Mark Duffett

As a longtime fan with a recent interest in fan studies and acafandom, I figured this would be a good starting point in gaining an overview of the major theories, works, and scholars in the field of fan studies. I certainly was not left disappointed. While Duffett's text didn't really say anything that surprised me, putting it in the context of scholarship and history was very helpful. Duffett takes the time to explain the origins of fan studies and the breaks down the study of fans and fandom into a number of different areas before concluding with ideas on new frontiers for fan studies going forward. Though sometimes it seemed like he was mostly just quoting or paraphrasing Henry Jenkins (a pioneer in the field and one of the foremost current scholars in the area), Duffett contextualized Jenkins' statements and offered some of his own perspectives into the discussion as well.

I definitely recommend this for someone wanting to get an overview of the current state of fan studies - it's a relatively recent publication so is up-to-date. It does skew a bit more toward an academic and scholarly audience, but I think it's still a beneficial read for any fan.… (meer)

I’m not sure how I feel about this as an introductory text. On the one hand, it reminds us that there are many different fandoms, including celebrity fandoms, music fandoms, and TV/movie fandoms (not so much here on sports fandoms, but a bit), with commonalities and differences. On the other hand, I didn’t like the style very much—a lot of italics for concepts that probably didn’t merit them, some simple editing errors, and some unfamiliarity with media fandom that made me less than trusting. According to Duffett, “genfic” is the opposite of slash, and only genfic can be critical of the existing text. I’m not sure that’s his real belief as opposed to an infelicitous editing, but it does suggest a distance between my fandom and his.… (meer)