rd century, consciously or unconsciously include cultural norms from the 20th and 21st centuries. Thus, slash becomes a lens through which readers can view a decrease in both homophobia and heteronormativity in US culture over the past several decades
The classical canon and/as transformative work
No full textEditorial overview of Transformative Works and Cultures No. 21, special issue, "The Classical Canon And/As Transformative Work.
Abusing text in the Roman and contemporary worlds
No full textIn this comparison of portraits of authorial anxiety, I focus on contemporary attitudes to fan fiction and on discussions of authors in Imperial Rome (notably Galen and Martial) to consider the assumptions of textuality that frame imagined textual abuse. Revealed are parallel discourses for different concerns—for the reader as a potentially ill-educated consumer and the text as an object in the ancient world; in the contemporary world, for the author's personal violation and the text as an agent within readerly experience. I discuss how fan fiction's lack of commercial publication is used to distinguish it from other contemporary literature within this framework. Fan fiction's noncommercial publication can thus be appreciated as a marginalizing act in itself
The creative empowerment of body positivity in the cosplay community
No full textIn a case study about the cosplay community in relation to creative empowerment of identity and body positivity, I created a blog (http://cosplaycasestudy.tumblr.com/) and devised a survey that allowed cosplayers whom I met online and in person to discuss what cosplay meant to them as individuals. Using a combination of qualitative, arts-based research and journalism, I used online documentation to record the ways cosplayers see the community changing, noting themes such as body policing, social media, and sexual harassment
Virgilian fandom in the Renaissance
No full textConsidered as fan works, early modern homages to, derivations from, and continuations of classical texts can help contemporary readers better understand the past and potential future of fan fiction as a queer, emotional, and affectionate investment in the universe of a text. Demonstrating that Sir Philip Sidney's queer, fractured Arcadia can be understood as fan fiction of Virgil's Eclogues shows how readers have always responded to the notion of beloved texts held in the creative commons with traditional fan practices such as subversive slash subtexts, inserted selves, feminine communities of reader-writers, and carefully orchestrated gift economies, whether in ancient Rome, Tudor England, or our own digital era
Historicizing video game series through fan art discourses
No full textIn this article, we argue that fannish histories should not be dismissed as mere nostalgia over past experiences of one's own media fandom. Instead they should be understood as complex narratives which combine various historical layers (personal, productional, fictional) and influence the future reception of and anticipation for sequels. They also shed light on the personal histories of fans, which are often juxtaposed with extratextual and fictional histories of a video game series. The subjective nature of these historical discourses is not to be seen as a constraint but as a feature of everyday history which points to the prominence of historicizing in fan cultures of video game series. These topics are examined in the selected multimodal material from the site DeviantArt consisting of fan art pieces, authorial captions, and respective comments inspired by two single-player video game series: Tomb Raider and Mass Effect
"Playing Harry Potter: Essays and interviews on fandom and performance," edited by Lisa S. Brenner
No full textLisa S. Brenner, editor. Playing Harry Potter: Essays and interviews on fandom and performance. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2015, paperback, 14.43 (5374 KB) ISBN 978-1-4766-2136-4, ASIN B012E9G0R6