And finally, for #TWC43, Karis Jones and Sahara Kruidenier published "Disrupting and restorying horror tropes through fan engagements with the interactive video game Until Dawn"! Read it here: buff.ly/cTAwIIc

Finally, closing out #TWC43, Jack Murray reviews Shelly Jones' edited collection "Beyond the deck: Critical essays on Magic: The Gathering and its influence"! Murray calls it "a solid collection of essay". Read the full review here:

"The Shakespeare multiverse: Fandom as literary praxis," by Valerie M. Fazel and Louise Geddes | Transformative Works and Cultures Valerie M. Fazel and Louise Geddes, editors, The Shakespeare Multiverse: Fandom as Literary Praxis. New York: Routledge, 2022, paperback, $54.99 (256p), ISBN 978-1-032-11445-3; eBook, $41.49, ISBN…

The first book review in #TWC43 is a review of Valerie M. Fazel & Louise Geddes's "The Shakespeare multiverse: Fandom as literary praxis"! @megbontra.bsky.social calls it an "excellent contribution" to several fields & to higher ed classrooms! Read the review here:

The final piece in our #Shakespeare & antifandom section has David Sterling Brown reflecting on loving, hating, & liking Shakespeare as a Black man already grappling with a world of anti-Blackness. Read it in #TWC43:

Our Shakespeare, ourselves: The pleasures (and pitfalls) of fannish reading | Transformative Works and Cultures So much of what we think we know about William Shakespeare as a person is, at worst, untrue, and at best, merely unproveable. How do we get from this string of documentary lacunae to the central…

Next, @kvmfinn.bsky.social uses the sonnets & the relationship between fanon and canon to interrogate how readings of Shakespeare's life reflect the evolution of ideological desires from his lifetime to the present day in #TWC43:

Edel Semple turns to film & TV in #TWC43 to look at the positioning of female characters as disappointed antifans in Shakespeare. Read "Anti-Shakespeare shrews: Women, sexism, and talking back to the Bard in Upstart Crow and All Is True" here:

In Johnathan H. Pope's "Trolling Shakespeare," the author explores the film "Anonymous" and its mobilization of various antifan discourses, as well as its disdain for fandom in general. Read this #TWC43 Article now:

To fan or antifan, that is the question | Transformative Works and Cultures We introduce the complicated relationship between Shakespeare, performance studies, and fan studies before focusing on antifandom. In conjunction with evolving perspectives on antifan activities in…

#TWC43 features a special section on Shakespeare and antifandom! In their introduction, @kvmfinn.bsky.social & Johnathan H. Pope explore the complicated relationship b/w Shakespeare, performance studies, & fan studies, before turning to antifandom. Read here:

Developing a working taxonomy for pan-fandom information behavior comparison | Transformative Works and Cultures Fan fiction writers regularly work to find the best ways to describe their fan fiction so that it will be seen by all the readers it might interest. Prior work studying the use of tags as metadata,…

Closing out the Article section of #TWC43, Carrie D. Hill's work examines the fan fiction tagging system across fandoms in her meta-study! Read "Developing a working taxonomy for pan-fandom information behavior comparison" here:

Next, Adam Nicholas Cohen deepens our understanding of political fandoms through ethnographic work on debate watch parties in "Audience performance and sports fandom rhetorics during 2020 presidential election debate watch parties" for #TWC43! Read it here:

Playing King Alfred: Historical reenactment and cosplay of Alfred the Great | Transformative Works and Cultures Playing King Alfred is indicative of a new form of practice-based research that not only explores but actively cocreates the meaning of the icon of Alfred the Great in the first quarter of the…

@martinemussies.bsky.social explores historical reenactments of the English monarch King Alfred, with a focus on costuming and performance as part of meaning-making in historical fandoms, in their Article for #TWC43! Read it here:

Disrupting and restorying horror tropes through fan engagements with the interactive video game Until Dawn | Transformative Works and Cultures Until Dawn is a popular horror video game critiqued for its perpetuation of pervasive horror stereotypes around gender, race, and mental illness. Drawing from methods of multisited affinity space…

Next in #TWC43, @karismjones.bsky.social & Sahara Kruidenier focus on #restorying among fans of the video game #UntilDawn in their Article "Disrupting and restorying horror tropes through fan engagements with the interactive video game Until Dawn"! Read it here:

Why costume fandom’s distinctions from cosplay matter: Costuming’s craft, histories, and motivations | Transformative Works and Cultures Costume fandom is defined by intense affect for costumes and for the creative processes and material practices of designing, crafting, and displaying them. I differentiate costume fandom (emphasizing…

Creating a distinction between #cosplay and the fandom of #costuming, Victoria L. Godwin's piece kicks off #TWC43 with a focus on craftsmanship and artistry over performance and identity. Read "Why costume fandom’s distinctions from cosplay matter" here:

Diversifying the field: Fan studies as a big tent | Transformative Works and Cultures

#TWC43 opens with @melstanfill.bsky.social & Poe Johnson's hope that we can reimagine "fan studies as a big tent" which would "mak[e] all scholars who care about fans and fandom feel like they belong." Read more here: bit.ly/3Xr9mrs

Vol. 43 (2024): General | Transformative Works and Cultures

Hot off the presses! 📣 #TWC43, our annual general issue (with a special section on #Shakespeare and antifandom!!), is officially live! Dig in here: journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/tw... #TWC #OTW