Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World

Why study fans? Fandom is ubiquitous, with everyone appearing either to be a fan or acquainted with someone who is. As this thought-provoking collection of original essays suggests, it is because of fandom's ubiquity that the study of its practices, performances and communities is of value. Fan studies is not (as it is sometimes comically suggested) restricted to the deviant practices of socially maladjusted outsiders, but the source of excellent work on the performance of identity and the construction of community in mainstream society. If everyone is a fan, then the study of fan culture has fascinating things to say about everyone. The essays are divided into six broad sections: aesthetic and legal judgments of fan-objects and fan texts; fandom ‘beyond pop culture’; imagined and physical spaces of fandom; fan audiences worldwide; an inspection of fan cultures; and a focus on the various discords located within fandom, presented in the person of the anti-fan. Like fans themselves, the essays are not always amenable to strict classification. Instead, the themes from one section may be reflected in an essay from another – possibly confusing for those who like everything in its place, but entirely appropriate to the book's ethos.