Alternative Fandoms
April 25th, 2008 by KathySarah Reynolds
Full paper: Jane Austen: From High Culture to Popular Culture [PDF]
Abstract: Jane Austen fandom sits in an interesting junction between two types of fandoms: high culture and popular culture. Johnson writes, “Unlike Star Trek, Austen’s novels hold a secure place in the canon of high as well as popular culture.” This paper will provide information about certain aspects of the fan community that has developed around the Jane Austen novels. It will begin with a history of the Jane Austen fandom and how it formed. It will look at the academic and intellectual beginning of Jane Austen fan audiences and then the transition to a popular “Janeite”fan audience. It will focus on the tension between the two as Jane Austen serves as both a text of high culture and popular culture. The paper will try to answer the question of how academic fans have reacted to the commercialization and popularization of Jane Austen fan objects. The paper will then move onto a case study of an off-shoot of a Jane Austen novel. “Clueless” is a 1995 comedic film based on Jane Austen’s Emma. We will focus on the extent to which “Clueless” is faithful to its Austen text and how audiences have reacted to it. Finally, the paper will close with personal accounts and insights into the ongoing debate about whether Austen’s novels can serve as both a focus of English literature classes and simultaneously a focus of popular culture.
Noah Lang
Full paper: A Fighting Fandom [PDF]
Abstract: Mixed martial arts (MMA) is a growing sports phenomenon which showcases multiple combat disciplines such as boxing, muay thai, judo, wrestling, jiu-jitsu and numerous others. The sport has seen steady growth since its inception in the early 90’s but recently has seen tremendous growth as the premiere MMA promotion, The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), has seen rapid expansion and visibility through promotions, name recognition andmainstream coverage. As this growth continues – including current network deals for programming, cross promoted events and MMA stars transitioning into mainstream media – the fans have always remained right on the pulse and have been as instrumental as any athletic commission or promoter in helping the sport continue to prosper. By looking at the example of a renowned MMA blogger and video editor known as Boondock, the greater influence of youtube upon fandom, and fan-created news websites upon MMA, I intend to frame the current development of the sport and why the fans continued interaction with the fighters, promoters and greater community has allowed the sport to continue to grow and find a greater audience and acceptance.
Kathy Alexeff
Full paper: The Producerly Land of Oz [PDF]
Abstract: Fan objects and creations can come from many different levels of production. Barthes and Fiske discuss the producerly text as one method of consumer engagement with the text. World creation, like the creation of Middle Earth of Tolkien, or the Matrix, opens up a text even more to fan interpretation. No one author, no matter how skilled, can completely fill in all the gaps, so fan creation and interpretation can step in to fill those gaps. Third, there is the producer’s response to the fan creations related to the text. Wicked; as a book, a musical and as a series; acts on all three of these types of fan creation. Wicked, the novel, fills in the gaps left by the Wizard of Oz fandom. The Oz world allowed the development of consumer production. Wicked the musical and the series continues to develop the gaps of Oz, and also respond to the fans of both the original Oz, and Maguire’s Oz. The gaps left by producerly texts cause not only reinterpretation of the text by the consumer, but the creation of a new, related world, created solely by the consumer.
Diana Pozo
Full paper: Wake up, Henry Jenkins, this is no Star Wars Galaxies!
An online virtual world different from other MMORPGs (World of Warquest, Everquest, ex.) in that its producers provide no stable theme or plot structure, Second Life is not so much a game as it is a detailed, three-dimensional visual environment. Because the world serves as a location for users to build and act out their fantasies, it is less of a media product that could have “fans” in its own right and more of a location where fans can build up detailed recreations of the world of fan texts, or explore the worlds built by others.
One such fan recreation is Hogwarts Reborn, the largest Harry Potter-themed group on Second Life, with over 600 members. HR is a role-playing game taking place in a three-dimensional recreation of Hogwarts castle and grounds, as well as in other Harry Potter-inspired environments. Unlike Star Wars Galaxies, the fan-destined MMORPG touted by Henry Jenkins as an example of a move towards egalitarian interaction between producers and fans, Hogwarts Reborn is a fan community, a detailed visual recreation, and a different kind of “game,” one in which the gamer-free atmosphere of Second Life and the desires of canon-based Harry Potter fans coexist.
Posted in Colloquium | 3 Comments »
Not sure why the papers weren’t uploaded but when I tried to upload my Microsoft word file it didn’t allow it so I had to convert it to PDF.
I suggest taking this route as I have had similar problems with diff versions of MSWord not recognizing older ones or vice versa.
Small note about Wicked:
I read the Oz novels as a kid, as well as Wicked in high school, and enjoyed both. (I was also exposed to the musical by friends in high school, but I wasn’t a huge fan). I actually read Wicked not necessarily as a fan object but rather as a critical deconstruction/inversion of Oz and the principles it was based on. The original books, for example, avoided on principle issues of sex, violence and politics, while Wicked embraced them.
Of course, this sort of reinterpretation does imply an intense reciprocal relationship with the work, even if Maguire isn’t necessarily a ‘fan.’ Which brings us back to the question of academia and how academic study constitutes a kind of fandom…
From the conversation we had yesterday, it seemed to me that people’s issue with the AcaFan construction had something to do with the fact that we were discussing a “high culture” fandom (I think we were on theory fans when the issue arose). It’s funny that it became an issue then, but when the term came up earlier in the semester with Jenkins’ fascination with sci-fi, it didn’t incite such interrogation. Similarly, there are self-proclaimed hip-hop scholars (hip-hop in the encompassing, pop cultural sense) like Bakari Kitwana and Greg Tate, who constantly affirm their infatuation with contemporary black culture in their academic writings, even going so far as to use ideas and vernacular that are attributed to the culture they investigate. Their dual positioning as both an academic scrutinizer and a fannish celebrator of hip-hop culture is never questioned. But then again, hip-hop is not considered “high culture.” What of this?