[Commlist] Call for Papers: Material Cultures and Collecting Practices across Global Fandom

Call for chapter proposals:

*Material Cultures and Collecting Practices across Global Fandom***

Editors:

Vlada Botorić, Zayed University, UAE

Lincoln Geraghty, University of Portsmouth, UK

Popular culture, with its diverse manifestations in media, art, and 
entertainment, has become a powerful lens through which societies 
express, negotiate, and challenge their identities. Fandom spaces, 
whether physical or digital, serve as dynamic arenas where communities 
coalesce around shared interests, creating unique subcultures. 
Simultaneously, collectors, driven by passion and a desire to preserve 
cultural artifacts, contribute to the curation and reinterpretation of 
popular culture through physical objects. The convergence of these 
elements prompts a rich exploration of cultural dynamics, consumption 
patterns, and identity formations. Collecting practices have become more 
sophisticated but they have tended to attract less critical attention 
over the years (Geraghty, 2014). With that said, more work is now being 
done on the relationships between fandom spaces and fan objects. For 
example, in his auto-ethnographic study of a life-long participant 
observer of the LEGO phenomenon, a collector, and an academic-fan, 
Botorić (2023) offered an externalizing fandom life-long experience and 
aesthetic preoccupations while creating a personalized interior, where 
LEGO becomes a dioramic spectacle integrated into the living space.

Along with traditional fan convention physical spaces, fans create 
digital and social media content to expose their creations and 
collections. Besides taking photos of their creations, fans make “room 
tour” videos of their creations of collection spaces. Rebane (2019) 
argues about this YouTube genre of room tour demonstrating its 
similarities with the nineteenth-century practices of ‛making of the 
parlor’ as a highly specific space in which private and public spheres 
interacted and the symbolic capital of the family was both created and 
put on show. These videos appear on personal YouTube channels centered 
on a specific hobby or activity of their authors ranging from beauty, 
fashion, to video gaming and popular culture, which also greatly 
influence the furnishing of their spaces. This digital performative 
logic of those videos is characterized both by the need to exhibit fans 
achievements and to maintain and have control over the public and 
private spatial domains, that is opposed to the physical exhibition 
spaces of the large fan conventions and events.

Geographical location of fans and fan communities may (over-)determine 
fan engagement and productivity in a global community setting. Botorić 
(2022) introduced the concept of periphery fandom, a concept that is new 
in the debate on consumer culture, to interrogate global fan community 
productive experiences from various geographical locations. Periphery 
fandom is defined as a sub-ordinated fan community experience, where 
members are deprived of access to their objects of fandom. Local fandoms 
are influenced by the local market conditions, questioning fans’ 
creativity, their community rise and spread. In this context, Chin and 
Morimoto (2013) argue that, while national identity and socio-political 
contexts may inform fan pursuits, this is neither necessarily the case 
nor the only possible mode of fan engagement. Fan identity is 
prioritized over national identity (Hills, 2002); therefore, a fan 
orientation may supersede geographical boundaries, becoming essentially 
a transnational/transcultural experience (Hills, 2002).

Moreover, collections, not only in their simple existence as owned 
things,but also in the care that goes into their organization, 
maintenance and display, serve as an objectification of the fans’ 
(sub)cultural capital (Geraghty, 2018). The collecting of objects forms 
a visual and physical biography of the self that in turn reflects how 
cultural texts cross national borders.  Therefore, this edited volume 
will examine culture(s) of consumption by focusing on the collected 
objects as a focal point for personal narratives of collectors’ cultural 
practices and experiences. In addition, this edited collection seeks to 
explore the multifaceted intersections of diverse experiences, examining 
the evolving dynamics and cultural significance of popular culture, the 
spaces where fandoms thrive, and the practices of collectors. As 
scholars continue to recognize the profound impact of these phenomena on 
contemporary society, this collection aims to provide a comprehensive 
exploration of their intricate relationships.

This edited collection addresses the need for a cohesive and 
interdisciplinary examination of the evolving landscape of popular 
culturemateriality, fandom spaces, and collecting practices. By bringing 
together diverse perspectives and methodologies, we aim to contribute to 
a nuanced understanding of these phenomena, fostering dialogue among 
scholars from fields such as media studies, cultural studies, sociology, 
consumer culture, marketing and beyond.

Contributors are invited to submit proposals exploring, but not limited 
to, the following themes:

•          Materiality of Collecting

•          Geographies of Fandom

•          Digital Fandom Spaces as Virtual Collections

•          Gender, Identityand Material Fandom

·          Global Exchanges of Fan Objects

•          Ethnographies of Fandom and Collecting Spaces

*Deadline for **abstract **submission: May 31, 2024*

*Submission instructions:*Please submit a 300 word abstract and a 100 
word bio to (vlada.botoric /at/ zu.ac.ae) <mailto:(vlada.botoric /at/ zu.ac.ae)> and 
(lincoln.geraghty /at/ port.ac.uk) <mailto:(lincoln.geraghty /at/ port.ac.uk)> with 
Fandom Book Chapterin the subject line.

*You will be notified by June 15, 2024.*

Following review and hopeful acceptance of the proposal submitted to 
Palgrave Fan Studies series,it is anticipated that authors for specific 
chapters will be identified, approached and confirmed by June 15, 2024. 
First draft of full chapters (approx 6.000 words) to be submitted by 
December1,2024, feedback and revisions communicated to authors by May 
31, 2025, and final drafts due to be submitted by  October1,2025. Final 
submission of full manuscript by December1,2025.

*References:*

Botorić V. (2023). Living with LEGO: A fan’s re-interpretation of the 
interior domestic space, /Popular Communication/, 21(2), 98-113.

Botorić, V. (2022). Periphery fandom: Contrasting fans’ productive 
experiences across the globe. /Journal of Consumer Culture/, 22(4), 889–907.

Chin,B.and Morimoto L.H.(2013) “Towards a theory of transcultural 
fandom. /Participations/ 10(1): 92–108.

Geraghty L. (2014). /Cult Collectors: Nostalgia, Fandom and Collecting 
Popular Culture/. London:

Routledge.

Geraghty, L. (2018). Class, Capitalism, and Collecting in Media Fandom. 
In Melissa Click and Suzanne Scott, eds. /The Routledge Companion to 
Media Fandom/. New York: Routledge, 2018, pp. 212-219.

Hills, M. (2002). /Fan Cultures/. New York: Routledge.

Rebane, G. (2019). A ‘parlour of one’s own’? The YouTube room tour 
genre. /Continuum/, 33(1), 51–64.


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