[Commlist] New Book: Killer Fandom

New Open Access Book: Killer Fandom

mediastudies.press is a scholar-led, nonprofit, diamond open access 
publisher in the media, film, and communication studies fields. We are 
excited to announce the publication of Killer Fandom: Fan Studies and 
the Celebrity Serial Killer:

https://www.mediastudies.press/killer-fandom

Killer Fandom is the first long-form treatment of serial killer fandom. 
Fan studies have mostly ignored this most moralized form of fandom, as a 
stigmatized Bad Other in implicit tension with the field’s successful 
campaign to recuperate the broader fan category. Yet serial killer 
fandom, as Fathallah shows in the book, can be usefully studied with 
many of the field’s leading analytic frameworks. After tracing the 
pre-digital history of fans, mediated celebrity, and killers, Fathallah 
examines contemporary fandom through the lens of textual poaching, 
affective community, subcultural capital, and play. With close readings 
of fan posts, comments, and mashups on Tumblr, TikTok, and YouTube, 
alongside documentaries, podcasts, and a thriving “murderabilia” 
industry, Killer Fandom argues that this fan culture is, in many ways, 
hard to distinguish from more “mainstream” fandoms. Fan creations around 
Aileen Wuornos, Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, and Richard Ramirez, among 
others, demonstrate a complex and shifting stance toward their 
objects—marked by parodic humor and irony in many cases. Killer Fandom 
ultimately questions—given our crime-and violence-saturated media 
culture—whether it makes sense to set Dahmer and Wuornos “fans” apart 
from the rest of us.

The book is available online and as a free download in PDF and ePub. A 
paperback version is also available.

https://www.mediastudies.press/killer-fandom 
<https://www.mediastudies.press/killer-fandom>

Killer Fandom appears in the Media Manifold Series series. Scholars 
interested in proposing volumes in this or other series are encouraged 
to reach out with a query:

https://www.mediastudies.press/proposals 
<https://www.mediastudies.press/proposals>

You can learn more about mediastudies.press, including our operations 
and OA principles, on our site:

https://www.mediastudies.press/about <https://www.mediastudies.press/about>

The press is a member of the Open Book Collective and the ScholarLed 
consortium, and also publishes the History of Media Studies journal. 
Please contact us at press@mediastudies.press 
<https://mailto:press@mediastudies.press>.
---------------
The COMMLIST
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier. Please use it responsibly and wisely.
--
To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit http://commlist.org/
--
Before sending a posting request, please always read the guidelines at http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ commlist.org)
URL: http://nicocarpentier.net
---------------