Fans, communities, audiences: how we study participatory cultures
Natalia Samutina, the leading research fellow and Head of the Research Centre for Contemporary Culture at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia, has successfully finished teaching the first elective course on fan cultures and creative practices of online fan communities in a Russian university. The course has been attended by students from different faculties of Higher School of Economics and Moscow State University, as well as the lecturer’s colleagues who work in related research fields. The creation of this course has become possible thanks to the research project "Participatory Culture: Communities and Practices", and also thanks to cross-disciplinary productive atmosphere and organizational support of the Poletayev Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities, Higher School of Economics. Next time this course is scheduled for January 2019.
Below you can see the annotation and the literature for the course.
Natalia Samutina,
National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow
Elective course (Cultural Studies), 30 h.
Fans, communities, audiences: how we study participatory cultures
Natalia Samutina, the leading research fellow and Head of the Research Centre for contemporary culture at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia, is one of a few Russian specialists in fan cultures and creative practices of online communities. The aim of her elective course is to introduce those who are interested in this area of contemporary culture to this research field, to its’ basic concepts, names and history, to methodological, methodical and ethical problems that are currently discussed by professionals in fan studies throughout the world. The main attention in the course is given to media, music and sport fan communities and active audiences, to their transformative reception, production of knowledge and identities, to their communicational forms and practices. The final exam is taken in the form of evaluation of the participant’s own research project related to the fan studies or reception studies areas.
Students from the departments of cultural studies, sociology, history and philology are particularly invited, although anyone may attend.
The course is taught in Russian, most of the discussed literature is in English.
Theme 1. Participatory culture/cultures: history and development of the concept. Fan Studies as cross-disciplinary field. Fans and fan communities in contemporary culture. How we work with fan cultures: basic methodologies, methods, ethical principles.
Recommended reading for seminar 1:
Jenkins H. Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture. New York: Routledge, 1992.
Additional reading:
Henry Jenkins
Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York University Press, 2008
Henry Jenkins, Sangita Shresthova, Liana Gamber-Thompson, Neta Kligler-Vilenchik, and Arely Zimmerman. By Any Media Necessary: The New Youth Activism. New York: NYU Press, 2016
Henry Jenkins, Mizuko Ito & danah boyd, Participatory Culture in a Networked Era: A Conversation on Youth, Learning, Commerce, and Politics, Cambridge & Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2016
Henry Jenkins with Ravi Purushotma . . . [et al.]. Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: media education for the 21st century. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation reports on digital media and learning. MIT, 2009
Fans and fan cultures
Hills, Matt. Fan Cultures, London: Routledge, 2002
Stein, Louisa Ellen. Millennial fandom: Television audiences in the transmedia age. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2015
Fandom. Identities and Communities in a Mediated World. Ed. By Gray J., Sandvoss C., Harrington C. L. New York University Press, 2007
The Ashgate Research Companion to Fan Cultures. Ed. By Linda Duits, Koos Zwaan and Stijn Reijnders. Ashgate. 2014
The Routledge Companion to Media Fandom. Ed. by M.Click and S.Scott. Routledge, 2018
Bacon-Smith C. Enterprising Women: Television Fandom and the Creation of Popular Myth. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992
Pearson, R. Fandom in the digital era. Popular Communication, 8: 1, 2010, pp. 84–95
Duffett, Mark. Understanding Fandom: An Introduction to the Study of Media Fan Culture. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013
Popular Music Fandom: Identities, Roles, and Practices. Ed. By Mark Duffett. Routledge: 2014
Fan studies:
Ford, Sam. Fan studies: Grappling with an ‘Undisciplined’ discipline. Journal of Fandom Studies. Journal of Fandom Studies 2: 1, 2014 P.54-55.
Bennett, Lucy. Tracing Textual Poachers: Reflections on the development of fan studies and digital fandom, Journal of Fandom Studies 2: 1, 2014. pp. 5–20
Evans, Adrienne and Stasi, Mafalda. Desperately seeking methodology: New directions in fan studies research. Participations, Volume 11, Issue 2. November 2014
Freund, K. and Fielding, D. Research Ethics in Fan Studies. Participations, 10(1), 2013.
Coppa, Francesca Fuck yeah, Fandom is Beautiful. Journal of Fandom Studies. Volume 2 Number 1, 2014.
Theme 2. Public spheres of imagination/communities of imagination in the culture of Modernity: from texts to virtual worlds. A concept of world-building; transmediality and transfictionality; crossovers. Transformative reception and its meaning for fan cultures.
Recommended reading for seminar 2:
Gwenllian-Jones, Sarah. The sex life of cult television characters. Screen. Vol. 43. № 1, 2002. P. 79–90.
Saler, Michael. As If: Modern Enchantment and the Literary Prehistory of Virtual Reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012
Additional reading:
Samutina Natalia. Fan fiction as world-building: transformative reception in crossover writing. Continuum, 30:4, 2016.
Exploring imaginary worlds: Audiences, fan cultures and geographies of the imagination. Themed section. Participations. Volume 13, Issue 1, May 2016
Marie-Laure Ryan. Texts, Worlds, Stories: Narrative Worlds as Cognitive and Ontological Concept. In: Narrative Theory, Literature, and New Media: Narrative Minds and Virtual Worlds. Ed. By Mari Hatavera, Matti Hyvärinen, Maria Mäkelä, and Frans Mäyrä. London: Routledge, 2015.
Marie-Laure Ryan. Narrative as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, series Parallax. 2001
Marie-Laure Ryan. Narrating Space, Spatializing Narrative. Where Narrative Theory and Geography Meet. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. 2016.
Wolf, Mark J.P. Building Imaginary Worlds: The Theory and History of Subcreation. London: Routledge, 2012
The Routledge companion to imaginary world. Ed. by Mark J. P. Wolf. Routledge, 2018
Keywords in Remix Studies. Ed. by Eduardo Navas, Owen Gallagher, xtine burrough. Routledge, 2018
Theme 3. Fan fiction as a cultural practice and object of research. Archontic literature. Archival cultures of fan communities and participatory cultures.
Recommended reading for seminar 3.
Derecho A. Archontic Literature: A Definition, a History, and Several Theories of Fan Fiction. In: Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet. Ed. by Hellekson K., Busse K. Jefferson: McFarland, 2006.
Samutina, Natalia. Emotional landscapes of reading: fan fiction in the context of contemporary reading practices. International Journal of Cultural Studies. Vol 20, Issue 3, 2017.
De Kosnik, Abigail. The Collector is the Pirate. International Journal of Communication. Vol 6. 2012
Additional reading:
Fan fiction
Fan Fiction Studies Reader. Ed. By Helekson K., Busse K. Iowa City, IA, USA: University Of Iowa Press, 2014.
Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet. Ed.by Hellekson K., Busse K. Jefferson: McFarland, 2006.
Stein L.E, Busse K. Limit play: fan authorship between source text, intertext, and context. Popular Communication 7(4), 2009.
Pugh Sh. The Democratic Genre: Fan Fiction in a Literary Context. Bridgend: Seren, 2005.
Tosenberger C. ‘Mature Poets Steal’: Children’s Literature and the Unpublishability of Fanfiction. Children's Literature Association Quarterly. 2014. Vol. 39, № 1.
Caplan D. Why would any woman want to read such stories? The distinctions between genre romances and slash fiction. In: New Approaches to Popular Romance Fiction. Ed. By Frantz S and Selinger E. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2012.
Woledge E. Intimatopia: genre intersections between slash and the mainstream. In: Fan fiction and fan communities in the age of the Internet. P. 97–112.
Самутина Н. Великие читательницы: фанфикшн как форма литературного опыта // Социологическое обозрение. 2013. Т. 12, №3. [Samutina N. The great female readers: fan fiction as a literary experience. Russian Sociological Review. 12(3), 2013 (in Russian)]
Archives
Abigail De Kosnik. Rogue Archives: Digital Cultural Memory and Media Fandom. MIT Press, 2016.
Lothian, A. Archival anarchies: Online fandom, subcultural conservation, and the transformative work of digital ephemera. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 16: 6, 2013. pp. 541–56.
Hills, Matt. Doctor Who’s textual commemorators: Fandom, collective memory and the self-commodification of fanfac. Journal of Fandom Studies. Volume 2 Number 1.
Theme 4. Transnational poachers: how participatory cultures cross borders. Organization and economics of transcultural flows of participatory cultures. Manga/anime as an emblematic case, the current state of research on manga and anime as fan phenomena. The specifics of transcultural fan activities on the post-Soviet space.
Recommended reading for seminar 4:
Lori Morimoto. Transnational media fan studies. In: The Routledge Companion to Media Fandom. Ed. by M.Click and S.Scott. Routledge, 2018
Matt Hills. Transnational cult and/as neoliberalism: the liminal economies of anime fansubbers. Transnational Cinemas, 8:1., 2017
Additional reading:
Hye-Kyung lee. Transnational cultural fandom. In: Ashgate Research Companion to Film Studies. Ashgate, 2014.
Bertha Chin, Lori Hitchcock Morimoto. Towards a theory of transcultural fandom. Participations, Volume 10, Issue 1 ., 2013.
Matt Hills. Transcultural otaku: Japanese representations of fandom and representations of Japan in anime/manga fan cultures. Paper presented at “Media in Transision 2: Globalisation and Convergence” conference, MIT, 2002
Annett, S. Anime Fan Communities: Transcultural Flows and Frictions, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014
Fandom Unbound: Otaku Culture in a Connected World. Ed. Mizuko Itō, Daisuke Okabe, and Izumi Tsuji. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012.
Brienza, Casey. Global Manga: ‘Japanese’ Comics without Japan? Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 2015.
Manga’s Cultural Crossroads. Ed. by Jaqueline Berndt and Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer. Routledge, 2013
Allison A. Millennial Monsters: Japanese Toys and the Global Imagination. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006
Alvaro David Hernandez and Taiki Hirai. The Reception of Japanese Animation and its Determinants in Taiwan, South Korea and China. Animation: an interdisciplinary journal. Vol. 10(2), 2015, p. 154–169.
Orme, Stephanie. Femininity and fandom: the dual-stigmatisation of female comic book fans. Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 7:4, 2016, p. 403-416.
Манга в Японии и России. Субкультура отаку, история и анатомия японского комикса. Отв. ред. Ю.Магера. Москва-Екатеринбург. Фабрика комиксов, 2015 [Manga in Japan and Russia. Otaku subculture, history and anatomy of Japanese comics. Ed. By Y.Magera. Moscow-Ekaterinburg. 2015 (in Russian)]
Манга в Японии и России Отв. ред. Ю.Магера. Выпуск 2. Москва-Екатеринбург. Фабрика комиксов. 2018. [Manga in Japan and Russia. Issue 2. Ed. By Y.Magera. Moscow-Ekaterinburg. 2015 (in Russian)]
Theme 5. Fans and participatory cultures in real space. The intersection of online and offline practices. Graffiti and street art as participatory cultures.
Recommended reading for seminar 5:
Abby Waysdorf, Stijn Reijnders. Immersion, authenticity and the theme park as social space: Experiencing the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. International Journal of Cultural Studies Vol. 21(2), 2018.
Matt Hills. Location, Location, Location: Citizen-Fan Journalists’ “Set Reporting” and Info-War in the Digital Age. In: Popular Media Cultures: Fans, Audiences and Paratexts. Ed. By L.Geraghty. Palgrave Macmillan, 2015
Additional reading:
Rebecca Williams. Fan Tourism and Pilgrimage. In.: The Routledge Companion to Media Fandom. Ed.by M.Click and S.Scott. Routledge, 2018
Nicolle Lamerichs. Embodied Fantasy: The Affective Space of Anime Conventions. In: The Ashgate Research Companion to Fan Cultures. Ed. By Linda Duits, Koos Zwaan and Stijn Reijnders. Ashgate. 2014.
Henrik Linden and Sara Linden. Fans and Fan Cultures. Tourism, Consumerism and Social Media. Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.
Cornel Sandvoss. I love Ibiza. Music, Place and Belonging. In: Popular Music Fandom. Identities, Roles and Practices. Ed.by Mark Duffet. Routledge, 2014.
Sites of Popular Music Heritage. Memories, Histories, Places. Ed. By S. Cohen, R.Knifton, M.Leonard and L.Roberts. Routledge, 2015
Graffiti and Street Art. Reading, writing and representing the city. Ed. By Konstantinos Avramidis and Myrto Tsilimpounidi. Routledge, 2017
Natalia Samutina, Oksana Zaporozhets. Berlin, the City of Saturated Walls. Laboratorium: Russian Review of Social Research, 2015, Vol. 2.
Samutina, Natalia. Street art as "Exerciser for Vision": Hamburg Graffiti Writer Oz and the Community of Smileys, in: Seeing Whole: Toward an Ethics and Ecology of Sight. Newcastle upon Tyne : Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016. Ch. 4. P. 63-100.
Macdonald, Nancy. The Graffiti Subculture: Youth, Masculinity and Identity in London and New York. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001/
Young, Alison. Street Art, Public City: Law, Crime and the Urban Imagination. London: Routledge, 2014.