Karen Hellekson

TWC No. 3 released

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:50:32 GMT

Transformative Works and Cultures No. 3 has been released right on schedule.

The table of contents is here, and OTW's announcement about it is here.

This issue has some great topics: filk and wrock, quilting, Lost, Law & Order: SVU, a couple items on the LOTR fan film The Hunt for Gollum, an essay about the troubling aspects of Joss Whedon's Dollhouse, an essay about gift culture (a particular interest of mine)—well, just go read the issue yourself, because it's all this and more.

We'd love it if you used the software interface to write comments to the authors. Remember, the issue is fully open access, so feel free to copy, paste, transform...it's all good.

"The Hunt for Gollum" and "Battlestar Redactica"

Sat, 15 Aug 2009 02:50:15 GMT

At my WordPress blog: Two very different fan productions—a quick run-down of two transformative fan artworks you ought to review: The Hunt for Gollum and Battlestar Redactica.

Goodbye, Toshiba Satellite, mid-1990s!

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 03:29:16 GMT

Today was e-waste day at the hardware store, so DH and I took the opportunity to bring some e-waste on over, including my old Toshiba laptop (which is completely, utterly dead), still in its little case, with all the cords. We also brought in an obsolete Gateway tower and a bunch of big, heavy dead batteries. But seeing the Toshiba brought back a flood of memories! Its little black case...its trackball...its incredible denseness for its size.

The e-waste site was hoppin'. I wish I'd thought to bring my camera there. It was held in the parking lot of a hardware store, and they had set it up so you had to wend your way around, all orderly and neatly queued, so the guys could unload your stuff. They had a table for donations as you rounded the corner. We obediently handed over $10—a lovely deal for getting rid of what is basically toxic waste.

The e-waste site had huge towering stacks of all sorts of items, from old towers just like mine to piles of boxy CRT monitors to broken toaster ovens and microwaves. The workers there were stacking the items atop large boxes that acted as a base, and then wrapping the entire thing in what looked like giant sheets of cellophane tape. It was, in short, super cool. DH knew one of the workers (a physics prof), who revealed that interest in E-Waste Day was insane. A huge semi had come and unloaded all kinds of crap, and the guy was just bringing in his second load when we left.

I honestly can't remember when I got this laptop. I remember writing my PhD exams on it, so it must have been in the mid-1990s. At first I purchased WordPerfect for Windows 3.1. But that program sucked. I ended up throwing a fit and they let me exchange it for WordPerfect for DOS 6.0. It was no 5.1, but then again, what is? I loaded in both programs from 3-inch floppies.

Back in the distant mists of time, when this laptop was current, I evoked Windows manually from the command line. I did lots of stuff with non-Windows DOS programs. I did all my file maintenance, like renaming files and moving or copying them, at the DOS command prompt.

Here's a short pictoral ode to my trusty Toshiba laptop, which DH used long after I had to upgrade (clients and their zany expectations!). We used it until it died a sad, slow death.

For scale: obsolete laptop atop current (slightly less obsolete) laptop

The laptop unfolded. Note the super small (black-and-white) screen...and the trackball!

Trackball close-up

I really liked the trackball, actually. It sort of slid in sideways and clicked into place. Right-click is on top of the unit, and left-click is on the bottom. You can see the curve of the button in the image. You'd roll the ball with your thumb and then click with your index finger. Great for us right-handed people! It also could be angled higher or lower. Here, it's angled flat, because it took a better picture, but I always liked it angled one click upward.

I also found that I liked the keyboard layout way, way better than any laptop keyboard I've had since. The arrow keys are in a good place, and the caps lock and control keys were swapped from what I have grown used to since.

Some ports

The ports were all for things with pins, and interestingly, each port has a plastic piece that slides over to protect it. The ones in back are for full-size monitor and printer. Shown here is an expansion slot, and the two round ports are for full-size keyboard and mouse. The piece of plastic to the right is where the trackball would go; it's currently covered. Thus the trackball insertion is mutually exclusive from using a full-size keyboard. They assume that you will use keyboard and mouse together, and won't be using the trackball, so the piece of plastic does double duty, sliding over the one when the other is in use.

I suppose this might become a collector's item, if it isn't one already. Perhaps some lucky e-waste worker will take it home and make it his. That would be okay with me.

Farewell, laptop friend! You served me well for a very long time...and DH, even longer.

Fandom research methods guestpost

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 01:43:03 GMT

Madeline Ashby has started a blog that aims to round up details about research going on in fandom. Interested in seeing what sorts of questionnaires researchers are using? Wondering whether someone else already taken that great idea and started a project? Fandom Research wants to be the go-to place to answer these questions. It's early days yet for the site, but the more people who contribute, the more useful the site will be.

Today I contributed a guest post entitled Fandom research methods that discusses, among other things, AOIR's ethics guide, which is the de facto guide for people working on research in human subjects via the Internet in the social sciences. While writing it, I was reminded that the impetus of many guidelines is to prevent the subjects of study from harm, and to ensure that they understand exactly what will be done with the responses they provide.

New short essay!

Fri, 08 May 2009 14:28:23 GMT

I've written an essay entitled Verbotene Liebe, Soap Operas, Fansubbing, and YouTube and posted it on my WordPress blog.

Do go read it and comment there if you like!

Catherine Tosenberger talks about "Supernatural"

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 21:16:47 GMT

Sequential Tart's Suzette Chan has just published an interview with acafan Catherine Tosenberger entitled "Supernatural love: Catherine Tosenberger on Sam and Dean's transformative love story."

Tosenberger published an essay on Supernatural in the first issue of Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC) entitled "'The epic love story of Sam and Dean': Supernatural, queer readings, and the romance of incestuous fan fiction," and it is among the most viewed articles on the site: 11,020 views as I write this. She is also guest editing a special Supernatural issue of TWC entitled "Saving People, Hunting Things," planned for spring 2010 (call for papers here, and fannish meta is absolutely welcome).

In ST's interview, Tosenberger talks a bit about TWC and why it fills an important niche, and she discusses fan engagement with the show. Her call for papers for TWC's special SPN issue is linked too! She speaks generally about such things as fan fiction, so the article is a good, informed overview of topics of interest to people interested more generally in fan studies, especially those just entering the field.

But for most of the interview, Tosenberger discusses specific things about SPN, such as characterization, fan engagement (and yes, she touches on J2 RPS), and story arcs, including a season 4 arc that dealt head-on with what she calls the main characters' "emotionally incestuous relationship." The show's tight focus on the two main characters provides an emotional center to the show:

When you talk about that externalization, that shows up on Supernatural in the monsters and the ghosts they fight, but it's always commenting back on Sam and Dean's own relationship. The concept of two guys who are in some way, shape or form isolated from the rest of society and have to depend on each other is a really common factor in a lot of classic slash fandom, that sense of isolation and the way it can break down the traditional masculine heterosexual barriers. [...] But Sam and Dean? It ratchets it up several notches: they are each other's entire universes.

The show's big success, I think, comes from the dual nature of the storytelling: in addition to compelling individual stories that are themselves arranged into season-long arcs, it is also emotionally rich and complex. If a story doesn't work on the level of story, then the satisfaction that watchers gain from the show's emotional aspect may suffice.

ST's interview came at the perfect time: last Thursday's episode, 4.18 "The Monster at the End of This Book," was a fabulous meta episode, with the first 9 or 10 minutes of the show being about fan reaction to the series. It directly addresses Sam girls, Dean girls, slash fanfic (Dean: "What's a slash fan?" Sam: "As in Sam slash Dean. Together.") edging into Wincest (Dean: "They do know we're brothers, right?" Sam: "Doesn't seem to matter."), and the brothers' emotional intimacy.

I am convinced that at about 9:15p last Thursday night, that sharp keening noise heard up and down the East Coast was the squee of fangirls, exclaiming aloud in utter joy that SPN knew all about them, and valued SPN fandom enough to write it into the ep as homage and not as freak show. (It doesn't hurt that we get to see Sam and Dean pretend to be fanboys.) The episode is also intriguing because it's one of those metaepisodes, where someone is writing existence into being (you can read a spoilery plot synopsis here). I've seen this trope used over and over, and I always like its self-reflexivity, but SPN does it one better by cleverly embedding it into the show's angel–demon milieu...and by talking about fans OMG, even giving a fangirl a face and voice: that of Keegan Connor Tracy. But this isn't just any fangirl: it's a fangirl who is fan while also being producer and gatekeeper. She has power by having something Sam and Dean need, and she isn't going to give it away to anyone unworthy.

In addition, Entertainment Weekly's latest issue, dated April 10, 2009, has a SPN article. The article focuses more on season 4's angel–demon arc, which resulted in a 13% audience increase (30), and notes that executive producer Eric Kripke, not to mention the two leads, Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles, want to end the show after 5 seasons. Although the emotional bond between the brothers is a hugely important aspect of the show, it's clear—and EW even comes out and says this in general spoilers about the season 4 finale—that the two of them are going to do battle. This article is not as respectful to fans as I might like, choosing instead to go the extreme route so common in mainstream journalism: the article provides an example of a stalkery fan who conned her way onto the set, and it says of the whole incest fan fiction thing, "There's also a unique and very creepy subset of romantic fan fiction dedicated to siblings Sam [...] and Dean [...] called 'Wincest'—the less said about it the better" (30).

Actually not, as Tosenberger's interview makes plain. The more said about that, the better, if you ask me: the whole notion of Wincest begs for analysis—like this remark by Tosenberger:

This show is putting the incest really front and centre. In the first two seasons, whenever they referenced the Sam/Dean subtext, it was always in this jokey way. It was always, a-ha-ha, the boys are being taken for a gay couple: isn't that funny? It was always there, but it was always played for laughs. But this season, it's starting to get deadly serious. "Sex and Violence" didn't play off the connections between Dean's love for Sam, and how every single other model of love that we saw the siren invoking was romantic, sexual love. It just played it absolutely straight-faced and very tragic and miserable.

I had to be dragged into SPN kicking and screaming, but now that I'm caught up, I'm with Tosenberger and the other fans of the show: TV is the best genre for densely layered, emotionally rich, long-form storytelling, and these texts show us that it's possible to link storytelling with nuanced, changeable human characters. Thanks to ST for running the interview, and thanks to Tosenberger for taking on the role of acafan ambassador.

TWC No. 2 released

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:15:12 GMT

Transformative Works and Cultures No. 2 has been released! Please visit our special Games issue here.

The next issue will be a general (that is to say, unthemed) issue.

Calls for papers have been released for two special issues: "Saving People, Hunting Things," about the popular TV show Supernatural (spring 2010), guest edited by Catherine Tosenberger (CFP here); and "Fan Works and Fan Communities in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (spring 2011), on the topic of history, guest edited by Nancy Reagin and Anne Rubenstein (CFP here).

Philip K. Dick award

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 19:33:43 GMT

I'm pleased to say I was asked to sit on the committee/jury for the 2009 Philip K. Dick award, which is given for the best novel originally published in paperback. It's given annually at Norwescon. If you're interested in past winners, Wikipedia has a list here.

Optimizing my Palm Tungsten E for travel amusement...

Sat, 03 Jan 2009 04:04:22 GMT

...is here.

War of the Worlds

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 18:39:29 GMT

On this date in 1938, as a Halloween treat, the Mercury Theater on the Air broadcast their version of H. G. Wells's War of the Worlds. The rest, as you know, is history.

This audio drama is in the public domain and may be obtained here. Check it out! Enjoy!

Over at my WordPress blog...

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 02:38:26 GMT

Is there Life on Mars?

My long-awaited (ha!) analysis of the US version of the 2006–2007 UK series.

Mac or PC?

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 04:10:25 GMT

Okay, I had a Blue Screen of Death today when I shut down before I rushed off to teach. And yesterday and this morning, when I booted, my trusty computer cycled repeatedly through the missed startup—you know, that black screen with white text and bars, that says things like, "Start with the last Windows settings that worked," or "Press this key combination to start in Safe mode." And for the last few months, my computer has been booting very slowly, with an alarmingly long pause in the middle of the boot, during which my monitor's green "on" button flashes amber, to "off."

Danger, Will Robinson! The computer has been running continuously since April 2004 and I think it may have had enough! Still, it was a good run, thanks to my policy of buying with growth in mind, and it ain't dead yet.

Of course, being a smart girl, this is me mirroring the content of my hard drive to my external hard drive. This is me backing up my in-progress files to a memory stick. This is me zipping and e-mailing myself client files so I can find them on keyword searches. This is me writing down a list of all the software on my machine, including that zany application that lets me view comic books (CDisplay), snip audio files (mp3DirectCut), record audio from a microphone (Audacity), and edit/view HTML/XML files (CSE HTML Validator v8).

And this is me not wanting to get anywhere near Vista, and thus researching a Mac! Which is the reason for this post:

Should I switch to Mac?

I know, hard question! A lot of this post is just me summarizing what I found during my brief research foray. The general feeling is, you get more for your money in terms of memory and add-ons with Windows machines, but with Apples, not only do you get cool design, but you get lots of really good free software and good integration, so the whole experience is nicer.

Here is what I do all day: I sit at a desktop computer with an ergonomic keyboard, staring at a 19-inch screen (which, in 2004, cost more than my computer and was the envy of all) with an aspect ratio of 1280 x 1024p, running the following applications more or less all the time: Vuze, Windows Media Player streaming goa-psy, Word, IZArc, and Firefox, with brief forays into CSE HTML Validator, Wordpad, FileZilla, Excel, an old version of Paint Shop Pro (I could use GIMP if I had to), Picasa, and IE. I also burn data DVDs and data and music CDs with whatever program came with this Dell.

So basic multitasking, no gaming, some lite multimedia, and I must be able to burn DVDs. I also want to be able to convert .avi files to DVD format and create a disk readable in a region 1 player, with a menu and everything. I currently use VSO's ConvertXtoDVD for that, and my license is old and expired. I paid $30 for it however long ago, and now it costs $50. It's made in France so it has adorable menu language errors.

My clients gave me Word plug-in keyboards that permit me to prep documents for typesetting, plus I purchased the Editorium Word plug-in toolbar, which paid for itself in, like, one editing job. (According to Editorium, Word for Mac 2008 does not support scripting, so they suggest you run Word 2007 [Microsoft Office Small Business 2007, $330 for an upgrade, $500 new] through Parallels [$80] instead.) They are crucial to my work. Sure, I could do that repetitive disk-stripping stuff by hand, but why should I? I own Windows XP and Word 2003 and have disks for them. Yet I'm seeing more and more .docx files and I think that my days are numbered with Word 2003.

My thoughts:

Buy a low-end PC tower

The one to get is apparently the Inspiron 530. Let's get a 500 GB hard drive and 3 GB dual-channel DDR2 SDRAM. By the time I add on the top-end version of Vista and a midlevel version of Word, we're talking $1,500, with only a few peripherals and a low-end video card. I can't opt out of a 19-inch monitor. I have a 19-inch monitor. I suppose I could use two. All the cool kids are doing that these days. I can swap my nearly new video card from my existing computer over, so no need to upgrade video. It looks like Vista sucks down resources.

Buy a Mac Mini and use my existing peripherals

This would be $875 for the top-end Mac Mini with a 120 GB hard drive and memory upgraded to 2 GB dual-channel DDR2 SDRAM. Add to this $80 for Parallels and $500 for a version of Office that will run my Editorium keyboard plug-ins. So we're talking $1,455 for hard drive and Office, no peripherals.

Buy a Mac laptop and plug peripherals into it to simulate a desktop

The 13-inch Macbook seems small and light and nice. The white version seems fine to me. With the standard 120 GB hard drive and memory upgraded to 2 GB dual-channel DDR2 SDRAM, we're talking $1,075, plus $580 for Office/Parallels, for a total of $1,655. The laptop has an insufficient number of USB ports. Two? That's nothing. By the time I plugged in my keyboard, mouse, and monitor—wait. Surely there must be a way around this! (BTW, I'm intrigued by the "plug your laptop into the plane" $50 adapter.)

Why a Mac, anyway?

Cost isn't the real issue here. All three systems cost about the same. But I'm sick of the crashiness of Word and Windows Media Player. I have to reboot almost every day. It would be cool to not have to continuously upgrade and run antispyware and firewall software. (I use Gmail and no longer worry about viruses.) I'm impressed by good design. Benchmark studies indicate that Windows runs better on a Mac than on, well, Windows machines. Still, the low-end stuff is pretty damn low end, there are clearly never enough USB ports, and paradoxically, some of the standard functionality is overkill for me. I value speed over anything else, I think—certainly over hard drive space.

The deal-breaker here seems to be my insistence on those plug-in editing keyboards. If I have to run Parallels to run a version of Word that will permit scripting, then I'm going to be spending all my time in that environment, so I should probably just get a Windows machine. But they're so...crashy and boring and prone to malware. I use those keyboards a lot, and they do fabulous things that make me far more productive.

I suppose I could buy Parallels and install my paid-for XP and Word, if it will even let me do that, and then just pop over into the Windows environment long enough to strip the disks, then return to the other OS. For that matter, I could just strip everything on my laptop. Still—hassle. I do know that I'm not clever enough to write my own disk-stripping macros. (How does that notes-to-text one do that??)

Clearly I'm going around in circles. My computer ain't dead yet. I'm just exploring options right now. Feel free to give me advice!

Today is my 14th wedding anniversary

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 13:01:08 GMT

Me and Mike in Danforth Chapel in Lawrence, Kansas

Thanks to MA for scanning the photo, which I snagged off Facebook.

Obituary: Joan Winston

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 14:14:59 GMT

Joan Winston, "Trek" Superfan, Dies at 77

This wonderful obituary, which appears in the New York Times, of a die-hard Star Trek fan does a great job of explaining the early days of Trek media fandom. Winston was one of the classic BNFs, and she gave unstintingly of her time to help media fandom come into its own. She helped shape the terrain, and those of us who enjoy media fandom have her in part to thank.

I'm glad to see one of us acknowledged so kindly, and with so much respect for her passion.

TWC No. 1 transformed

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 12:23:08 GMT

This is cross-posted to WordPress here.

Transformative Works and Cultures No. 1 released by fan as .pdf

Let me cut to the chase: the entire issue of TWC No. 1 is available here as a .pdf (5107 KB, 126 pages). Comment with a thank-you note when you take it. (EDIT TO ADD: File also available here on Megaupload.)

Here's the full story! No sooner did the editorial team release Transformative Works and Cultures No. 1 when...it got transformed.

elfwreck has kindly turned the entire issue into one big .pdf. Her reason for doing it: she's on dial-up. She felt the keen need for a version she could download all at once and read offline in hard copy. Because she has some mad layout skills, she .pdf'd that baby up and made it available to all.

The .pdf is a two-column rendering of the entire issue. elfwreck thoughtfully ran it by me and my coeditor, Kristina (kbusse), even though she didn't have to, because reproducing the work in its entirety falls within the Creative Commons copyright license we use. After a little tweaking and a little back-and-forthing, elfwreck came up with the final version that she's now making freely available. She's also considering making single articles available as .pdfs, but she hasn't completed this task yet.

So TWC been transformed from online to print, which I think is great. So often it goes the other way! The editorial team had talked about releasing a .pdf version at the same time as the .html version, but we didn't for a bunch of reasons, the most important of which is, we really think that because we want multimedia, we have to be online. If we put up official .pdfs, then we lose the ability to, for example, embed an Imeem vid, and, on top of that, everybody will treat the .pdf as the more correct version, simply because it's print, whether we want them to or not.

But this kind of transformation and fan sharing is what we were thinking of when we began theorizing the journal—when we began thinking about what we'd like to see, and why. Basically we wanted to incorporate aspects of fan practice into the academic publishing model, particularly aspects related to transformation, the theme of the journal. For example, we wanted fans to be able to freely take the articles and do something with them, because they do that with media and other texts. Thus we copyrighted under Creative Commons, which permits remixing and reposting. And we wanted people to be able to leave comments on the essays themselves, because it parallels fan activity in blog spaces like LiveJournal, so we chose Open Journal Systems software, which has a commenting feature. This transforms a monolithic piece of writing into a conversation.

Big thanks to elfwreck for not only taking the time to do this, but for permitting me to link to her post to widen her audience for the .pdf. We welcome any other transformations of TWC! Have at it!

TWC No. 1 released on schedule

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 14:22:20 GMT

TWC No. 1 released

I'm pleased to announce that Transformative Works and Cultures has just released its debut issue. My coeditor, Kristina Busse (kbusse), and I are incredibly excited about it because we think there is some excellent scholarship in this issue, plus some great personal essays that help the issue range widely. We want academics and fans to meet in this space, and we're hopeful that this issue will generate a lot of interest and discussion.

We encourage visitors to sign up for a user ID, so we can better track our "circulation." In addition, it's possible to comment on the essays, so we hope readers will do that to engage the authors in dialogue.

One thing Kristina and I are particularly excited about is the open access nature of the journal—that means it's available to all online, for free. I'm all over that for several reasons. Those of you who have heard me speak (passionately) at academic conventions about the publishing industry will know that I think that the print model is on its way out, and the prestige of print is not long for this world. I'm watching it happen in the sciences (I'm employed in the scientific, technical, and medical publishing industry), and it's going to bleed out into the humanities and social sciences next. It's a natural fit for TWC: this issue has embedded Imeem vids, screen caps, and stills. In color. Try that in print!

The open access thing was particularly driven home to me while I was fact-checking some bibliographical items in this issue. I knew this already, but I discovered anew (because I do not have an academic appointment and thus don't have mad library privilegez, which may have let me bypass some of this), that a huge amount of content is locked down, even for stuff that is, frankly, old. So you want to discover the page range of that article? Ha ha ha! We're not telling! It's a secret! To learn that info, you can buy the article! For a mere $30! Yeah, right.

TWC is going to be under intense scrutiny for a couple reasons. One is the whole audience = acafan thing. Academics will scrutinize the issue for rigor, and fans will scrutinize it for accessibility. (Can the twain meet? We think so, obviously, but let's find out.) But it's also going to be under scrutiny because anybody can read the essays for free—no passwords, no fees, no nothing.

Particularly for fans, who are keen sharers of info, it's hard to believe that this model is actually revolutionary, but in the academic realm, it really, really is. The essays are going to be read and cited widely not only because they are damn good and add important things to scholarship and meta discussion, but because users can actually access them without traveling to the library stacks to find a printed issue that they can photocopy. Sure, we're going to get puzzled generalist readers along with our target acafan audience, but you know what? I actually think that it's a good thing to widen the audience. Welcome to fan studies, everybody!

Press release

The first issue of Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC; http://journal.transformativeworks.org/) was released on September 15, 2008. This open-access online multimedia fan studies journal publishes scholarly essays, personal essays, and book reviews. TWC is published under the umbrella of the nonprofit fan advocacy group Organization for Transformative Works (http://transformativeworks.org/), and although its audience will primarily be acafans (academic fans), its scope ranges widely with the aim of providing a forum for fannish voices, academic or not.

"One important aspect of the journal is its open-access nature," Karen Hellekson, coeditor of TWC, commented. "It will be available for anyone to read, without any subscription restrictions. Plus it's online, so the articles can use hotlinks and embed videos. It's really time to move beyond the print model, so it's exciting that we're able to do that." She points to Francesca Coppa's essay, "Women, Star Trek, and the Early Development of Fannish Vidding," as an example of an essay that uses embedded media. "It's got screen caps from fan vids, plus embedded links to video, all to support her argument. It really explores the range of what multimedia has to offer." The issue also contains an audio feature, presented by Bob Rehak, with two downloadable recordings of a discussion held at the 2008 Console-ing Passions academic conference.

The first issue ranges widely to showcase TWC's interdisciplinary scope. For example, the political realm is dealt with by Abigail De Kosnik in "Participatory Democracy and Hillary Clinton's Marginalized Fandom," which applies fan theoretical models to contemporary Democratic political behavior. "This is a great example of fan studies being used to inform the political," Kristina Busse, TWC coeditor, pointed out. "The field ranges so widely, and I don't think people realize how applicable the scholarship is in other arenas." For example, pedagogy and writing is handled by Bram Stoker award-winning horror writer Michael A. Arnzen, whose essay, "The Unlearning: Horror and Transformative Theory," uses a classroom writing exercise revolving around horror texts to emphasize the central importance of transformation in writing, and Madeline Ashby's "Ownership, Authority, and the Body: Does Antifanfic Sentiment Reflect Posthuman Anxiety?" uses specific anime films as metaphor for the role of women's writing online.

Several interviews also appear in the issue. The TWC editors interviewed Henry Jenkins, whose groundbreaking work in fan studies is required reading by all fan studies scholars, and the three members of the Audre Lorde of the Rings, a conglomerate of academics, artists, and activists. Veruska Sabucco interviews one member of the Italian writing collective known as Wu Ming to talk about Wu Ming's activist project and fan writing in terms of collective authorship, copyrights concerns, and popular culture. And fan voices are also heard in the Symposium section, including an essay by the founder of the Fanfic Symposium, Rebecca Lucy Busker, whose "On Symposia: LiveJournal and the Shape of Fannish Discourse" focuses on fannish meta discourses and the particular ways LiveJournal's interface has shaped and affected style and content.

"This is a strong issue that we hope will invite many more diverse contributions," Busse said. The second issue of TWC, which will focus on games and gaming, is scheduled for March 15, 2009, publication; No. 3 will appear September 15, 2009, and will feature more general submissions.

This press release may also be downloaded as a .pdf here. The call for papers for No. 2 is available as an .rtf file here. Do disseminate widely!

Found object

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 15:23:15 GMT

I found this today in my planner, where I've kept it for...let's see...9 years. It's getting faded, so I thought I'd better save it by scanning it.

It's a job description, written on a sticky note with a purple V-Ball Extra Fine pen—the best pen for copyediting. All of us at the printing house where I worked were required to write our job descriptions out, and this is what my colleague, Matt, turned in to me.

Matt's job description

Why yes...

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 18:00:49 GMT

...today is my birthday.

I have plans to see Wall-E and then go to a friend's house for dinner afterward. Whee!

Thanks to all for their good wishes!

Here's a card my cousin sent me:

Spock sock

SF fan wiki work over at my other site

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 16:34:22 GMT

Go here for a summary of my paper at SFRA 2008.

Interesting book review

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 17:53:13 GMT

On Times Online, a review by Michael Saler entitled The rise of fan fiction and comic book culture, book review of David Hajdu, The ten-cent plague: The great comic-book scare and how it changed America; and Michael Chabon, Maps and legends: Reading and writing along the borderlands.

Saler organizes his review around conceptions of high versus low culture. Of Chabon's book, Saler notes:

Munificent artists can’t be contained within the arbitrary distinctions between literature and genre, the “serious” and the “entertaining”. Chabon doesn’t need to reach for his gun to dispatch such distinctions. He simply redefines them: “All literature, highbrow or low, from the Aeneid onward, is fan fiction”.

Hear hear!

Copy Editor: The Movie

Fri, 30 May 2008 14:57:12 GMT

Copy Editor: The Movie

Bwa ha ha! Not coming soon to a theater near you, but I'm excited to see that for people who don't work at home, copyediting is so...confrontational and physical.

Fandom Wank and history

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 15:35:31 GMT

At ICFA-29, I presented a paper entitled "Fandom Wank and History." Here's its abstract. The same basic information has been accepted for publication in an edited volume about community and online tools. I plan to expand the essay greatly by adding in a discussion of The Ms.Scribe Story to illustrate how blog-based historical texts are generated with the benefit of time and hindsight.

Abstract: Fandom Wank and history

Historical discourse is firmly situated in the realm of the trace: a document, be it a bill of sale or the registry of a wedding, provides unmistakable proof that an event occurred, and historians study such traces to construct a narrative document based (one hopes) in fact. As the realm of res gestae (things done), history's rhetorical activity is one of telling the truth. However, the Internet muddies this historical trace by permitting deliberate rewriting and obfuscation: blog posts can be rewritten; Web sites can be taken down; online comments can be edited.

One site that dramatically illustrates the possibility of this activity in the realm of fandom is Fandom Wank, a blog-based online community that exists solely to describe—and mock—fandom blowups. Descriptions of altered traces abound: offending entries edited, entire blogs deleted, entries locked or deleted, comments disabled. Yet next to these descriptions of altered traces may sit proof of the original text: damning screen shots, IP address traces, links to archived Web pages. The wank I used to illustrate my paper, chosen because it was recent, because it has sensational elements, and because it illustrated all my points, is called How NOT to Date a Celebrity.

Fandom Wank foregrounds the activity of fans who use blogs to collaboratively write a kind of history of an event as it happens by tracking elements of the trace even as the trace is being erased and literally rewritten, thus constructing a new form of historical writing, with its own rules of acceptable proof of the trace. I argue that fan blogs discussing current events in fan culture are actually historical writings that are imbued with community-specific meaning. The point of such an activity is to create a collaborative text that brings together relevant traces, documentation, and testimony in an effort to construct a persuasive document.

TWC copyright rationale

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 19:21:43 GMT

My coeditor, Kristina Busse (kbusse), and I have received two inquiries about the copyright the journal Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC) is using.

We have written a blog post that explains the copyright we have chosen and why. We also address the main question that these two people asked: why is TWC retaining copyright, and not the author?

The short answer is that this is standard in the industry. The long version of our answer is here. I'm disabling comments here to force discussion to be appended to the relevant blog post.

Remember: An analysis of Torchwood 2.05 "Adam"

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 14:56:42 GMT

This is cross-posted to my WordPress blog here. Feel free to comment in either space.

Remember

An analysis of Torchwood 2.05 "Adam"

Contains major spoilers!

1. Analysis of memory and forgetting

[1.1] In Torchwood 2.05 "Adam," the Torchwood team has a new colleague: Adam. He's their new best friend: Jack's confidant (he recruited Adam 3 years ago!), Tosh's lover (it's the 1-year anniversary of their first kiss!), all-around great guy. He's even in a clip or two in the show's opening credits. But despite all their memories of times shared, our heroes have only known him for 2 days. Adam is an alien who only has reality when others have memory of him. He feeds that memory into people by touch, and by so doing, he constitutes his own existence.

[1.2] Torchwood 2.05 “Adam” is interesting to me because of the ways it explores the fascinating historical idea of the trace. In addition, it explores the idea that memories comprise the person, and if one alters, so the other necessarily must. The character of the aptly named Adam takes this one step further: memories literally create a person, and without them, he is literally nothing. He would disappear, his existence restricted, doomed to drift in the Vortex. To exist, he must construct false memories in others, thereby creating a false reality in a house of cards that, as we learn, can't be sustained for long.

[1.3] Paul Ricoeur, in Memory, History, Forgetting, notes that there are three kinds of trace: the kind of trace associated with our brains, which can be analyzed by brain scans and neuroscientific analysis; the trace of affect, or the inscription of something onto the soul; and the more usual documentary trace, which comprises written records, archives, and writing. In "Adam," all three kinds of trace are in evidence, with the last kind, documentary trace, resulting in Adam's discovery and downfall.

2. Literal brain trace

[2.1] Adam is the agent of the first kind of trace, that of the literal trace in the brain. His very touch affects the brain, feeding in memories that contextualize his presence: playing basketball together, sharing a cup of coffee, laughing—simple day-to-day stuff that embeds him in their reality. It's unclear whether his touch also imbues his victim with an emotional context. I think it more likely that the memories he weaves evoke the victim into creating the associated emotion. But the end effect is the same: the Torchwood team love him. They think he's a great guy, one of them, a real pal. However, his touch may have untoward side effects. When he incorporates himself into Gwen's memory, she loses all memory of her fiance, Rhys. In fact, when she goes home, she takes him for an intruder and holds him at gunpoint. She thinks he is stalking her, and the documentary traces of their life together—photos of the two of them together decorating their shared apartment—she takes to be Photoshopped fakes created by a deluded madman. Even the engagement ring she wears and Jack's insistence that Rhys is her fiance do not convince her because she does not recognize him, and she feels no emotional resonance when she sees him. Jack attempts to remind her by recording Rhys describing memories of the two of them together, but for Gwen, it's all dim, long ago, barely remembered.

[2.2] Similarly, Adam's alterations of the Torchwood team's brains affects their personalities. Although Adam has only been with them for two days, the changes in the characters are marked. Normally prim Tosh's sweater is daringly low cut, and she moves with an air of self-possession and confidence she normally lacks. Her memories tell her that she is dating Adam and that the two of them are in love. Dashing Owen, now wearing geeky glasses and a dull cardigan, is shy and rule-bound, and in a nice reversal from canon, he moons after Tosh instead of vice versa, quite unlike his normal ladies' man self. By incorporating himself into their memories, Adam has changed their personalities.

[2.3] Adam tries to convince Jack that he has somehow brought their true selves to the fore: "You didn't remember who you were. I helped you. Look at Owen, all his cynicism gone. He's a different man now—selfless, happy. And Toshiko too. She's never been this confident." Adam believes that rather than fundamentally changing them, he has brought them back to their real selves—he believes that he has helped them "remember." This implies a truthful sort of existence beyond memory, a fundamental self that transcends the trace. Yet can such a thing exist? Adam is merely posturing, I think, buying time for himself by trying to convince Jack that things are better this way. Still, the undeniable connection between alteration of memory and alternation of character imply that memory's alteration can be far-reaching, a cascade of cause and effect created by the mind as it sorts through available information in order to construct a worldview.

3. The trace of affect

[3.1] The second kind of trace is the trace of affect, and the character who articulates this change is Jack. Ianto keeps a handwritten diary, and when he examines it, he realizes that everyone is in it except Adam. When he confronts Adam, Adam retaliates by attacking Ianto and feeding terrifying memories into Ianto's brain—new memories are of Ianto stalking and killing three women. Overcome with remorse, Ianto confesses to Jack, who is unable to reconcile this new information with the impression in his soul that Ianto is incapable of being a serial killer. Even after a lie detector test proves Ianto guilty, Jack refuses to believe it: "No. This is not you. Something's changed you. You are not a murderer."

[3.2] Similarly, whereas Gwen loses all memory of Rhys as a side effect of Adam's insertions, Jack sees his long-dead father and brother everywhere he goes: his little brother, Gray, in a holding cell, then again on a street corner; his father in a street. A traumatic memory associated with emotion has broken free, and once again, he's the boy who was unable to save his family when the invaders came (Jack says, "I let go of his [Gray's] hand. It was the worst day of my life. It's the last thing I want to remember."). Adam holds this crucial memory hostage in a last-ditch attempt to retain corporeality even as Jack's fruitless search for his long-dead brother illuminates his character. He will always try to save Gray, over and over again, we understand. It's what Jack does.

4. Documentary trace

[4.1] The third kind of trace, that of documentary evidence, is Adam's undoing. Ianto's diary is just the beginning. When Jack searches the Hub's CCTV records, he finds a visual record of Adam locked in combat with Ianto, feeding in the negative memories. "Remember it," Adam's voice repeats over and over. "Remember it." Of course it's not remembering; it's completely false. Still, the human mind has been altered and it becomes reality, with worldviews changed to match, memory given undeniable primacy.

[4.2] Jack's gut feeling, his memory of affect, led him to seek documentary evidence, which in turn supported his gut feeling. He knows that Adam is not one of them because the computer records of Adam Smith's existence have only recently been updated, because he has records of Adam attacking Ianto, because Adam has only been on 2 days' worth of CCTV, because Gwen forgot Rhys. But the impetus of all this is Jack's affect. He tells Adam, "All I know is that when I think of my team, I see you there but I don't feel anything for you—no pride, no warmth."

5. Forgetting

[5.1] The cure for memory is forgetting, of course. Jack tells the team, "Our memories define us. Adam changed those memories, changed who were are. Now I have to help you all go back. Find a memory that defines you. Rediscover who you are." He asks them to think of something that makes them who they are, and then he hands them each an amnesia pill, which will wipe out the last 48 hours. This, we understand, will be Adam's downfall. With no one to remember him, with no trace left, he will cease to exist. Each character is defined by something: Owen by rage at his family, Tosh by the comfort of math, Gwen by Rhys, Ianto by his lost love. The last person to take a pill is Jack himself, after Adam makes a last-ditch attempt to use memory to pull in Jack and permit Adam existence.

[5.2] When they all awake, Jack has ensured that all three kinds of trace of Adam are gone. The memory pill wiped out the brain's literal memories, and with it went affective relationships. All the evidentiary trace has been erased as well: CCTV records, relevant computer files, all wiped. The only thing that's left is the alien box that they presumably opened, thus releasing Adam. When Jack opens it, only sand is inside. Perhaps it's a sign that Adam has been reduced to constituent parts. Perhaps it's a link to Jack's memories of his past and his long-lost family. Perhaps it's a metaphor for time and memory, sand slipping through the fingers.

Book featured at RCCS!

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 19:16:49 GMT

The book I coedited with Kristina Busse (kbusse), Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet, was selected as a title for review at RCCS for the month of March. Check it out here. Kristina and I had the opportunity to respond to the reviewer's comments, and our response is there as well.

Here is the blurb from the RCCS:

each month, the resource center for cyberculture studies (RCCS)
publishes a set of book reviews and author responses:
http://rccs.usfca.edu/booklist.asp. books of the month for march 2008
include:

Cybersounds: Essays on Virtual Music Culture
Editor: Michael D. Ayers
Publisher: Peter Lang, 2006
Review 1: Lori Landay
Review 2: Shintaro Miyazaki
Review 3: Marc W.D. Tyrrell
Editor Response: Michael D. Ayers

Cyberspace Romance: The Psychology of Online Relationships
Authors: Monica Whitty, Adrian Carr
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006
Review 1: Rhiannon Bury
Review 2: Michele Hammers

Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet: New Essays
Editors: Karen Hellekson, Kristina Busse
Publisher: McFarland & Co., 2006
Review 1: Lan Xuan Le
Author Response: Karen Hellekson & Kristina Busse

The Virtual Window: From Alberti to Microsoft
Author: Anne Friedberg
Publisher: MIT Press, 2006
Review 1: Christy Dena
Author Response: Anne Friedberg

enjoy. there's more where that came from.

—david silver