Fandom, Fanzines, and Archiving Science Fiction Fannish History

This brief history of science fiction (sf) fandom and fanzines focuses on the creation of a zine culture crucial to the split between written sf and media fandom; it also addresses archival holdings of sf and media zines dating from the 1930s on

Fannish Identities and Scholarly Responsibilities: A Conversation

Co-written academic book chapter exploring methodological positions in media fan studies.Three innovative fan scholars with tremendous experience as fan scholars and as editors of fan scholarship, Will Brooker, Mark Duffett and Karen Hellekson, engage in a discussion of issues they feel are central to the methods and ethics of fan studies scholarship. In this conversation, they discuss best practices and methods for fan studies, the impact of scholars’ fannish identities on methods and ethics in fan studies, scholars’ relationships to fan objects and communities, and the responsibilities scholars should assume when studying fan communities

Prison Break general gabbery: extra-hyperdiegetic spaces, power, and identity in Prison Break

This article examines the interdependent relationship among the text, its producers, and "extra-hyperdiegetic space" constructed around the romantic relationship between Michael and Sara, the central protagonists of the Prison Break television series. The Prison Break creators have created extensive digital and analogue platforms to create an extended textual experience that constructs a close text-audience relationship. The digital and analogue platforms construct a space that is inhabitable by fans, one in which to express their own desires. This article explores the online material generated by fans (the most prevalent artifact of this extended space is the Prison Break fan fiction) as well as material released outside the story by producers on their blogs and official promo sites related the show and examines the interconnected (however mediated) relationship among these different spaces in relation to the increasingly romanticized and melodramatic relationship between Michael and Sara