*CFP* FAN STUDIES NETWORK CONFERENCE 2019, UNIVERSITY OF PORTSMOUTH

Fan Studies Network Conference 2019

28th & 29th June 2019

School of Film, Media and Communication, University of Portsmouth, UK

Keynote Speakers:

Dr Nicolle Lamerichs, HU University of Applied Sciences, Utrecht, The Netherlands

Dr Lori Morimoto, Independent Researcher, USA

In 2019 the Fan Studies Network will be travelling to the UK’s south coast and the historic naval city of Portsmouth. We are delighted to announce that the seventh annual Conference is taking place in the School of Film, Media and Communication at the University of Portsmouth. Offering a diverse two-day programme our conference will sit alongside historic sites such as the Dockyards, HMS Victory and the Mary Rose while also attracting presenters to explore our cult fan trail which includes comic book, collectibles and record stores, video and board game lounges, and museum exhibits. Fans of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes can see a permanent collection of artefacts and fans of Charles Dickens can visit his birthplace. 

The conference will continue FSN’s long-standing tradition of offering an enthusiastic space for interdisciplinary researchers at all career stages to connect, share resources, and further develop their research ideas. In addition to panel presentations, the two days will feature a variety of social events, workshop discussions, and our famous speed-geeking sessions.

We are honoured to have Nicolle Lamerichs and Lori Morimoto as our keynote speakers for 2019. Both have contributed hugely to the field of fan studies, leading the community in new and important directions. Nicolle is senior lecturer and team lead at Creative Business at HU University of Applied Sciences, Utrecht. She is the author of Productive Fandom: Intermediality and Affective Reception in Fan Cultures (Amsterdam UP, 2018) and co-editor of Fan Studies: Researching PopularAudiences (2014). Lori is an independent researcher who has published widely on transcultural and transnational media fandoms in a range of seminal collections and leading journals, including: Fandom: Communities and Identities in a Mediated World, Second Edition, The Routledge Companion to Media Fandom, and A Companion to Media Fandom and Fan Studies; Participations, Transformative Works and Cultures, East Asian Journal of Popular Culture and Mechademia: Second Arc. We are very excited to have both of them come to Portsmouth as keynotes for FSN2019.

We invite abstracts of no more than 300 words for papers that address any aspect of fandom or fan studies. We also welcome collated submissions for pre-constituted panels of four papers. We encourage new members, in all stages of study, to the network and welcome proposals for presentations on, but not limited to, the following possible topics:

• The business of fandom (entrepreneurs, affective economics) 
• Branding fandom (promotional culture, marketing and PR) 
• Fandom, copyright and the law 
• Links between fandom, participatory culture and the political moment 
• Forms of anti-fandom, non-fandom or toxic fandom 
• The intersections between celebrity and fandom 
• Fan activism in response to contemporary political/world events 
• Fan space, place and geographies 
• Fandom and material cultures 
• Fan Studies methodologies 
• Fandom and controversies 
• Producer/fan interactions and relationships 
• Fan conventions 
• Fan labour 
• Sports fandom

In connection with our location and keynotes, the following topics may be of interest:

1. Music fandom 
2. Literary fandom (Sherlock Holmes/Dickens) 
3. Subcultural identities 
4. Cult movies and filming locations 
5. Transcultural and transnational fandom 
6. Fandom, race and ethnicity 
7. Cosplay and productive fandom 
8. The use of social media and its language (e.g. memes, hashtags, GIFs)

We also invite short abstracts (100-200 words) from anyone wishing to present as part of our popular ‘speed geeking’ session. This would involve each speaker presenting a short discussion on a relevant topic of their choosing to a number of small groups, and then receiving instantaneous feedback, making it ideal for presenting in-progress or undeveloped ideas. If you have any questions about this format of presentation, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Please send any abstracts/enquires to: fsnconference@gmail.com by the end of Sunday 24th March, 2019. Please include up to three keywords for your submission, which will help us to place your paper in an appropriate panel, and a short biographical note.

You can join the discussion about the event on Twitter using #FSN2019, follow us @FanStudies.