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So, rather than finishing up my edits or preparing materials for Vividcon (by the way – any intellectual property-type questions vidders want answered? Let me know here and I’ll be sure to work your questions into my presentation) – I’ve been doing more reading, specifically at Henry Jenkins’ website. He has a bunch of interesting stuff up, from Lassie to Mortal Kombat. There’s a long dialogue between him and Matt Hills, who wrote Fan Cultures, that is just wonderful, with too much thoughtful stuff to summarize, though my favorite bits are about the change in cultural production over the past few decades to anticipate, incorporate and respond to fans. If you’re at all interested in theorizing fandom, read it.
What this exchange really got me thinking about was Jenkins’ account of the increasing respectability among academics of being a fan as well as of writing about fans. To a certain extent, this is clearly true; if anything, now one has to defend looking down on fans rather than identifying with them. But Jenkins’ and Hills’ experience is not mine, for a specific (perhaps gendered) reason: As far as I know, though both men are explicit in their academic work that they are fans, they do not produce fiction, art or vids. “Coming out” for them is therefore a lot less fraught. For me, the danger is far more related to my students than my colleagues, most of whom are likely to see my fannish endeavors as bizarre but not academically disqualifying. With students, though, wearing Spock ears really has nothing on the way I’m exposed. Sure, if you actually read Jenkins’ work, you’ll know he’s read a bunch of slash, but, flippantly, it seems to me that the only thing surprising about finding a man reading “porn” is that he’s reading it. My students can easily access what they might well assume are my sexual fantasies – or, at a minimum, what I think might be arousing to readers. Yes, I do feel vulnerable, and it isn’t something I’d ever bring up with students, though I haven’t taken heroic measures to separate my identities and I understand I’ve been outed to some of them.
Anyway, I’d be interested to hear what other fan writers/artists/vidders who are also academics have to say about what your academic colleagues know about your fannish commitments.
What this exchange really got me thinking about was Jenkins’ account of the increasing respectability among academics of being a fan as well as of writing about fans. To a certain extent, this is clearly true; if anything, now one has to defend looking down on fans rather than identifying with them. But Jenkins’ and Hills’ experience is not mine, for a specific (perhaps gendered) reason: As far as I know, though both men are explicit in their academic work that they are fans, they do not produce fiction, art or vids. “Coming out” for them is therefore a lot less fraught. For me, the danger is far more related to my students than my colleagues, most of whom are likely to see my fannish endeavors as bizarre but not academically disqualifying. With students, though, wearing Spock ears really has nothing on the way I’m exposed. Sure, if you actually read Jenkins’ work, you’ll know he’s read a bunch of slash, but, flippantly, it seems to me that the only thing surprising about finding a man reading “porn” is that he’s reading it. My students can easily access what they might well assume are my sexual fantasies – or, at a minimum, what I think might be arousing to readers. Yes, I do feel vulnerable, and it isn’t something I’d ever bring up with students, though I haven’t taken heroic measures to separate my identities and I understand I’ve been outed to some of them.
Anyway, I’d be interested to hear what other fan writers/artists/vidders who are also academics have to say about what your academic colleagues know about your fannish commitments.
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From: (Anonymous)
A heartfelt (and long-winded) hello...
I'm a 2L at the law school where you're teaching, and I'm in one of your classes this spring. And this is the most elated I've felt in a long time.
I've been pretty deep in the fanwriting closet myself at school until yesterday for fear that our colleagues, teachers and students alike, would be convinced I was a complete lowlife. Heck, considering the online debate that's been raging over the worth/lack thereof of fanwriting, I was starting to wonder if maybe I was! Lots of eccentric hobbies are considered perfectly okay in the academic world, but fanwriting for some reason gets a LOT of flack.
That's actually how I found your fandom persona, your Loyola article was cited in one of the debates:
http://leegoldberg.typepad.com/a_writers_life/2004/10/what_ive_learne.html#c2466496
You might be interested in reading some of the debates going on in Lee Goldberg's Blog, it got very interesting for awhile.
So there you go: one of your students--well, soon-to-be student--knows, and it had the effect of making her stop feeling like a complete oddball. I know what you mean about feeling vulnerable; being a law student at this school is scary enough without feeling like you have a dirty little secret.
Since I've been even less heroic about separating my online identities (ie the name of the law school is frequently mentioned) I'm posting anonymously, but my username is jocelyncs if you'd like to get in touch. (Or to warn me off your BtVS stories, which I would be plunging into right now if I didn't have Gilbert & Sullivan rehearsal in ten minutes.)
And either way, I promise to keep my mouth shut in class. ;-)
From:
Re: A heartfelt (and long-winded) hello...
It's funny how divided the online world can be. In my little corner, I rarely get touched by the "fanwriting: good or bad?" debate, since my mind is made up and reading posts like the one you linked to generally just raises my blood pressure. (Aside: yes, the format is bad and I should really get a PDF up, but the bald statement that some of what I say is "specious" somehow fails to persuade me. Also, I'm totally willing to pull rank: and Goldberg's law degree is from where? He's been involved in how many actual cases? Let him get back to me when he's got an injunction in his hand; while copyright owners continue to jump back like scared cats when lawyers show up on the side of fans, I'm gonna keep saying I'm right and he's wrong about the copyright issue.)
If you're interested in the theoretical/academic study of fandom, there are some nice places in LJ: virgule is a slash theory community; fandom_lawyers is pretty much what it says.
Re: eccentricity. I saw Ben Browder on the Late Late Show the other day, promoting the Farscape miniseries, and the host tried to make fun of the sf fans who rallied around the show to get the miniseries funded. Browder pointed out that he'd just seen a bunch of guys who'd stripped off their clothes and painted themselves green, and nobody thought they were strange at all -- they were football fans. The prejudice is real, but unfair, and deciding how to deal with it is always a challenge.
As I said, I've decided that I won't make heroic efforts to hide all of what I am and I won't lie. I expect that students will find out from time to time, and they may tell other students. But in general, I won't volunteer; I like to teach using pop culture, but my fandom activities are rarely relevant. And, obviously, I'm much more comfortable being found by fans than by non-fans.
From:
Re: A heartfelt (and long-winded) hello...
The fandom/football comparison is certainly true! My blood pressure went up quite a bit during the Goldberg debate--did you catch his line to me? I gave him a play-by-play of how starting as a fanwriter taught me how to write, and his only response was: "You've been fanwriting for thirteen years? That's just sad." Grrr.
I both hope and fear what will happen when Copyright Law finally gets put to the test in a full-blown fanwriter vs. author court case.
I wonder sometimes if I should do more to disconnect my fanwriting from my Real World persona, (at least until I get a job.) But then it's the same case: more likely to be discovered by sympathetic fans than unsympathetic nonfans. I did out myself to our Copyright professor yesterday when I told her about the Goldberg debate--my blushing when the subject comes up tends to be the biggest hazard.
Thanks for answering--and do come see the show in two weeks, it's going to be great. The only other fandom people I know at school are in G&S.