Transformative Works and Cultures

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Academic Commentary
Title: Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC)
Commentator: acafen
Date(s): 2008-present
Medium: online
Fandom: Pan-fandom
External Links: http://journal.transformativeworks.org/

Subpages for Transformative Works and Cultures:
Bibliography
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Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC) is a peer-reviewed academic journal that seeks to promote scholarship on fanworks and practices. It comes out at least twice a year and is a project of the Organization for Transformative Works. The journal has one general issue with rolling deadlines, published September 15, and at least one special issue, published March 15. Depending on availability, there are years with additional special issues June 15 and/or December 15.

When TWC was created it defined its purview as

"articles about transformative works, broadly conceived; articles about media studies; and articles about the fan community. We invite papers in all areas, including fan fiction, fan vids, film, TV, anime, comic books, fan community, video games, and machinima. We encourage a variety of critical approaches, including feminism, gender studies, queer theory, postcolonial theory, audience theory, reader-response theory, literary criticism, film studies, and posthumanism. We also encourage authors to consider writing personal essays integrated with scholarship; hyperlinked articles; or other forms that test the limits of the genre of academic writing."[1]

a flyer for "Transformative Works and Cultures" posted at MediaWest*Con in 2008

Sections (2008-2022)

Theory

These often interdisciplinary essays with a conceptual focus and a theoretical frame offer expansive interventions in the field of fan studies. Theory essays undergo blind peer review. (5,000–8,000 words, plus a 100–250-word abstract)

Praxis

These essays analyze the particular, in contrast to Theory's broader vantage. They may apply a specific theory to a formation or artifact; explicate fan practice; perform a detailed reading of a specific text; or otherwise relate transformative phenomena to social, literary, technological, and/or historical frameworks. Praxis essays undergo blind peer review. (4,000–7,000 words, plus a 100–250-word abstract)

Symposium

Inspired by The Fanfic Symposium, a meta website which ran from 1999 to 2006, TWC publishes "Symposium," a section of the journal for non-peer reviewed essays:

"Parallel to academia's tradition of compact essays, often published as letters, fandom has its own vibrant history of criticism, some of which has been collected at the Symposium archive. In the spirit of this history, TWC's Symposium is a section of concise, thematically contained essays. These short pieces provide insight into current developments and debates surrounding any topic related to fandom or transformative media and cultures. Symposium submissions undergo editorial review." [2]

The Symposium Blog[3] associated with TWC posted infomal meta, to create a "bridge between the OTW’s academic journal and fannish discussions, through posts that discuss both fannish meta topics and fannish perspectives on fan and media studies." [4]

Review

Reviews offer critical summaries of items of interest in the fields of fan and media studies, including books, new journals, and web sites. Reviews incorporate a description of the item's content, an assessment of its likely audience, and an evaluation of its importance in a larger context. Review submissions undergo editorial review. (1,500–2,500 words)

Interviews

Interviews are editorially reviewed and can be submitted by readers or solicited by editors.

Multimedia

The multimedia section includes essays that are primarily not textual, i,.e., video curation (Ian Roberts, Genesis of the digital anime music video scene, 1990–2001; Jonathan McIntosh, A history of subversive remix video before YouTube: Thirty political video mashups made between World War II and 2005) or experimental pieces (Alexandra Juhasz, Fred rant).

Sections (2022-)

Article

(As of No. 38, this section replaces the former Theory/Praxis sections.) These often interdisciplinary essays with a conceptual focus and a theoretical frame offer expansive interventions in the field of fan studies or analyze the particular, applying a specific theory to a formation or artifact; explicating fan practice; performing a detailed reading of a specific text; or otherwise relating transformative phenomena to social, literary, technological, and/or historical frameworks. Articles undergo blind peer review. (maximum 8,000 words, plus a 100–250-word abstract)

Symposium

Parallel to academia's tradition of compact essays, often published as letters, fandom has its own vibrant history of criticism (aka meta), some of which has been collected at the Symposium archive. In the spirit of this history, TWC's Symposium is a section of concise, thematically contained essays. These short pieces provide insight into current developments and debates surrounding any topic related to fandom or transformative media and cultures. We have discovered that brief, thesis-only papers, particularly those providing overviews of topical subjects or illustrating a particular writing mode (such as a close reading of a single fan-created artwork), are frequently used in classrooms. Symposium submissions undergo editorial review. (maximum 4,000 words, plus a 2-sentence abstract)

Review

Reviews offer critical summaries of recently published items of interest in the fields of fan and media studies, including books, new journals, and websites. Reviews incorporate a description of the item's content, an assessment of its likely audience, and an evaluation of its importance in a larger context. Review submissions undergo editorial review. (1,500–2,500 words)

Published Issues

Issue No. 1 of TWC appeared on September 15, 2008. It includes Francesca Coppa's seminal essay on the history of vidding, Women, "Star Trek," and the early development of fannish vidding, and a range of essays on fandom and fan works from Abigail DeKosnik on politics as fandom and Anne Kustritz on The Story of Obi to Rebecca Busker on meta discourses in fandom and an interview with Henry Jenkins.

Issue No. 2 (March 15, 2009) is a special topic issue on "Games as transformative works," edited by Rebecca Carlson. The issue combines various accounts of online play, especially World of Warcraft, with essays ranging from card collectors and table-top and live action role-playing games to chiptunes and machinima.

Issue No. 3 appeared on September 15, 2009. This general issue expanded the range of the journal with essays on quilting, fannish wikis, and filk communities as well as an important reflection on fannish race conversations with Pattern recognition: A dialogue on racism in fan communities

Issue No. 4 (March 15, 2010) is a special Supernatural issue, "Saving People, Hunting Things," edited by Catherine Tosenberger. The issue approaches the television show and its fandom from a variety of disciplines and approaches and discusses the role of religious, the supernatural, and folklore as well fannish creations ranging from specific fanvids and mpreg.

Issue No. 5 appeared on September 15, 2010. This general issue contained a range of essays on various forms of fan production (including fan subbing and fan films) with a particular emphasis on concerns of the body and disability in fandom.

Issue No. 6 appeared in April 2011. "Fan Works and Fan Communities in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," special history issue guest edited by Nancy Reagin, Pace University, and Anne Rubenstein, York University.

Issue No. 7 appeared in August 2011 and was a general issue with several articles about aspects of fan identity.

Issue No. 8 appeared in November 2011 and was a double guest-edited issue on the topics of "Race and Ethnicity in Fandom", guest edited by Robin Anne Reid and Sarah N. Gatson; and "Textual Echoes", guest edited by Cyber Echoes.

Issue No. 9 appeared in March 2012. "Fan/Remix Video," special issue of TWC guest edited by Francesca Coppa and Julie Levin Russo.

Issue No. 10 appeared in June 2012. Transformative Works and Fan Activism, guest edited by Henry Jenkins and Sangita Shresthova, University of Southern California.

Issue No. 11 appeared in September 2012.

Issue No. 12 appeared in March 2013. Transnational Boys' Love Fan Studies, guest edited by Kazumi Nagaike and Katsuhiko Suganuma (Oita University).

Issue No. 13 appeared in June 2013. Appropriating, Interpreting, and Transforming Comic Books, guest edited by Matthew Costello, St. Xavier University, Chicago.

Issue No. 14 appeared in September 2013.

Issue No. 15 appeared in March 2014. Fandom and/as Labor, guest edited by Mel Stanfill and Megan Condis (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign).

Issue No. 16 appeared in June 2014. Materiality and Object-Oriented Fandom, guest edited by Bob Rehak (Swarthmore College).

Issue No. 17 appeared in September 2014.

Issue No. 18 appeared in March 2015. Performance and performativity in fandom, guest edited by Lucy Bennett (Cardiff University) and Paul J. Booth (DePaul University).

Issue No. 19 appeared in June 2015. Transnationalism, localization, and translation in European fandom: Fan studies as global media and audience studies, guest edited by Anne Kustritz (University of Amsterdam).

Issue No. 20 appeared in September 2015. The anniversary was commemorated by OTW communications with three events: a special post on Symposium, Symposium By and For Fans; an interview with three contributors, Spotlight on Journal: Twentieth Issue Celebration; and a chat session with several Symposium contributors, see TWC Panel Chat: 2015.

Issue No. 21 appeared in March 2016. The Classical Canon and/as Transformative Work, guest edited by Ika Willis (University of Wollongong).

Issue No. 22 appeared in September 2016, and was a general issue containing essays on topics such as Star Trek, Hillary Clinton remix videos, "Brony" identity and anime music video fandom.

Issue No. 23 appeared in March 2017, Sherlock Holmes Fandom, Sherlockiana, and the Great Game, guest edited by Betsy Rosenbaum (Whittier) and Roberta Pearson (Nottingham).

Issue No. 24 appeared in June 2017, Queer Female Fandom, guest edited by Eve Ng (Ohio University) and Julie Levin Russo (Evergreen College).

Issue No. 25 appeared in September 2017.

Issue No. 26 appeared in March 2018, Social TV Fandom and the Media Industries, guest edited by Myles McNutt (Old Dominion University).

Issue No. 27 appeared in June 2018, Tumblr and Fandom, guest edited by Lori Morimoto (Independent) and Louisa Stein (Middlebury C).

Issue No. 28 appeared in September 2018, The Future of Fandom, special 10th anniversary issue.

Issue No. 29 appeared in March 2019, Fans of Color, Fandoms of Color, guest edited by Abigail DeKosnik (UC, Berkeley) and andré carrington (Drexel U).

Issue No. 30 appeared in September 2019.

Issue No. 31 appeared in December 2019, Fan Fiction and Ancient Scribal Cultures, guest edited by Frauke Uhlenbruch (Independent) and Sonja Ammann (U Basel).

Issue No. 32 appeared in March 2020, Fandom and Politics, guest edited by Ashley Hinck (Xavier U) and Amber Davisson (Keene State C).

Issue No. 32 appeared in June 2020, Fan Studies Methodologies, guest edited by Julia E. Largent (McPherson C), Milena Popova (Independent), and Elise Vist (U Waterloo).

Issue No. 34 appeared in September 2020.

Issue No. 35 appeared in March 2021, Fan Studies Pedagogies, guest edited by Paul Booth (DePaul University) and Regina Yung Lee (University of Washington).

Issue No. 36 appeared in September 2021, General issue. This issue introduced a new editorial board and the incoming editors.

Issue No. 37 appeared in March 2022, Fandom Histories, guest edited by Philipp Dominik Keidl "(Goethe University Frankfurt) and Abby S. Waysdorf (Utrecht University).

Issue No. 38 appeared in September 2022, General issue. This issue was the first fully under new editorship by Mel Stanfill and Poe Johnson.

Issue No. 39 appeared in March 2023, Trans Fandom, guest edited by Jennifer Duggan (University of South-Eastern Norway) and Angie Fazekas (University of Toronto).

Issue No. 40 appeared in September 2023, General issue.

Issue No. 41 appeared in December 2023, Chinese Fandoms, guest edited by Zhen Troy Chen (City University of London) and Celia Lam (University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China).

Issue No. 42 appeared in March 2024, Fandoms and Platforms, guest edited by Maria K. Alberto (University of Utah), Effie Sapuridis (Western University, London, Ontario), Lesley Willard (Emerson College).

Fan-created PDFs of issues

  1. TWC No. 1 (2008), General issue: PDF
  2. TWC No. 2 (2009), Games as transformative works: PDF
  3. TWC No. 3 (2009), General Issue: PDF
  4. TWC No. 4 (2010), Supernatural issue: PDF
  5. TWC No. 5 (2010), General issue: PDF
  6. TWC No. 6 (2011), Fan Works and Fan Communities in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction: PDF
  7. TWC No. 7 (2011), General issue: PDF
  8. TWC No. 8 (2011), Double issue: Race and Ethnicity in Fandom and & Textual Echoes: PDF
  9. TWC No. 9 (2012), Fan/Remix Video: PDF
  10. TWC No. 10 (2012), Transformative Works and Fan Activism: PDF
  11. TWC No. 11 (2012), General issue: PDF
  12. TWC No. 12 (2013), Transnational boys' love fan studies: PDF
  13. TWC No. 13 (2013), Appropriating, Interpreting, and Transforming Comic Books: PDF
  14. TWC No. 14 (2013), General issue: PDF
  15. TWC No. 15 (2014), Fandom and/as labor: PDF
  16. TWC No. 16 (2014), Materiality and object-oriented fandom: PDF
  17. TWC No. 17 (2014), General issue: PDF
  18. TWC No. 18 (2015), Performance and performativity in fandom: PDF
  19. TWC No. 19 (2015), Transnationalism, localization, and translation in European fandom: PDF
  20. TWC No. 20 (2015), General issue: PDF
  21. TWC No. 21 (2016), The Classical Canon and/as Transformative Work: PDF
  22. TWC No. 22 (2016), General issue: PDF
  23. TWC No. 23 (2017), Sherlockian and the Great Game: PDF
  24. TWC No. 24 (2017), Queer Female Fandom: PDF
  25. TWC No. 25 (2017), General issue: PDF
  26. TWC No. 26 (2018), Social TV Fandom and the Media Industries: PDF
  27. TWC No. 27 (2018), Tumblr and Fandom: PDF
  28. TWC No. 28 (2018), General issue, Future of Fandom: PDF
  29. TWC No. 29 (2019), Fans of Color, Fandoms of Color: PDF
  30. TWC No. 30 (2019), General issue: PDF
  31. TWC No. 31 (2019), Fan Fiction and Ancient Scribal Cultures: PDF
  32. TWC No. 32 (2020), Fandom and Politics: PDF
  33. TWC No. 33 (2020), Fan Studies Methodologies: PDF
  34. TWC No. 34 (2020), General issue: PDF
  35. TWC, No 35 (2021), Fan Studies Pedagogies: PDF
  36. TWC No. 36 (2021), General issue: PDF
  37. TWC No. 37 (2022), Fandom Histories: PDF
  38. TWC No. 38 (2022), General issue: PDF 1 - PDF 2
  39. TWC No. 39 (2023), Trans Fandom: PDF
  40. TWC No. 40 (2023), General issue: PDF
  41. TWC No. 41 (2023), Chinese Fandoms: PDF
  42. TWC No. 42 (2024), Fandoms and Platforms: PDF

Copyright and Licenses

TWC is a Gold Open Access publication of the nonprofit Organization for Transformative Works, copyrighted under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License for issue Nos.1-24 and a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License for issue No.25 and beyond. For an explanation of the journal's reasoning, see the editorial, Copyright and Open Access.

For Nos. 1 through 24, TWC, not the author, retains copyright. Anyone seeking to reproduce content for profit, including authors, must obtain permission from TWC, which is routinely granted for free. Starting with No. 25, the author retains copyright and any reproduction of content, including for profit, is covered under the CC BY-4.0 license.

TWC is indexed in major academic databases, open access directories, and services such as Google Scholar. The journal is a member of the Directory of Open Access Journals.

Zotero index

Bibliographical data for all articles published in TWC is recorded in Zotero as a subcollection of the Fan studies bibliography, a project affiliated with the journal.

See also: Bibliographical list of all articles 2008-18 with links

Editorial Team

The editorial team for 2007 - present includes:

Editors

Assistant editors

  • Tanya Zuk (U North Texas) and (#42-)
  • Taylore Nicole Woodhouse (#42-)

Review editors

Symposium editors

  • Cole J. Banning (#1)
  • Rebecca Lucy Busker (#2-#3)
  • Lorraine Dubuisson (#3-#4)
  • Alexis Lothian (#1-#5)
  • Julie Levin Russo (#1-#2)
  • Suzanne Scott (#4-#10)
  • Patricia Nelson (#6-#10)
  • Anne Kustritz (#6-#10)
  • Sara K. Howe (#9-#10)
  • Alexandra Jenkins (#11)
  • Cameron Salisbury (#12-#30)
  • Francesca Coppa (#22-#30)
  • Amy Finn (#30)
  • Erin Webb (#30)
  • Katie Gillespie (#30)
  • Linda Levitt (#30)
  • Lori Morimoto (#29-#35)
  • Hanna Hacker (#36-#40)
  • Bridget Kies (#36-#41)
  • Jennifer Duggan (#42-)
  • Adrienne Raw (#42-)
  • Khaliah Reed (#42-)

Production editors

  • Karen Hellekson (#1-#6)
  • Rrain Prior (#5-#30)
  • Claire P. Baker (#35-#36)
  • Christine Mains (#27-#42)

Copyeditors

  • Karen Hellekson (#1-#35)
  • Margie Gillis (#1-#2)
  • Shoshanna Green (#1, #3-#17, #19-#26)
  • Ed Greengrass (#3)
  • Mara Greengrass (#1-#4, #10, #27-#28)
  • Vickie West (#2, #5-#8, #30-#41)
  • Beth Friedman (#5-#14, #17-#36, #38-#41)
  • Christine Mains (#13-#41)
  • Jennifer Duggan (#29-#39, #41)
  • Jillian Kovach (#37-#41)
  • A. Smith (#37-#41)
  • Robin F. (#40-#41)
  • M. Lisa (#40-#41)

Layout editors

  • Karen Hellekson (#1-#20)
  • Wendy M. Carr (#4, #6-#9, #10-#13)
  • Allison Morris (#4-#5, #7-#9)
  • Kristen Murphy (#4-#5, #7-#13)
  • Rrain Prior (#1-#4, #6, #14-#20, #30-#35)
  • Gretchen Treu (#5-#9)
  • Ekaterina Fawl (#7, #9)
  • sunusn (#10-#13)
  • Gabriel Simm (#18-#29)
  • Claire P. Baker (#21-)
  • Sarah New (#21-#41)
  • Rebecca Sentance (#21-)
  • Christine Mains (#30-)
  • Latina Vidolova (#37-)

Proofreaders

  • Sarah Hazelton (#3-#4)
  • Vickie West (#3-#4 #6-#12, #15-#19, #2-#23, #25)
  • Liza Q Wirtz (#1-#6)
  • Carmen Montopoli (#6-#16, #18-#19, #21-#22)
  • Jack Harrison (#6)
  • Kallista Angeloff (#10-#11)
  • Amanda Georgeanne Retartha (#10-#12, #15-#29)
  • Karalyn Dokurno (#28-#32)
  • Latina Vidolova (#21-#41)
  • Rachel P. Kreiter (#23-#35, #37-#40)
  • Claire P. Baker (#29-#36, #38)
  • Emily Cohen (#36-#41)
  • Christine Mains (#36-#41)
  • Cheng Shon (#37-#41)
  • Aileen Sheedy (#40-#41)
  • Karen Hellekson (#41)

Editorial Board Members

Past Members

[The board members are listed with the affiliation they had at the time they were on the editorial review board of TWC]

  • Nancy Baym (Microsoft Research)
  • Will Brooker (Kingston University)
  • Rhiannon Bury (Athabasca University)
  • Wendy Hui Kyong Chun (Brown University)
  • Melissa Click (Gonzago University)
  • Francesca Coppa (Muhlenberg College)
  • Paul Draper (Queensland Conservatorium)
  • Catherine Driscoll (University of Sydney)
  • Kathleen Fitzpatrick (Pomona College)
  • Sam Ford (Convergence Culture Consortium)
  • Jonathan Gray (Fordham University)
  • Judith Halberstam (University of Southern California)
  • C. Lee Harrington (Miami University)
  • Heather Hendershot (MIT)
  • Matt Hills (University of Huddersfield)
  • Henry Jenkins (University of Southern California)
  • Derek Johnson (University of Wisconsin)
  • Poe Johnson (Drew University)
  • Roz Kaveney (Independent)
  • Melanie Kohnen, (Lewis&Clark College)
  • Derek Kompare (Southern Methodist University)
  • Alexis Lothian (University of Maryland, College Park)
  • Elana Levine (University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee)
  • Farah Mendlesohn (Middlesex University)
  • Mark McLelland (University of Wollongong)
  • Helen Merrick (Curtin University of Technology)
  • Jason Mittell (Middlebury College)
  • Roberta Pearson (University of Nottingham)
  • Whitney Phillips (Mercer University)
  • Sheenagh Pugh (University of Glamorgan)
  • Aswin Punathambekar (University of Michigan)
  • Bob Rehak (Swarthmore College)
  • Robin Anne Reid (Texas A&M, Commerce)
  • Sharon Ross (Columbia College, Chicago)
  • Julie Levin Russo (Evergreen State College)
  • Cornel Sandvoss (University of Huddersfield)
  • Avi Santo (Old Dominion)
  • Mel Stanfill (University of Central Florida)
  • Louisa Stein (Middlebury College)
  • Catherine Tosenberger (University of Winnipeg)

Current Members

See Editorial Board

Critical Reception

References

  1. ^ About the Journal
  2. ^ TWC Submission Guidelines
  3. ^ The Symposium Blog
  4. ^ About, Symposium blog site
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