Oh no!

I'm taking steps to update my online presence, and part of that means a massive re-vamp for fanthropology. In the spirit of spring cleaning, I have moved my blog over to a new host, and you can now find me at:



http://fanthropology.wordpress.com/

Please update your links and look for more posts on the new site. Thanks for everything, Blogger, and farewell!

Guest Lectures

I've been absolutely drowning in work lately as I try to meet PhD writing deadlines while teaching and getting things ready for the Revise conference as well, so forgive my lack of posting. But I wanted to share the slides from two guest lectures I recently gave on fan-related topics here at UOW, just in case anyone was interested.

The first was for a second-year sociology subject on "Youth Cultures", where I gave a talk on Japanese anime and manga fandom as it exists in the West. Check out the Powerpoint here:

SOC206 Lecture: Anime Fandom in the West




The second was for a third-year soc class, "The Body and Society", and I had the pleasure (no pun intended) to talk about pornography, sexuality, feminism, and all that fun stuff. The lecture is called "Bad Girls", because in the second half I talk about female subcultures centered around sexual material (namely, slash and yaoi/BL).


Bad Girls: Pornography, Fantasy, Sexuality



I hope to post some more soon, once the semester ends and I get back from a trip to Hong Kong!

We Want YOU!

Abstracts are pouring in for the conference I'm helping organize here in Wollongong. (Check out the website here: http://revise2010.blogspot.com) We are hearing from a lot of academics, postgraduates, and DJs, but I'm hoping to get some excellent contributions from the vidding community to this event. I've received a few thus far, but if you're interested in coming to the event and speaking about your work, your editing, or vidding trends and styles, I'd love to hear from you! Any vidders who are interested in submitting their vids to be shown at the conference are also welcome. Please just email me a link to where your vid can be found, and a short description of it (like a curated art work).

I'm welcoming any submissions of any kind in terms of style or content. I want this event to be open to non-academics in order to foster some communication between the artists and fans out there and the researchers.

Send your abstracts, submissions, suggestions, etc. to the conference by emailing : revise2010@gmail.com. If you have any questions, you can contact me separately here on my blog or by email at fanthropology@gmail.com.

First publication!

Kinda embarrassingly excited right now as I have just gotten my first publication. It's just a short essay on Counteragent's wonderful Supernatural vid "Still Alive", but you can check it out here if you're interested:

"I'm glad we got burned, think of all the things we learned": Fandom conflict and context in Counteragent's "Still Alive"

Let me know what you think!

Official Announcement: Fan & Artist Submissions Wanted

Here is the official announcement looking for fan and remix artist submissions for our conference. Please feel free to send us an email with any questions you might have about the event or what sort of submissions would suit.


Revise: The Art and Science of Contemporary Remix Cultures
Dec 2-3, 2010
University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia

An upcoming conference on remix cultures is seeking contributions from remix artists and practitioners. This event aims to bring together researchers whose work investigates aspects of remixing, alongside practitioners working in remix cultures, for a collaborative conference. We invite remixers of all kinds to submit artworks in the media of their choice, and/or to speak on their style or aesthetics, or other features of their practice. Live performance submissions are also welcome.

Expressions of intent of 200-250 words should be sent to revise2010@gmail.com by 15 April, 2010. Please include your full name (and/or artist/fan name), email address, and institutional affiliation (if applicable) along with the proposal, and include any tech requirements.

Please see http://revise2010.blogspot.com for more information, or email revise2010@gmail.com if you have any questions.
You can also contact me individually at fanthropology@gmail.com.

Call for Papers

I've finally gone and done it! Chris Moore and I are now hosting a conference here at UOW. It's called "Revise: The Art and Science of Contemporary Remix Culture" and it's coming up on 2-3 December, 2010.

We are seeking both academic papers and fan submissions of artwork, video remixes and mashups, DJ work, and literary remix. I would love to see practitioners and fan artists attend this event, and you are welcome to submit a short abstract (200-250 words) to revise2010@gmail.com and speak for about 15-20 min about your work or your style. It is our hope to combine the academics and the artists in a collaborative event that everyone can enjoy.

We created a blog for the event over at http://revise2010.blogspot.com with the details of the Call for Papers - submissions are due by 15 April, 2010!

"Men who say women don't like porn don't know the right women."

That's from a t-shirt my friend owns. Currently brainstorming for a guest lecture I'm going to do in Sociology called "Bad Girls". I have been specifically instructed by the course coordinator to blow some minds with the delightfully filthy things that women are doing out there on the Interwebs. (He asked the right person!)

I plan to talk in detail about some old research I did on yaoi / boy's love fans, and how these explicitly erotic texts are consumed and used by young women (mostly teenagers and young adults, 14-24). I'll also be talking about slash, of course, and going through some of the different uses and reasons for its popularity.

(Word to the wise, this post has nothing to do with the current LJ storm a-brewing on straight female and gay male fans of slash. I'm hoping not to become involved in that at the moment.)

While there are a myriad of reasons I personally enjoy the stuff, I'll admit that one of the main ones is that I appreciate how these genres objectify male bodies in a way that appeals to me as a heterosexual female. It's just really great to see shiny, ripped men in various stages of undress. And while I do read het erotica as well (nothing will keep me from my Ten/Rose shipping), I sometimes find myself over-analysing the feminist politics of such works, especially in mainstream/commercial products. And nothing kills the fantasy for me more than my own brain's over-analysis of feminist politics.

So, friends and comrades, what is it about slash that appeals to you?