geralt, "Social Media Abstract." CC0 Public Domain, Pixabay.
This is English 363. We meet Tuesdays and Thursdays in Callaway S108 from 11:30 to 12:45. You may contact me any time to ask a question and may drop by office hours in Callaway N314 from 9 to 10am on class days (or we can schedule an appointment).
Welcome to the class on fan cultures, and welcome to the fancultures website: this is a work in progress! Please take a look at students' work-in-progress. Tumblr page credit to Jesse Richheimer. Thanks Jesse! We will begin looking at some of Henry Jenkins's vast body of work on fan culture and what it means to be an "aca fan" - short for "academic fan." We will then read through examples of the literature for the last decade defining and raising questions about fan culture and in turn create our own set of research questions. For example: Is there a relationship between fandom and civic engagement? What is the nature of the "discourse communities" fandom produces? Are fans always rightly seen as communities of practice as some of the theory seems to suggest? What are the many communication practices of fandom? What various purposes do they serve? Students will create websites about a specific fandom. The 10-page plus website will contain a blog about readings and discussions, a secondary review of literature relevant to the fandom topic, and infographic, a slide presentation, analysis of a relevant piece of fandom culture, a short recording, your own definition/analysis of fandom theory, and several pages analyzing the fandom culture using keywords we will identify from the readings throughout the semester. |