Fan-Scholar

Synonyms:
See also:	Aca-Fan, meta
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The term Fan-Scholar was coined by Matt Hills in his 2002 monograph, Fan Cultures.

A fan-scholar is defined as a fan who uses academic methodology and theories in work produced for fandom.

Fan-Scholar vs Scholar-Fan vs Aca Fan

The terms "fan-scholar" and "aca-fan" were popularized by Matt Hills in his 2002 monograph, Fan Cultures. 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, Confessions of an Aca-Fan, and the use among acafans themselves, who've used the term to indicate that there is no primary identity whatsoever.

In his book, "Fan Cultures," Hills argued that academics and aca-fen find fan-scholars and scholarship a threat to academic authority.

Changing Use of Terms

From an interview with Lori Morimoto:

ELM: ... Do you even use the term “aca-fan” any more? I feel like this one is falling out of fashion with some people.

LM: It’s a tricky term, isn’t it?

ELM: Fan studies scholar?

LM: In writing I tend to say “scholar-fan.”

ELM: Like scholar dash fan?

LM: Yeah, scholar dash fan or whatever. Matt Hills does that, and I kind of prefer it to “aca-fan” just because “aca-fan” is so loaded now.... Although on Twitter it’s @acafanmom, so go figure.

FK: Could you just summarize why “aca-fan” is so loaded?[...]

LM: [...] [Aca-fan] kind of got a certain reputation within some parts of fandom as kind of academics who are trying to butt in and tell us how we do things and what we do and sort of…an interloper kinda impression, I guess. On the one side, on the fandom side.

And then on the academic side there were people who were concerned about a whole range of things from “being too close to what you study” to “aca-fan is kind of a pejorative,” almost, or self-pejorative term that increased not being taken seriously by other academics. So in general, the reason that I’m not particularly fond of it…I’m happy to go after the discipline, because I think that disciplinarity is a problem. Or at least it inhibits certain kinds of conversation. But the fan side of it bothers me enough that I don’t generally refer to myself that way... In the context of fandom. (2018) </ref>

Further Reading

Fan Commentary

• Worst. Post. Ever., ^{Archived version} (2011)
• Episode 71: Lori Morimoto — Fansplaining, ^{Archived version} (2018)

Academic

• Scholar/’shippers and Spikeaholics: Academic and fan identities at the Slayage Conference on Buffy the Vampire Slayer by Vivien Burr (August 2005)
• Actually, It’s About Aca-Fandom in Games Studies, ^{Archived version} by Elise Vist (2015)

• Fandom: The classroom of the future by Paul J. Booth (2015)