Aca-Fan

Synonyms:

scholar-fan, acafan, acafen

See also:

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1 References

An aca-fan (plural: aca-fen) or scholar-fan is an academic who identifies as a fan. Though we don't have an exact date for the coinage of the word, it clearly happened between the time the first academics (Patricia Lamb, Joanna Russ) started writing about fandom in the late 80s, and 1994 (or possibly late 1993), when Patricia Gillikin started ACAFEN-L, the Academic Study of Fandom elist.

The term "aca-fan" was popularized by Matt Hills in his 2002 monograph, Fan Cultures. ^[1] The next generation of academics who published scholarship on fan cultures and productions only sometimes defined themselves as fans in their scholarship^[2], but many current academics do.

Screenshot of the header of Henry Jenkin's blog

Hills ascribed different meanings to the terms aca-fan and fan scholar and based the different use on primary interest. If the primary identity was academic, they were acafans; if it was fannish, they were fan scholars. After Hills, the term acafan has taken on a use of its own, both with Jenkins's blog title^[3] and the use among acafans themselves, who've used the term to indicate that there is no primary identity whatsoever.

A review of Hills' book can be found at: Scope: An Online Journal of Film & TV Studies.

In 2002, Vehemently compiled an Annotated Bibliography of Academic Resources on Fandom and Fan Fiction.

Transformative Works and Cultures editors Karen Hellekson and Kristina Busse maintain an excellent bibliography here: Fan fiction: A bibliography of critical works.

From the start, there were tensions between the fannish community and academics who studied fandom. Camille Bacon-Smith's book Enterprising Women created a strong negative reaction among the female fans who were the subjects of the book. Among the areas of contention were what may perceived as shallow, or incorrect, gender assumptions: "Some of Bacon-Smith’s theories concerning slash writing include: 1) that the male characters are actually surrogate women and, 2) that slash writers are afraid to write about heterosexual sex because they’re afraid they’ve been doing "it" wrong all these years; that women aren’t really expected to know the mechanics of gay, male sex so essentially anything is allowed and accepted."^[4]

Aca-Fen have gained more acceptance among the fannish community. Even back in 1994, Karen Ann Yost drew important distinctions between 'academics' and Aca-Fans:

"So why do I have one impression of fan fiction while a serious researcher has another? Well, fans probably view me differently and are willing to give me more information or insight. When I approach fans with an idea for a Strange New Worlds article, I tell them that I’m a fan. When I’m at a convention, I don’t need to identify myself as a fan; I have a stack of zines in my arms and wear a button that says: Hello, I’m from the American Association for the Abolition of Acronym Abuse, Regional Group Headquarters (AAAAARGH!). From the title of the publication, fans can tell that the audience of Strange New Worlds is other media fans. As a result, I may get more information than a ethnographic anthropologist who approaches fandom as simply a curiosity to be studied.

An "us against them" attitude will always exist in fandom. This is not fan snobbery, but fan fear. Fans have created a unique community with valid forms of expression: fan art, fan fiction, filk music, and fan music videos. The possible results of academic studies of fandom include an influx of people who come to conventions in search of a world they’ve only read about.

They really don’t want to be a member of the fan community. They have no interest in the shows, nor the fans who enjoy them. Disinterested or uninvolved people may change the very nature of the community that Star Trek fans began to build over twenty years ago." "^[5]

(See also Academic studies of Fandom).