See you at the Festival. #NewportJazz2026

Absolutely!

Stylized “VH,” for Van Halen, written onto dirty side of MBTA engine.

Fan graffiti.

Resonance | University of California Press

Resonance (UC Press) is looking for humanities research across the following topics: Sound in Political Crisis, Sound and Social Justice, Experiments in Sound, Sound Archives and Preservation, and we're convening a permanent series that'll examine "Film and Cinema Sound" this Fall. Please circulate!

Intellect is pleased to present Journal of Fandom Studies 14.1!

Including ‘The scapegoating of the Angry Video Game Nerd' by Matt Foy
Fan Studies Network North America Fan Studies Network SCMS Fan and Audience Studies SIG

intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/jfs/bro...

Thanks—I will look that up!

Annual posting of one of my favorite poems.

www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44728/...

I really like that: “prep is never about the slides.” And that is quite a chart! Where is it from?

Book cover, with editors and title information in white, on a red background, beneath a horizontal B&W image of four matinee girls, leaning on a balcony railing, looking through opera glasses.

Coming soon: *Admirers, Fanciers and Devotees: The Early History of Fandom*, a new anthology I edited with Stephan Michael Schröder (and the latest release in J.B. Metzler's Szene & Horizont Series).

Initial information up now at: link.springer.com/book/9783662...

Today's fandom antedatings for the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction: "faan", from 1953 to 1951; and "faanish", from 1959 to 1951. Both typically denoting a non-serious fan.

sfdictionary.com/view/2290/faan
sfdictionary.com/view/2359/fa...

I have taught, now, for 35 years. And yet each class still involves weeks mulling how best to approach a topic; hours prepping; spontaneous in-class pivots; mistakes, doubt, and recommitment; and wonder at students' insights. Teaching is such a messy & profound art, done among people, always anew.

FSNNA 2026 CFP ("Boundaries") Call for Proposals Fan Studies Network North America Conference 2026 (virtual) October 22-25, 2026 The Boundaries of Fan Studies and Fandom Boundaries have always been a part of fandom, as producers ...

The CFP for the always fantastic
@fsnnorthamerica.bsky.social annual conference is now live

Deadline: 8 May 2026

#FanStudies

docs.google.com/document/u/0...

"Origin of Term ‘Fan' Is Mooted Question." San Francisco Call, Volume 110, Number 176 (23 November 1911): 10.

CFP: Sounding Things: Props, Material Culture, and Accessories in Popular Music

Abstract Deadline: May 1, 2026
Abstract Length: 350–500 words
Editors: Kate Galloway, Paxton Haven, and Mike Levine

Full call here: drive.google.com/file/d/1mfyd...

Providence, R.I., Is Used to Snow. But Not 36 Inches in a Day.

Spent the entire day moving snow. Time for tea and Tylenol. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/24/u...

The Largest Historical Dictionary of English Slang Now Free Online: Covers 500 Years of the “Vulgar Tongue” 'The three volumes of Green's Dictionary of Slang demonstrate the sheer scope of a lifetime of research by Jonathon Green, the leading slang lexicographer of our time. A remarkable collection of this ...

The Largest Historical Dictionary of English Slang Now Free Online: Covers 500 Years of the “Vulgar Tongue”

They Went to the Woods Because They Wished to Live Deliberately

Thoreau fandom.

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/03/r...

Bruce Springsteen - Streets Of Minneapolis (Official Audio) YouTube video by Bruce Springsteen

I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.

Stay free

Writing William Billings - Commonplace When historical details are nonexistent, make them up. Not usually considered sound advice to historians, granted, but possibly warranted under these circumstances.

How do historians tell a story of a fascinating person who left few personal papers? In a new Commonplace piece, David Stowe explains how/why his historical novel might be the right approach for the life of William Billings, the first significant US composer. 🗃️

commonplace.online/article/writ...

Orange cover, with author’s name across the top. The title occupies the top third, in the style of a dictionary entry. Beneath that is a double-torsoed man in gray: one half stands, looking at text on a phone, and the other bends down at the waist to attend to an oversized fragment of a dictionary page.

Highly recommend Unabridged, by @stefanfatsis.bsky.social. Especially in an environment of unchecked doublespeak, it’s good to read about people who have devoted their lives to the principle that words and their definitions matter.

Opinion | The Multi-Trillion-Dollar Battle for Your Attention Is Built on a Lie

D. Graham Burnett, Alyssa Loh, and Peter Schmidt advocate for “defeating the forces that frack human beings” with Simone Weil’s "theory of attention rooted in love, care and commitment, an ethics of attention that cannot be sold or stolen.”

www.nytimes.com/2026/01/10/o...

New issue of Fandom | Cultures | Research ⬇️⬇️⬇️

#FanStudies

journals.uni-marburg.de/fcr

Subject Tags - Commonplace Browse by Subject

Are you finalizing a syllabus and looking for short, accessible articles to assign on some aspect of American history before 1900? Did you know that Commonplace has a subject tags page that allows you to easily browse our 25 year back catalog? Check it out here: 🗃️

commonplace.online/article/subj...

AllMusic Best of 2025 | AllMusic 2025 in Review AllMusic has assembled our Best of 2025. Browse through and check out what music our editors have been listening to this year.

All the lists are published, and New Year's Day is the perfect time to walk back through our 2025 Year In Review to discover which albums you may have missed over the last three hundred and some-odd days. Happy New Year!

Bilge Ebiri: “Why Terrence Malick Is the Most Influential Director” Bilge Ebiri explores filmmaker Terrence Malick’s vision of grace and his far-ranging influence on American cinema.

Excellent essay, by @bilgeebiri.bsky.social, on Terrence Malick’s enduring influence.
yalereview.org/article/bilg...

You Can Look It Up How the thing said Is in the words, how The words themselves The thing said . . . A word, that’s the poem.          —James Schuyler How

Joseph Epstein echoes my (apparently antiquated) love for the printed dictionary in “You Can Look It Up: A Threnody for the Dictionary.”
www.commentary.org/articles/jos...

Watching Providence retreat into itself after the Brown shooting What it's like when this uniquely American horror arrives in your city.

www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Glued to the news. It is awful to see Providence’s East side become an active crime scene. I’m saddened by the casualties and, with the shooter still at large, worried about Brown University colleagues and students still sheltering in place.

Been there.