A FAN STUDIES PRIMER
METHOD, RESEARCH, ETHICS
FANDOM & CULTURE
Paul Booth and Katherine Larsen, series editors
A FAN STUDIES PRIMER
METHOD, RESEARCH, ETHICS
Paul Booth and Rebecca Williams, editors
University of Iowa Press,
Iowa City
University of Iowa Press, Iowa City 52242
Copyright 2021 by the University of Iowa Press
uipress.uiowa.edu
Printed in the United States of America
Design by Ashley Muehlbauer
No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. All reasonable steps have been taken to contact copyright holders of material used in this book. The publisher would be pleased to make suitable arrangements with any whom it has not been possible to reach.
Printed on acid-free paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Booth, Paul, 1981editor. | Williams, Rebecca, 1981editor.
Title: A Fan Studies Primer: Method, Research, Ethics / Paul Booth and Rebecca Williams, editors.
Description: Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, [2021] | Series: Fandom & Culture | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021008841 (print) | LCCN 2021008842 (ebook) | ISBN 9781609388096 (paperback; acid-free paper) | ISBN 9781609388102 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Subculture. | Fans (Persons) | Fan clubs.
Classification: LCC HM646.A44 2021 (print) | LCC HM646 (ebook) | DDC 306/.1dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021008841
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021008842
Paul dedicates this book to his former professors and academic advisors. Sorry I was late to class.
Rebecca dedicates this book to all the fan studies scholars out there.
CONTENTS
Rukmini Pande
Lori Morimoto
Renee Ann Drouin
Katherine Larsen
Benjamin Woo
Anne Gilbert
Kadian Pow
Matt Hills
Lies Lanckman
Cait Coker
Alex Thomas
EJ Nielsen
Danielle Hart and Mandy Olejnik
Maria Alberto
Josh Stenger
Lesley Willard and Suzanne Scott
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
When we started putting this book together in 2019, we could not have anticipated the emergency situation the COVID-19 pandemic would bring. We would be completely remiss if we didnt acknowledge and thank everyone who worked through the pandemic to keep us safe and healthy. We appreciate how difficult it was for our contributors to work on chapter drafts while keeping all the other parts of their lives afloat, and you have our undying thanks for your hard work and energy, even when ours was flagging.
Our thanks to Meredith Stabel, who helped usher this book into existence at the University of Iowa Press.
We also thank the fan studies community, who may not always see eye to eye on every issue but constantly strives to help each other produce exciting and thoughtful work. It is our privilege to work with so many amazing scholars, colleagues, and friends.
We gratefully acknowledge Transformative Works and Cultures, which in June 2020 (as this manuscript was being sent to the publishers) published a special issue on fan studies methodologies (vol. 33), edited by Julia E. Largent, Milena Popova, and Elise Vist (see in this volume). A couple of chapters in this volume are reworked versions of articles in that issue, and a few authors have different chapters but are represented in both:
Maria Alberto, Fan Users and Platform Studies, https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2020.1841.
Mandy Olejnik and Danielle Hart, Exploring a Threshold Concept Framework to Fan Studies Research Methodologies, (2020). https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2020.1715.
Lies Lanckman, Fans, Community, and Conflict in the Pages of Picture Play, 192038, https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2020.1745.
Rukmini Pande, How (Not) to Talk about Race: A Critique of Methodological Practices in Fan Studies, https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2020.1737.
We are grateful to TWC editors Kristina Busse and Karen Helleksen and the special issue editors for their generosity. We encourage our readers to augment their reading with the excellent work in that special issue.
Paul wishes to thank his colleagues at DePaul University, who by now are used to him humming the Doctor Who theme when he walks down the hallway. Paul also thanks his coeditor, Rebecca Williams. Editing this book with you has been a dream; youre amazing to work with and send some pretty sweet GIFs. He also acknowledges Slinky Booth, whose gentle snores from the bedroom remind him that naps are always important.
Rebecca is thankful for the support from her colleagues at the University of South Wales, as well as the fan studies scholars around the world from whom she continues to learn. She also thanks Paul for his amazing editorial skills and support in working on this book during some extremely difficult times. Finally, she is forever grateful to her family and to her endlessly supportive husband, Ross.
A FAN STUDIES PRIMER
METHOD, RESEARCH, ETHICS
INTRODUCTION
The discipline of fan studies is famously undisciplined. This is not to say that it isnt rich with insight into the nature of fan affect, creativity, and community-building (among other things), but that, as Sam Ford described in 2014, its porous boundaries... are essential to facilitate the continued incorporation of new methodological approaches, new types of fandoms and media industries, and new issues/angles to be tackled. As we will see, fan studies thrives as an outlier; it revels as an outsider.
One may well question why we have put together a collection of essays focused on doing precisely thisarticulating a methodological underpinning for fan studies in a larger academic discipline. The answer is that we believe we can celebrate fan studies dispersed multidisciplinary nature while articulating its important place in both fan and academic scholarship. To this end, this collection contains a variety of chapters that dont posit just one avenue for fan studies research but unveil a bounty of approaches that overlap, contradict, complement, and complicate each other. This isnt a book that one person could have written, nor should it be.
Since 2010 or so, there has been an explosion in fan studies work from two research-focused companion collections, to edited volumes, to a bevy of solo-authored monographs.
Despite the increasing visibility of fan studies as a discipline, there remains scant work specifically on methodological issues. As the discipline grows, it is important to reflect the vast array of perspectives that make up the field. Each chapter in this volume includes a specific methodological approach for a particular type of fan studies research, filtered through the applied interest of the author. The chapters are organized with methodological explanations and personal research findings. In addition, the essays make connections between methodology, ethics, and research as they relate to that particular type of fan studies work. Given the variety of available research methods discussed herein, we do not hope to reach a consensus or one-size-fits-all approach to ethics, since it is generally agreed that each researcher must evaluate the ethics of a study on a case-by-case basis.
