Fandom, Now in Color: A Collection of Voices

Description

Fandom, Now in Color gathers together seemingly contradictory narratives that intersect at the (in)visibility of race/ism in fandom and fan studies. This collection engages the problem by undertaking the different tactics of decolonization - diversifying methodologies, destabilizing canons of 'must-read' scholarship by engaging with multiple disciplines, making whiteness visible but not the default against which all other kinds of racialization must compete, and decentering white fans even in those fandoms where they are the assumed majority. These new narratives concern themselves with a broad swath of media, from cosplay and comics to tabletop roleplay and video games, and fandoms from Jane the Virgin to Japan's K-pop scene. Fandom, Now in Color asserts that no one answer or approach can sufficiently come to grips with the shifting categories of race, racism, and racial identity. Contributors: McKenna Boeckner, Angie Fazekas, Monica Flegel, Elizabeth Hornsby, Katherine Anderson Howell, Carina Lapointe, Miranda Ruth Larsen, Judith Leggatt, Jenni Lehtinen, joan miller, Swati Moitra, Samira Nadkarni, Indira Neill Hoch, Sam Pack, Rukmini Pande, Deepa Sivarajan, Al ValentÍn Contents Foreword: For All Fankind | Ebony Elizabeth Thomas Acknowledgments A Note on Terminology Introduction One. Methodologies 1. A Case for Critical Methods: Sense Making, Race, and Fandom | Elizabeth R. Hornsby 2. The Intended vs. the Unintended Audience: Deconstructing Positionality in Fandom | Sam Pack 3. The Absence of Race: Teaching Practices and Inclusion in the Fandom Classroom | Katherine Anderson Howell Two. Otherness 4. Raceplay: Whiteness and Erasure in Cross-Racial Cosplay | Joan Miller 5. “But I’m a Foreigner Too”: Otherness, Racial Oversimplification, and Historical Amnesia in Japan’s K-pop Scene | Miranda Ruth Larsen Three. Affirmative/Transformative 6. Alpha/Beta/Omega: Racialized Narratives and Fandom’s Investment in Whiteness | Angie Fazekas 7. Fill in the Blank: Customizable Player Characters and Video Game Fandom Practice | Indira Neill Hoch 8. Waiting in the Wings: Inclusivity and the Limits of Racebending | Samira Nadkarni and Deepa Sivarajan 9. Understanding Good and Evil: The Influence of Fandom on Overcoming Reductive Racial Representations in Dungeons and Dragons | Carina Lapointe Four. Identity/Authenticity 10. Whose Representation Is It Anyway? Contemporary Debates in Femslash Fandoms | Rukmini Pande and Swati Moitra 11. Jane the Virgen or Virgin? The Dis-United States of (Latino) Fandom | Jenni M. Lehtinen 12. “Not My Captain America”: Racebending, Reverse Discrimination, and White Panic in the Marvel Comics Fandom | McKenna James Boeckner, Monica Flegel, and Judith Leggatt 13. Real Love? Authenticity as Capital in Let’s Play Culture | Al Valentín Contributors Bibliography Index