Description
Book SynopsisLooks beyond television and film to literature and music to examine fans, their practices and their favorite texts. This work contains a selection of 25 essays that examine instances across the spectrum of modern cultural consumption from Karl Marx to Paris Hilton, Bach fugues to Bollywood cinema, and 19th-century concert halls to computer gaming.
Trade Review"Highly recommended." * Choice *
"Fandom explores the multidimensional aspects of the fascination, enthrallment, obsession that fans have with their various interests." * Journal of Mass Communication Quarterly *
"One of the best aspects of the text is the way that the contributors do not merely typecast fans as those interested in modern and popular culture, but also examine fans of mediums typically considered ‘high culture.’ This makes the book much friendlier to pop-culture fans, whose practices are typically considered lowbrow and fanatical when compared to someone who holds season tickets to the opera or visits an art gallery every weekend. As a fan, it’s nice to see that the behavior is not reduced to unnecessary fanaticism and is examined on a more subjective level." * M/C Reviews *
"Fandom pushes the boundaries of fan studies in bold directions, incorporating high culture fandoms, global fan cultures, fan technologies, and antagonistic anti-fandom, while rethinking the core tenets of fan studies concerning aesthetics, place, intellectual property, and interpretive communitiesall presented with a lively, accessible, and engaging writing style." -- Jason Mittell,Middlebury College
"Thought-provoking. . . . Well-selected and challenging collection." * Screen *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Why Study Fans? Part I: Fan Texts: From Aesthetic to Legal JudgmentsPart II: Beyond Pop Culture from News to High Culture Part III: Spaces of Fandom: From Place to Performance Part IV: Fan Audiences Worldwide: From the Global to the Local Part V: Shifting Contexts, Changing Fan Cultures: From Concert Halls to Console Games Part VI: Fans and Anti-Fans: From Love to HateBibliographyAbout the ContributorsIndex
