Fandom, Now in Color: A Collection of Voices

by Rukmini Pande

Overview

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

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781609387297
Publisher:	University of Iowa Press
Publication date:	12/15/2020
Series:	Fandom & Culture
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Rukmini Pande is assistant professor of English literature at O. P. Jindal Global University, New Delhi. She is author of Squee from the Margins: Fandom and Race (Iowa, 2018). She lives in New Delhi, India.

Table of Contents

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

What People are Saying About This

Bertha Chin

“This collection highlights scholars who are making groundbreaking contributions on race in fan studies. If we are moving toward decolonizing the field, this book will be a great start toward that endeavor in showcasing the quality of critical work being done, and making the issues of race less of a niche subinterest.”—Bertha Chin, coeditor, Crowdfunding the Future: Media Industries, Ethics, and Digital Society

Robin Anne Reid

“This anthology integrates critical race and postcolonial theory into fan studies, which assumes whiteness as a default, and begins to set standards for a much needed foundational change that is made more urgent by the current political climate in which overt racism and white supremacy is making a comeback under Trump.”—Robin Anne Reid, Texas A&M University-Commerce

Editorial Reviews

“This collection highlights scholars who are making groundbreaking contributions on race in fan studies. If we are moving toward decolonizing the field, this book will be a great start toward that endeavor in showcasing the quality of critical work being done, and making the issues of race less of a niche subinterest.”—Bertha Chin, coeditor, Crowdfunding the Future: Media Industries, Ethics, and Digital Society

— Bertha Chin

“This anthology integrates critical race and postcolonial theory into fan studies, which assumes whiteness as a default, and begins to set standards for a much needed foundational change that is made more urgent by the current political climate in which overt racism and white supremacy is making a comeback under Trump.”—Robin Anne Reid, Texas A&M University-Commerce

— Robin Anne Reid

From the Publisher