Posts Tagged cfp

CFP: The Ethics of Fan Studies

Posted by admin in Publications on June 1st, 2010

Kathy Larsen teaches celebrity studies and fan studies at George Washington University.in Washington D.C. She is the Popular Culture Association Area Chair for Fan Theory and Culture. With Lynn Zubernis, she is currently completing Fangasm.

John Walliss is Senior Lecturer in Sociology, and Director of the Centre for Millennialism Studies, at Liverpool Hope University, UK.

The CFP is here.

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CFP: Nationbending, a special edition of Transformative Works & Cultures

Posted by admin in Uncategorized on May 10th, 2010

Avatar: The Last Airbender is that rare animal: American-produced anime faithful to both its Japanese cinematic influences and its pervasive Chinese iconography. A vast amount of research was invested in bringing a fantasy Asian environment to life: martial arts master Sifu Kisu choreographed each fight and assigned specific fighting forms to each character; a Chinese calligraphy consultant wrote the signage that appeared in each episode, and the series’ creators visited China to study its traditional architecture. These elements create an enticing mash-up of genuine Asian signifiers within a fictional environment. The series’ popularity encouraged a live-action film adaptation from director M. Night Shyamalan. Fan controversy erupted when white actors were cast in roles previously “played” by characters with dark skin. Protests against this act of “racebending” included T-shirts and bumper stickers with the slogan Aang Ain’t White!, the founding of Racebending.com, and a renewed discussion among online fans about the long cinematic history of whitewashing and yellowface

This issue aims to investigate the cultural significance of A:tLA as a transforming and transformative text. Like the Avatar, A:tLA and its settings and characters have many incarnations online, on television, on film, and in print. Likewise, the definitions of anime, cartoons, Asia, and race have been bent by fans and producers alike. A:tLA is part of the ongoing transformation of American media in a global context. We welcome contributions focusing on Asian Studies; media theory and film studies; religious studies and anthropology; postcolonial and queer readings of the series, the films, and the fan works they have inspired; reviews of both canon and fanon texts; interviews with both canon and fanon producers; and reviews of relevant texts, whatever form they might take.

TWC accommodates academic articles of varying scope as well as other forms that embrace the technical possibilities of the Web and test the limits of the genre of academic writing. Contributors are encouraged to include embedded links, images, and videos or to propose submissions in alternative formats: interviews, collaborations, podcasts, comics, drawings, video, multimedia works.

Theory: Often interdisciplinary essays with a conceptual focus and a theoretical frame that offer expansive interventions in the field. Peer review. Length: 5,000-8,000 words plus a 100-250-word abstract.

Praxis: Analyses of particular cases that may apply a specific theory or framework to an artifact; explicate fan practice or formations; or perform a detailed reading of a text. Peer review. Length: 4,000-7,000 words plus a 100-250-word abstract.

Symposium: Short pieces that provide insight into current developments and debates. Editorial review. Length: 1,500-2,500 words

DUE DATES: OCTOBER 2011 (Theory, Praxis) & NOVEMBER 2011 (Symposium)

Please visit Transformative Works & Cultures to find out how to submit manuscripts. If you have any questions, contact me with “A:tLA” in the subject heading.

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CFP: Transformative Works & Cultures’ special issue on race

Posted by admin in Publications on May 19th, 2009

Special issue: Race and Ethnicity in Fandom (Summer 2011)

Transformative Works and Cultures
http://journal.transformativeworks.org/

editor AT transformativeworks.org

SPECIAL ISSUE EDITORS

Sarah Gatson (Gatson AT tamu.edu), Sociology, Texas A&M University,

Robin Reid (Robin_Reid AT tamu-commerce.edu), Literature and
Languages, Texas A&M University-Commerce,

Please feel free to forward to other listservs, individuals, and to post
online!

DESCRIPTION

_Transformative Works and Cultures_ (TWC), an online-only, peer-reviewed journal focusing on media and fan studies, broadly conceived, invites contributions for a special issue on race and ethnicity to be published in summer 2011.

Academic scholarship on fan cultures and fan productions over the past few decades has focused primarily on gender as the sole category of analysis. There has been little published scholarship on fan cultures and productions that incorporates critical race theory or draws on the rich array of methodologies that have been developed during the past century in both activist and academic communities in order to incorporate analysis of the social constructions of race and ethnicities in fandoms.

In contrast, fan activism and fan scholarship (at cons, workshops, and on the Internet) has produced a growing body of work (personal narratives, essays, carnivals, and in recent months, a press) focusing on not only analyzing but also confronting hierarchies of race and ethnicity and their relationship to gender, sexuality, class, and disability. Submissions by academics, acafans, fan scholars, and fans are encouraged. In all categories, people of color are especially encouraged to submit.

Topics might include but are not limited to:

*Online activism and the circulation of critical race theory and women of color feminisms in fan communities, in particular the relationship between fan online discourse and other online activist communities.

*Critical analysis of the instantiation and critique of racial hierarchies in fan communities and the surrounding cultural productions.

*Racist and antiracist issues in commercial transformative works (comics, film, mashups, remixes, machinima, etc.), especially
recuperative race readings (e.g., Randall’s _The Wind Done Gone,_ Rhys’s _Wide Sargasso Sea_).

*Race concerns in source texts (characters of color and their fannish reception, fandoms for work by authors of color, writing fannish original characters, etc.) and fannish responses (such as the Carl Brandon Society, Verb Noire, and other panfannish and professional projects).

*Intersection of race and ethnicity with gender, sexuality, class, and ability in fannish contexts in fan works and fan communities (pre-Internet, Internet, conventions, vids, fan fiction, artwork,
etc.).

SUBMISSIONS

Submit final papers directly to TWC by October 1, 2010. Please visit TWC’s Web site (http://journal.transformativeworks.org/) for complete submission guidelines. Please contact the guest editors with questions or inquiries.

ARTICLE TYPES

Theory: Apply a conceptual focus or theoretical frame. Peer review.
5,000-8,000 words.

Praxis: Apply a specific theory to a formation or artifact; explicate fan practice; perform a detailed reading of a specific text; relate transformative phenomena to social, literary, technological, and/or historical frameworks. Peer review. 4,000-7,000 words.

Symposium: Provide insight into developments or debates surrounding fandom, transformative media, or cultures. Editorial review.
1,500-2,500 words.

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