Fandom

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Fandom
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Thus is revealed the total existence of writing
a text is made of multiple writings, drawn from
many cultures and entering into mutual relations
of dialogue, parody, contestation, but there is
one place where this multiplicity is focused and
that place is the reader, not, as was hitherto
said, the author. The reader is the space on
which all the quotations that make up a writing
are inscribed without any of them being lost a
texts unity lies not in its origin but in its
destination. Yet this destination cannot any
longer be personal the reader is without
history, biography, psychology he is simply that
someone who holds together in a single field all
the traces by which the written text is
constituted.
The Birth of the Reader
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Which is why it is derisory to condemn the new
writing in the name of a humanism hypocritically
turned champion of the readers rights. Classic
criticism has never paid any attention to the
reader for it, the writer is the only person in
literature. We are now beginning to let ourselves
be fooled no longer by the arrogant
antiphrastical recriminations of good society in
favour of the very thing it sets aside, ignores,
smothers, or destroys we know that to give
writing its future, it is necessary to overthrow
the myth the birth of the reader must be at the
cost of the death of the Author. --Roland
Barthes (from Image, Music, Text, 1977)
The Birth of the Reader
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In 1980 Stanley Fish collected his theoretical
essays of the 1970s in his fifth book, Is There a
Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive
Communities. . . . These essays, beginning with
"Literature in the Reader" but tracing his shift
in such essays as "Interpreting the Variorum"
away from reader-response criticism toward the
theory of interpretive communities, consolidated
his position as one of the most influential and
most cited theorists of his time, influential
despite or perhaps because of his refusal to
settle on a fixed position or stance. The dynamic
quality Fish once ascribed to reading was by now
a property of his work on reading and
interpretation. . . .
The Interpretive Community
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The most sustained section is a group of four
lectures that gave the book its title. These
lectures, the most extended exposition of the
theory of interpretive communities, answer the
question in the title with both a no and a yes.
No, there is no text if by that one means an
unchanging entity with a fixed meaning yes,
there is a text because every interpretive
community fixes and defines the meaning of the
text it reads and, in a sense, writes.Johns
Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism
The Interpretive Community
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Henry Jenkins (MIT)
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Matt Hills (University of Cardiff)
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Go here to read a long, fascinating colloquy
between Henry and Matt. http//www.intensities.org
/Essays/Jenkins.pdf
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• Contributions to Fandom Studies in My Books
• In Full of Secrets
• Henry Jenkins. "Do You Enjoy Making the Rest of
  Us Feel Stupid?" alt.tv.twinpeaks, the Trickster
  Author, and Viewer Mastery
• In Deny All Knowledge
• Jimmie L. Reeves (Texas Tech University), Mark C.
  Rodgers, and Michael Epstein, University of
  Michigan), Re-Writing Popularity The Cult Files
• Susan J. Clerc (Bowling Green State University),
  DDEB, GATB, MPPB, and Ratboy The X-Files Media
  Fandom, Online and Off

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• In Fighting the Forces
• Kristina Busse. Crossing the Final Taboo Family,
  Sexuality, and Incest in the Buffyverse
• Justine Larbalestier. Buffys Mary Sue is
  Jonathan Buffy the Vampire Slayer Acknowledges
  the Fans
• Amanda Zweerink and Sarah N. Gatson.
  WWW.Buffy.Com Cliques, Boundaries, and
  Hierarchies in an Internet Community
• In Teleparody
• Matthew Hills. The Perils of Post-Theory TV
  Substituting Fandom for Academia, a Review-Essay
  of TV Guides Towards Embedded Theory by Iain
  John Austen and Autarchic Tele-visions by
  Sarah-Jane Smythe
• In Unlocking the Meaning of Lost
• Porter, Lavery, Robson. Chapter 7 Cult(ivating)
  a Lost Audience The Participatory Fan Culture of
  Lost

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• Fandom Activities
• ARGs
• Alternative Reality Games (playing / theorizing

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• Fandom Activities
• Blogging

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• Fandom Activities
• Conspiracy Theories (Researching / Disseminating)

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• Fandom Activities
• Easter Egg Hunts (Engaging in, disseminating
  results of)

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• Fandom Activities
• Fanfic (Writing/Reading/Reviewing)

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• Fandom Activities
• Fan Vids (Creating / Sharing)

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Scooby Road by Luminosity
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• Fandom Activities
• FanzinesWriting, Reading

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• Fandom Activities

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• Fandom Activities
• PodcastingListening to / Broadcasting

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• Fandom Activities
• Posting BoardsReading / Posting / Lurking

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• Fandom Activities
• Spoilers (Seeking Out / Disseminating)

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• Fandom Activities
• Webisodes / Mobisodes
• Watching, Discussing

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• Fandom Activities
• Websites (Creating / Maintaining)

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• Fandom Activities
• Wikis (Creating / Maintaining)