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A popular insider offers a fascinating history of science fiction filled with provocative critiques, tidbits, and insights that reveal much about our cultural and literary history.
A Companion to Media Fandom and Fan Studies offers scholars and fans an accessible and engaging resource for understanding the rapidly expanding field of fan studies. International in scope and written by a team that includes many major scholars, this volume features over thirty especially-commissioned essays on a variety of topics, which together provide an unparalleled overview of this fast-growing field. Separated into five sections—Histories, Genealogies, Methodologies; Fan Practices; Fandom and Cultural Studies; Digital Fandom; and The Future of Fan Studies—the book synthesizes literature surrounding important theories, debates, and issues within the field of fan studies. It also traces and explains the social, historical, political, commercial, ethical, and creative dimensions of fandom and fan studies. Exploring both the historical and the contemporary fan situation, the volume presents fandom and fan studies as models of 21st century production and consumption, and identifies the emergent trends in this unique field of study.
Winner of the Best Book Award in Comics History from the Grand Comics Database Honorable Mention, 2019-2020 Research Society for American Periodicals Book Prize The term “graphic novel” was first coined in 1964, but it wouldn’t be broadly used until the 1980s, when graphic novels such as Watchmen and Maus achieved commercial success and critical acclaim. What happened in the intervening years, after the graphic novel was conceptualized yet before it was widely recognized? Dreaming the Graphic Novel examines how notions of the graphic novel began to coalesce in the 1970s, a time of great change for American comics, with declining sales of mainstream periodicals, the arrival of specialty...
Tales featuring anthropomorphic animals have been around as long as there have been storytellers to spin them, from Aesop's Fables to Reynard the Fox to Alice in Wonderland. The genre really took off following the explosion of furry fandom in the 21st century, with talking animals featuring in everything from science fiction to fantasy to LGBTQ coming-out stories. In his lifetime, Fred Patten (1940-2018)--one of the founders of furry fandom and a scholar of anthropomorphic animal literature--authored hundreds of book reviews that comprise a comprehensive critical survey of the genre. This selected compilation provides an overview from 1784 through the 2010s, covering such popular novels as Watership Down and Redwall, along with forgotten gems like The Stray Lamb and Where the Blue Begins, and science fiction works like Sundiver and Decision at Doona.
The writer Ray Bradbury, science fiction expert Forry Ackerman, and special effects genius Ray Harryhausen are world-famous for their careers involving tales of the imagination. Before anyone had heard of them, they were friends as teens and college-aged boys enjoying all that 1930s L.A. had to offer: getting celebrity autographs, watching blockbuster movies, and haunting dozens of bookstores. As members of the Los Angeles chapter of the Science Fiction League, the three belonged to a tight-knit group that was involved in the earliest science fiction conventions and the birth of cosplay. This book follows the lives and careers of these three literary and film legends and tracks the origins of science fiction fandom. Each chapter builds a chronology of how their paths intertwined, and ultimately connected to, the beginnings of renowned fan conventions like Comic-Con. Devoted science fiction fans and new readers alike will learn how a young friendship launched three illustrious careers and changed the face of science fiction forever.
A revealing look at the pleasure we get from hating figures like politicians, celebrities, and TV characters, showcased in approaches that explore snark, hate-watching, and trolling The work of a fan takes many forms: following a favorite celebrity on Instagram, writing steamy fan fiction fantasies, attending meet-and-greets, and creating fan art as homages to adored characters. While fandom that manifests as feelings of like and love are commonly understood, examined less frequently are the equally intense, but opposite feelings of dislike and hatred. Disinterest. Disgust. Hate. This is anti-fandom. It is visible in many of the same spaces where you see fandom: in the long lines at ComicCon...
Chick lit is the marketing label attributed to a surge of books published in the wake of Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary (1996) and Candace Bushnell's Sex and the City (1997). Branded by their pink or pastel-coloured book covers, chick-lit novels have been a highly successful and ubiquitous product of women's popular culture since the late 1990s. This study traces the evolution of chick lit not only as a genre of popular fiction, but as a cultural phenomenon. It complicates the genealogy of the texts by situating them firmly in the context of age-old debates about female literary creation, and by highlighting the dynamics of the popular-fiction market. Offering a convincing dissection...
Celebrities depend upon fans to sustain their popularity and livelihood, and fans are happy to oblige. With social media they can follow their favorite (or least favorite) celebrities’ every move, and get glimpses into their lives, homes, and behind-the-scenes work. Fans interact with celebrities now more than ever, and often feel that they have a claim on their time, attention, and accountability. In Fame and Fandom, the contributors examine this tumultuous dynamic and bring together celebrity studies and fan studies like never before. In case studies including Supernatural, Harry Styles, YouTube influencers, film location sites, Keanu Reeves, and celebrities as fans, readers find new approaches to fan/celebrity encounters and parasocial relationships. This is the go-to volume on the symbiotic relationship between fame and fandom.
This book demonstrates how the roles of “author,” “marketer,” and “reviewer” are being redefined, as online environments enable new means for young adults to participate in the books they love. Prior to the expansion of digital technologies around reading, teachers, parents and librarians were the primary gatekeepers responsible for getting books into the hands of young people. Now publishers can create disintermediated digital enclosures in which they can communicate directly with their reading audience. This book exposes how teens contribute their immaterial and affective labor as they engage in participatory reading experiences via publishers’ and authors’ interactive websites and use of social media, and how in turn publishers are able to use such labor as they get invaluable market research, peer-to-peer recommendations, and even content which can be used in other projects all virtually free-of-charge.