Welcome to our Events Calendar roundup for the month of July 2013! 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.

• Westercon is the "West Coast Science Fantasy Conference" held annually in the western part of the United States. Westercon 66 will take place in Sacramento, California from 4-7 July 2013. In addition to workshops and panels, the program features special guests, a masquerade and costume ball, an art show, musical events, and a writers workshop.
  Read and share about Westercon on Fanlore
• Readercon celebrates "imaginative literature" - that is, literary science fiction, fantasy, horror, and unclassifiable works known as "slipstream." The 24th Readercon will be held 11-14 July in Burlington, Massachusetts. The annual convention brings together more than 150 professionals from the publishing industry from cross the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and sometimes even Australia and Japan. The event typically sees an attendance of over 600 readers and fans.
  Read and share about Readercon on Fanlore
• The OTW is excited to be hosting a fan meetup and outreach event - A Meetup of Our Own at the San Diego Comic Con. The meetup will be held at the Tequila Bar & Grille at the San Diego Marriott Marquis & Marina on Wednesday, July 17, 8:00-9:30pm. Complimentary margaritas, sodas, and chips and salsa will be provided. The event will also feature games, opportunities to socialize with other fans, and prize giveaways. A Comic Con registration is not required to attend. Suggested donation is $5 per person.
• Comic-Con International returns to San Diego, California for its 44th year. This mult-media, multi-genre, multi-fandom convention features panels involving celebrities, entertainers, and creators from a diverse range of entertainment. Special events, autograph signings, an exhibition hall, and screenings of films and television episodes occur throughout the 4-day event. San Diego Comic-Con will run from 18-21 July.
  Read and share about Comic-Con on Fanlore
• Held in Messe Essen, Germany, Star Wars Celebration Europe II is an event for all ages. The Celebrations began in 1999 in Denver, Colorado and in 2007 went international to London, back to Los Angeles, to Tokyo, and then Orlando for the last one in 2012. The con contains exhibits, an interactive show floor, screenings, merchandise, celebrity guests, panels, and autograph sessions. Costuming workshops, academic discussions, behind-the-scenes insights, fan films, and sneak peeks at the future of Star Wars are all elements of Celebration as well.
  Read and share about Star Wars Celebration on Fanlore
• SysAdmin Day is held to show appreciation for the work of systems administrators and other IT workers. It is celebrated on the last Friday in July. The first System Administrator Appreciation Day was celebrated on July 28, 2000. There are many suggestions for the proper observation of the holiday, the most common being cake and ice cream, so if you're reading this, thank your SysAdmins!

This month we have received a request for research participation from Inese Murneice, a student in the MA, Communication, Culture, and Media Program at Coventry University for a study involving female football fans who write fan fiction.

The full call & consent statement is below:

This informed consent is a part of the research for Master’s Paper which intends to examine how female football fans, who write fan fiction, create concepts of identity, fandom and creativity. Through the method of ethnofiction I want to enable female fans like myself to build and express narratives, putting them into the main position. The task, therefore, is:

Inese can be reached at Pillar Box 102, 71a Hertford Street, Coventry, West Midlands, CV1 1LA, United Kingdom or murnieci@uni.coventry.ac.uk. The study is being supervised by Mafalda Stasi (mafalda.stasi@uni.coventry.ac.uk).

This study is conducted for the purposes of completing an MA degree with Coventry University. There are no plans at the moment to pursue this project further. Should the opportunity arise for further academic projects (typically, academic article in a reputable peer-reviewed journal) all participants will be consulted and their informed consent asked anew.

If you have requests for research participation, please view our policy for inclusion at our website.

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

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.

• MISTI-Con, Harry Potter convention hosted by The Group Who Shall Not Be Named (the New York City Harry Potter Meetup) in cooperation with Ray "The Dark Lord Bartender" Smith and the Margate Hotel, will be held in Laconia, New Hampsire, USA from 9-13 May 2013. The convention will feature panels, programs, academic presentations, exhibits, wizard rock performances, and much more.
  Read and Share about MISTI-Con on Fanlore
• Vidukon, a United Kingdom-based fan-run convention focused on vidding, will be held in Cardiff, Wales on 18-19 May 2013. The con welcomes vids and vidders from all fandoms and features video shows along with workshops, panels, and even a 'Vid Bazaar' where vidders can swap DVDs of their work.
  Read and Share about Vidukon on Fanlore
• Celebrating its 31st incarnation, BayCon, the San Francisco Bay area's regional science fiction convention will be held 24-27 May 2013. In honor of this celebration, the program organizers have chosen the theme 'Triskaidekaphobicon' and are planning to explore the darker sides of science fiction and fantasy: phobias, superstitions, thrills, horror, and more. The con features panels, workshops, special guests, meet and greet opportunities, and gaming spaces for fans across the genre.
  Read and Share about BayCon on Fanlore
• The First Annual Fandom and Neomedia Studies (FANS) Conference will be held in Dallas, TX, on 1 and 2 June 2013. The FANS Conference is hosted and sponsored by A-Kon, the longest continually running anime and manga convention in North America. It will be held at the Dallas Hilton Anatole Hotel. Topics at the conference will include all aspects of being a fan, ranging from being a passive audience member to producing one’s own parafictive or interfictive creations. Neomedia includes both new media, as it is customarily defined, as well as new ways of using and conceptualizing traditional media.

A Call for Papers this month comes from Intensities - The Journal of Cult Media. Intensities has recently relaunched and has issued a call for papers for issue six focusing on television shows "that have achieved cult status at a historical distance". Papers are sought for both established shows and for shows that have received limited critical attention. According to the call: "[T]he papers will locate those shows historically, either by drawing on archive materials or suggesting new cultural, historical or institutional contexts in which they might be understood."

Submissions should be 6000-8000 words with a 200 word abstract (sent as separate documents) and made via e-mail to intensities[at]brunel.ac.uk. The deadline for submissions is 31 May 2013. See the official call website for more information.

This month we have received a request for research participation from Lucy Neville, a lecturer in criminology and sociology at the University of Middlesex. Dr. Neville's study is entitled "Women's Production and Consumption of (Male) Homosexual Erotica". The study has been approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the University of Middlesex.

Her contact information is available within the survey's cover page and she can be reached via e-mail at l.neville[at]mdx.ac.uk. The research results will be shared on the researcher's LiveJournal following the completion of the study.

If you are interested in participating, the survey questionnaire has additional information regarding the study and your rights as a participant.

If you have requests for research participation, please view our policy for inclusion at our website.

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

Welcome to our Events Calendar roundup for the month of March! 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.

• The Barnard Center for Research on Women at Barnard College in New York, New York, will host the 38th Scholar & Feminist Conference on 1-2 March 2013. The event's theme is "Utopia" drawing on the idea that there is a consistent power that comes from confronting our desire–our "appetites and hunger"–for "spaces of possibility," making "women’s long revolution… breaking all the old hierarchies." The event will also feature a workshop entitled Talking Back to Culture Through Feminist Remix, co-presented by Elisa Kreisinger of PopCulturePirate.com and OTW founding Board member Francesca Coppa.
• The Society for Cinema & Media Studies will host its annual conference 6-10 March in Chicago, Illinois. The annual conference is an interdisciplinary endeavor for teachers and scholars in the areas of film and media studies to network, present new research, and promote the field to practitioners, scholars, and the public at large.
• RevelCon 24, billed as "THE only fan-run relax-a-con/zinefest in the Southwest US" will be held in Houston, Texas on 15-17 March 2013. The weekend focuses on a number of fannish practices including vids, fic, art, zines, and much more. The event includes a songvid contest, a fic reading party, an art auction, and much, much more.
  Read and share about RevelCon on Fanlore
• MegaCon (MegaConvention) is a multimedia fan convention held at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. MegaCon 2013 will take place 15-17 March. The con features programming related to science fiction, fantasy, comic books, anime & manga, and gaming and hosts a number of media and comic book guests for panels and autograph sessions. This year's event will also feature a special evening event with the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
  Read and share about MegaCon on Fanlore
• New York City's first Open Source conference, Open Tech NYC, will be held on 30 March 2013. The one-day conference will feature talks on open source in business, using open technology to make a local impact, and state and local policy in relation to open source. Discounted registration is available for students

A Call for Papers this month comes from Open Source Bridge, a technology conference focused on the full spectrum of open technology and culture.

From the official call: "We are looking for people from all experience areas to submit talk proposals. Your background can be web development, project management, open hardware engineering, security, quality assurance, data visualization, user experience, etc. If you work or play in open source, we want to hear from you. Let us know how you are improving your communities, small or large. All speaking experience levels welcome." Proposals can be submitted using the online form and are due 9 March. The conference will be held in Portland, Oregon from 18-21 June 2013.

This month we have received a request for research participation from Kristen Street, a master's candidate in the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Kristen's study is entitled "The Effect of Fandom on the Literary Lives of Young Adults" and the survey consists of "14 yes/no and short answer questions about your reading habits and fandom activities, and 3 open ended questions about how fandom has affected your life." The study is approved by UNC-Chapel Hill's Institutional Review Board. Additional information is available on the consent form prior to the survey.

Kristen can be contacted at kstreet[at]live.unc.edu and her faculty advisor, Brian Sturm, can be reached via sturm[at]ils.unc.edu. Kristen intends to pursue publication of the study results and plans to share them with us so we may include them in a future OTW Fannews post.

If you have requests for research participation, please view our policy for inclusion at our website.

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

Here's a roundup of stories about how fandom has arrived that might be of interest to fans:

• YPulse, a Millenial marketing site, focused on fan fiction as part of their check-in on youth trends. "What once was a nerdy pastime is now the norm, and fan fiction goes well beyond creative writing. Teens are still writing fan fiction stories, but now they're also creating videos of themselves acting out scenes from books and movies, crafting animations of their favorite stars in stories they devise, and recording covers of songs with their own twists to the music and lyrics. And Millennial stars and brands are embracing this form of co-creation."
• Indeed, discussions of brands and marketing revolves around fandom talk. "Stephenie Rodriguez, of social-media consultancy Mighty Media Group, says there's no question the internet is enabling people to become more verbal about their views. Without the passionate few, Rodriguez says, the online world would be contrived and disengaged. 'I believe the presence of a hater or fanboy is an indication of a healthy community,' she says. 'A forum or community without conflict reeks of artifice. For brands, nothing sounds as dead as no discussion, no query, no conflict, no advocates.'"
• Fandom is also the focus of many an academic, one of whom recently discussed "Minions, Memes, and Meta: The Varieties of Online Media Fandom Experience" at The University of South Carolina, Sumter. The presentation focused on "the origins of media fandom, its activities and...fannishness as a philosophy of engaging texts."
• Of course the OTW itself hosts many an academic work about fans as well as various other fannish projects, at least one of which led us to believe we've arrived when someone created a "me/ao3 otp" fanmix.

If you're in "brandom", create fanworks or are an acafan, why not write about it in Fanlore? Additions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, event, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent Links Roundup at transformativeworks.org. 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.