• At Game Informer one member recently wrote a post in defense of fanfiction. "Ultimately, fanfiction gets much more of a bad rap because it more-often-than-not involves altering the way a series works, and how the characters of that series are portrayed. As a person who loves story, lore, and characters, it is a bit surprising that I'm open to (and enjoy) series-altering stories. However, I like how they explore ideas I wouldn't see otherwise, so I'm not just re-experiencing the game again in novel form. If I want that, I can (hopefully) get one at the bookstore."
• Two writers profiled by Swarthmore College's Daily Gazette did the same with fewer caveats. "After taking the course 'Fan Culture' with Professor Bob Rehak, [Ginzberg] developed his current view on 'shipping' in fan fiction. 'I don’t really care what you ship. I’ll ship everything. It’s a nice challenge to be able to see if I can put these two characters together, even though the show wouldn’t necessarily support it. But it’s also nice if you support the stuff in the show, because then you can expand on it in a way the show never did.'"
• As an increasing number of people not only read fanfiction but create it, there's more focus on exploration rather than defense. For example, Marie Maginity wrote a "Fanfiction for Dummies" post that defined terms and recounted history. "Fast forward a few hundred years to the young Bronte sisters, writing 'real person' fanfiction about Sir Arthur Wellesley and his sons, Arthur and Charles, one of whom becomes the Duke of Zamorna, a superhero of sorts. And if you thought the first slash fiction dates to Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock, you are mistaken. Paintings and descriptions of romantic encounters surrounded Napoleon Bonaparte and Tsar Alexander I. They even appeared together in a thinly disguised passage in Tolstoy’s War and Peace."
• Sequential Tart gathered the GeekGirl Con panelists of the Romance Is a Feminist Genre discussion, to share their thoughts on its intersection with fanfiction. "One thing that romance and fanfiction have in common is that for a long time, they've been seen as 'less than' -- that is, 'not as good as' other kinds of fiction, even genre fiction. Both still continue to have that 'mark' against them, and despite the popularity of both genres, they are considered at the 'fringe' of literary society, so to speak. However, what most people don't understand about art is that the most innovation and exploration happens at the fringes of any society. Look at hip-hop and rap, for instance. All of these genres have a definitely structure to them that art's higher society tends to deplore. But all art must have structure, a springboard from which to jump into innovation, and these things exist at the fringes of the words of romance, fanfiction, and rap."

What fanfiction debates have you seen? Write about them on Fanlore! Contributions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent OTW Fannews post. Links are welcome in all languages! Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.

• A variety of articles derived from an Anhui TV segment reported that 20 women writing slash fiction were arrested in China as part of an effort to "create a healthy cyberspace." As The Diplomat pointed out though, the purge was very narrowly targeted. "Indeed, if the various crackdowns in the past were actually aimed at porn, it’s hard to understand how some of the largest porn sites have somehow slipped through the cracks. If you want to read reports from Amnesty International or the New York Times in China, you are bang out of luck unless you have a VPN. Still, the glorious proletariat can look at Porn.com until they’re blue in the face."
• Anuradha Lingappa wrote in the Whitman College Pioneer about sexual assaults in Harry Potter fandom. "The recent accusations mirror an incident a couple years ago when an Internet-famous musician who wrote songs about similarly 'nerdy' topics was arrested on several counts of child pornography. He pled guilty to soliciting sexually explicit content from underage fans. He moved in the same circles as some of the men who are currently accused, even accompanying their bands on tour. The response to his arrest was disappointing. No one wanted to talk about it. If there had been serious discussion about preventing sexual violence within fandoms, maybe things wouldn’t have gotten so far."
• Author N.K. Jemisin discussed confirmation bias. "Confirmation bias doesn’t cause the phenomenon of Mysteriously Whitewashed Medieval Europe. (Or Peculiarly Denuded of Women Europe, or Puzzlingly Focused On The Nobility Europe, or any of the other bizarre things we tend to see in medieval Europe-flavored fantasy.) Confirmation bias causes the freakouts that occur whenever somebody points out these phenomena, and names them as inaccuracies. Like the 'go kill yourself' messages Medieval PoC has gotten for simply pointing out that people of color could easily have been present in a game set in central Bohemia."

What examples of fandom risks have you seen? Write about it on Fanlore! Contributions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent OTW Fannews post. Links are welcome in all languages! Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in an OTW Fannews post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.

One of the OTW's projects is Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC), an open-access academic journal dedicated to fandom and fandom studies.

But don't think that just because it's a peer-reviewed, scholarly quarterly with a bibliographic listing in the MLA bibliography of journals that the contents of TWC aren't for fans like you to enjoy!  Check out this sampling, ranked by number of DOI resolutions:

1) "Why we should talk about commodifying fan work", by Nele Noppe. How would legalizing fanwork influence the question: should fan work be free?

2) "Book Review: Boys' love manga: Essays on the sexual ambiguity and cross-cultural fandom of the genre", by Nele Noppe. "The focus of the book remains squarely on the fans of boys' love manga, which makes it relevant to anyone interested in fan studies."

3) "Women, "Star Trek," and the early development of fannish vidding", by Francesca Coppa. This paper discusses how early female Star Trek fans structured the practices and aesthetics of vidding, in order to heal the wounds created by the displacement and fragmentation of women on television.

4) "'The epic love story of Sam and Dean': 'Supernatural,' queer readings, and the romance of incestuous fan fiction," by Catherine Tosenberger. Tosenberger examines the literary, cultural, and folkloric discourses of incest and queerness as invoked by the show in order to argue that "Wincest" fan fiction is best understood not as a perverse, oppositional reading of a manly dudebro show, but as an expression of readings that are suggested and supported by the text itself.

5) "Endless loop: A brief history of chiptunes", by Kevin Driscoll and Joshua Diaz. Driscoll and Diaz explore the confusion surrounding what chiptunes is, and how the production and performance of music connected to 80's electronic video game soundtracks "tells an alternate narrative about the hardware, software, and social practices of personal computing in the 1980s and 1990s."

6) "Stranger than fiction: Fan identity in cosplay", by Nicolle Lamerichs. Lamerichs argues that "costuming is a form of fan appropriation that transforms, performs, and actualizes an existing story in close connection to the fan's own identity," and that "cosplay motivates fans to closely interpret existing texts, perform them, and extend them with their own narratives and ideas."

7) "Repackaging fan culture", by Suzanne Scott. Scott argues that "the strategic definition of fandom as a gift economy serves as a defensive front to impede encroaching industrial factions" like FanLib and Kindle Worlds, and examines "the Seinfeldian roots" of the social taboo of "regifting," relative to fan culture.

8) "Thirty political video mashups made between World War II and 2005", by Jonathan McIntosh. The creator of the famed Buffy vs. Edward remix vid explores subversive pre-YouTube remixes.

9) "Book review: Spreadable media: Creating value and meaning in a networked culture, by Henry Jenkins, Sam Ford, and Joshua Green", by Melissa A. Click. "Readers with stakes in the tug-of-war between fans and industry will likely enjoy, and be invigorated by, the authors' arguments about spreadability."

10) "The Web planet: How the changing Internet divided "Doctor Who" fan fiction writers", by Leora Hadas. Hadas explores how evolving participatory culture clashed with traditional fandom modes and came to a head over one Whovian fanfic archive, using the conflict there to argue that "the cultural logics of fandom and of participatory culture might be more separate than they initially appear."

And if you want to move beyond the Top 10 articles on TWC, here's a word cloud of the most frequently used words taken from the titles of every article that TWC has published in its 6-year history.

Would you like to help us generate even more words? Head over to Fanhackers to see how you can celebrate acafandom, meta, and more with us—or check out the TWC Submissions Guidelines for submitting your research or essay to the journal!

Welcome to our Events Calendar roundup for the month of May! The Events Calendar can be found on the OTW website and is open to submissions by anyone with news of an event. These can be viewed by event-type, such as Academic Events, Fan Gatherings, Legal Events, OTW Events, or Technology Events taking place around the world.

• Free Comic Book Day takes place on "the first Saturday in May each year - when participating comic book shops across North America and around the world give away comic books absolutely FREE to anyone who comes into their stores."

  More about Free Comic Book Day on Fanlore

• M/M Rares

  M/M Rares is an annual fanfiction exchange for rare slash pairings. Participants write a fic at least 1000 words long focusing on a slash pairing another participant has requested. As this is an exchange, they receive a 1000+ word fic featuring a slash pairing they requested in return.

  Nominations Open: 13 April
  Nominations Close: 3 May @ 8:00pm PDT
  Signups Open: 5 May @ 8:00pm PDT
  Signups Close: 23 May @ 8:00 PDT
  Assignments Sent: No later than 30 May @ 8:00pm PDT
  Fics Due: 25 July @ 8:00pm PDT
  Fics Revealed: 1 August @ 8:00pm PDT
  Authors Revealed: 8 August @ 8:00pm PDT

  More about M/M Rares on Fanlore

• LexiCon

  LexiCon is an open-to-all gaming convention. Visitors can learn to play new games like Gravwell, Sentinels - Vengeance, Jupiter Rising, Relic Runners, City of Iron, and BioShock Infinite: The Siege of Columbia. LexiCon also will have family gaming events like "Learn 5 Family Games in 90 minutes" and Adult Party nights Friday and Saturday. There will also be a Magic the Gathering Tournament with $1,000 1st prize, plus lots of extras.

• BLush Convention

  BLush Convention is a biennial not-for-profit event organized for Philippine and Asian fans of Boys' Love and Yaoi. The first event was held last 8th December 2012 at Shaw Boulevard, Mandaluyong City, Metro Manila. This year it will take place on May 3 in Manila. It will feature panels and talks, merchandise booths, the much-anticipated butler cafe, La Vie En Rose, and more.

• Open Doors chat with fans

  OTW's Open Doors committee will be holding two public chats on Campfire (the online chat platform the OTW uses) in order to discuss the import of the Yuletide archives to the AO3. The second will be held on May 4, 1am UTC (see when the chat is held in your timezone)

• VidUKon 2014

  Vidukon is a fan run convention in the UK where fannish vidders and vid watchers get together to OD on vids and vid talk and have the fun times. Aside from video shows, panels and workshops will run for those interested in the whys and wherefores. A Vid Bazaar is also included in the con-suite where DVDs are up for sale or swap. You can get a spot on the table for a flat fee, payable at registration. Registration is £40 for an attending membership, which includes two and a half days.

  VidUKon is also accepting Premieres and submissions to their Vidder's Choice show - a chance for any member (attending or supporting) to show a vid of their choice during the opening evening. Deadlines for these are 11th May 2014.

  Starting in 2014, a virtual convention will be running alongside the physical convention. If you buy a supporting membership, you will be able to watch the vidshow, including Premieres, streaming, in real time, with comments enabled to discuss the shows with your fellow virtual attendees! After the convention, this will be available to everyone. They are also considering streaming some panels, depending on interest.

  More about VidUKon on Fanlore

• WisCon

  Running since 1977, WisCon is the first and foremost feminist science fiction convention in the world. WisCon encourages discussion, debate and extrapolation of ideas relating to feminism, gender, race and class. WisCon honors writers, editors and artists whose work explores these themes and whose voices have opened new dimensions and territory in these issues.

  Special events include the Tiptree bake sale and auction, a writer's workshop and a Dessert Party, as well as a vid party. The deadline for submitting a vid is Friday, May 9, 2014, two weeks before the con.

  More about WisCon on Fanlore

Calls for Papers this month come from:

• Stardom and Celebrity in Contemporary India

  The forthcoming issue of Indian Journal of Comparative Literature & Translation Studies is opening submissions on "Stardom and Celebrity in Contemporary India". The informing assumption is that there is no single culture of celebrity and the issue will endeavor to highlight the co-existence of multiple domains of celebrity culture in India. IJCLTS invites original, unpublished and innovative work from across the disciplines and across the world. The extent of the essays should be between 3000-5000 words or shorter but rigorously analytic pieces (500-1500 words) whose scope is less extensive than that of an essay but which raises a pertinent point regarding celebrity culture. The pertinent master categories of India studies.

  Besides the articles, IJCLTS is looking for translations, interviews, and book reviews. Submit by 31st May 2014.

• CFP: My Little Pony: A Transcultural Phenomenon

  "This one day conference seeks to place the 30 year long ‘My Little Pony’ series within critical, cultural and creative contexts, exploring the brand from a multi-disciplinary range of perspectives. 300 word abstracts are invited." The conference will be held at University of Brighton – Grand Parade on Saturday 28 June 2014. Please send abstracts and enquiries to Ewan Kirkland at e.kirkland [at] brighton.ac.uk.

  Deadline for abstracts: 28 May 2014

• CFP: Queer Fan Cultures in Greater China

  Queer fandom nowadays has become a global phenomenon. The blooming of Chinese queer fandoms in the past two decades has also offered rich sites of queer representations of gender and sexuality. Yet, research explicating Chinese queer fandoms is still far from adequate. The editors seek chapter contributions that elaborate the cultural specificities, significances, transformativity, hybridity, historicity, and futurity epitomized by Chinese queer fan cultures. We are especially keen to receive manuscripts that consider the queer dimensions of gender, sexuality, desire, and fantasy from a wide range of Chinese temporal and geographical settings. We also very welcome submissions that employ interdisciplinary and/or comparative approaches.

  To submit chapter proposal submissions for consideration, please send a 1000- to 1500-word abstract with working bibliography and a CV by May 30th, 2014 to queerfandom2014 [at] yahoo.com.

• CFP: The Mystery of Edwin Drood: Solutions and Resolutions

  Charles Dickens’s last novel, unfinished as it is, has become a call to arms to a legion of fans, academics and authors to solve the mystery and complete the uncompleted. The Victorian Popular Fiction Association will publish The Drood Inquiry, which will investigate and celebrate the many weird and wonderful responses to Dickens’s story, exploring the ways in which these solutions reflect upon the authors’ attitudes to Dickens and his legacy, and how Dickens’s story and characters exist both within the boundaries of the original text and without in the numerous spin-offs that have arisen.

  Proposals are welcome for 20 minute papers to be presented at a one day conference on the themes of the book or the insights its subsequent treatment can provide on Dickens’s reputation, as well as any discussion of theories on how the story ends. Proposals (up to 500 words) and a brief biographical note should be sent by 31 May 2014.

• CFP: Golden Age or Gilded Age? Fan Cultures, Past, Present, and Future

  Fan culture has been intimately linked with mass media since the beginning of the movies in the late 1800s and early 1900s. As various technologies have pushed media evolution along – sound, color, television, and internet – fan culture has kept pace and fueled not only consumption but also developed communities. First in fan magazines, then at conventions, fan culture has spread and inspired fans to celebrate the media they loved. This love frequently leads to the development of derivative works such as fan fiction and fan editing—the expansion of existing media elements into whole new worlds.

  Is this the Golden Age of Fan Culture, as brought about by the internet’s ability to transmit media and foster communities, or is this a Gilded Age, where fan culture has gone postmodern, sometimes eclipsing the objects and subjects of fan desire? This area welcomes proposals on a diverse range of topics pertaining to fan culture, both present and historic, with a particular emphasis on visual media such as film and television.

  2014 Film & History Conference is looking for submissions of 200-word proposals by 1 June 2014.

The OTW encourages anyone to submit an event that's not already listed, and to check out the calendar throughout the year!