#transformational fandom

At this point there are a lot of films, series, and other media about the Galaxy Far Far Away during the time of Palpatine. Written by a variety of people, with a variety of styles, sometimes for different audiences.

I like to think about how there are also a lot of really interesting films and other fiction set in Ancient Rome in the time of Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar. And they vary wildly, from humorous approaches like Monty Python's Life Of Brian, to blockbusters like Gladiator, and so on.

Episode 174: The Classification of Fandom

In Episode 174, “The Classification of Fandom,” Flourish and Elizabeth break down some of the broad categories people use to define types of fans, starting with a foundational meta that proposed distinctions between “affirmational” and “transformational” fandom. Why do we create these categories, and are they—or have they ever been—meaningful? They also welcome the first Fansplaining Fellow, Pepper Campbell, onto the podcast to introduce her upcoming research project: an ethnography of fans who use Discord for fandom activity.

My paper Affirmational and Transformational Values and Practices in the Tolkien Fanfiction Community is up in the Journal of Tolkien Research! It is an open-access journal, so anyone can read it for free.

Although I didn’t know it at the time, this article really started with my first forays into fan studies, particularly those focusing on fanfiction. My fan studies texts are littered with marginalia proclaiming things like “Not true in Tolkien fandom!” and “Not Tolkienfic!” As a newcomer to fan studies, I assumed I was just missing the texts that described or were about us.

Years and many books later, I know that they don’t exist. Not in any significant sense. Tolkien-based fanfiction has been woefully understudied given its longevity and sustained popularity within the past two decades. The focus in fan studies has been toward media fandoms, yes, but even that doesn’t fully explain it. Harry Potter and Sherlockian fandoms--both of which have dominating bookverse communities--have received significant study and discussion. One cannot open a book on fanfiction--or even fandom that mentions fanfiction--and not see both discussed, whereas there are entire books on fanfiction that don’t even mention Tolkien-based fanfiction, with its six-decade history and 100,000+ fanfics.

(There has been scholarship done. I don’t want to sideline the scholars who have done this important work. There is a list of Tolkien fanfiction scholarship on “Tolkien Fanfiction” article on Fanlore. But for the size and duration of the fandom, there has not been enough done, and most has been done by Tolkien studies--not fan/media studies--scholars. Like me, incidentally.)

Anyway, over the years of thinking about why my own experiences in a major mixed book-media fandom don’t match with so much of what I read in the scholarship, I was led to obsession_inc’s affirmational/transformational theory about fandom. (Affirmational fandom tends to centralize canon and the original creator’s authority, while transformational fandom locates authority in the fan to manipulate and interpret texts according to their own interests, needs, and experiences.) And it started to click. This idea that fanworks are mostly transformational, which was being picked up and amplified in the scholarship also (or being discussed in similar terms, though not necessarily referencing obsession_inc’s ideas), simply was not my experience. Tolkien-based fanfiction relies significantly on affirmational fandom values and practices as well. With this, I set out to see if the evidence supported my ideas.

This paper uses data from my Tolkien Fan Fiction Survey, as well as primary fan history sources and Tolkien fan studies scholarship, to make the case that affirmational and transformational fannish elements exist in a much more balanced--if complicated--relationship for Tolkien-based fanfic than a lot of the fan studies scholarship asserts. Negotiating affirmational and transformational values shapes not only individual fanworks but the communities Tolkien fanfic writers have built, and it is far from a binary. Individual authors, as well as communities, may display affirmational values in one area and transformational in another in ways that, even after fifteen years in this fandom, still surprised me to discover.

The Official Abstract(tm) is posted below the jump. And here’s the link to the article, one more time. :)