Home - Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Fandom At The Crossroads: Celebration, Shame and Fan/Producer Relationships
Author: Lynn Zubernis and Katherine Larsen
Date Of Publication: Feb 2012
Isbn13: 978-1-4438-3530-5
Isbn: 1-4438-3530-7
Fandom At The Crossroads: Celebration, Shame and Fan/Producer Relationships is an in-depth exploration of the reciprocal relationship between a groundbreaking cult television show and its equally groundbreaking fandom. For the past six years the authors have inhabited the close-knit fan communities of the television show Supernatural, engaging in criticism and celebration, reading and writing fanfiction, and attending fan conventions. Their close relationships within the community allow an intimate behind-the-scenes examination of fan psychology, passion, motivation, and shame.

The authors also speak directly to the creative side in order to understand what fuels the passionate reciprocal relationship Supernatural has with its fans, and to interrogate the reality of fans’ fears and shame. As they go behind the scenes and onto the sets to talk with Supernatural’s showrunners, writers, and actors, the authors struggle to negotiate a hybrid identity as “aca-fans”. Fangirls one moment, “legitimate” researchers the next, the boundaries often blur. Their repeated breaking of the fan/creative side boundary is mirrored in Supernatural’s reputation for fourth wall breaking, which has attracted journalistic coverage everywhere from Entertainment Weekly to the New York Times. Written with humor and irreverence, Stalking Fandom combines an innovative theorizing of fandom and popular culture, which will be useful in a variety of courses, with a behind-the-scenes story that anyone who’s ever been a fan or wondered why others are fans will find fascinating.

Lynn Zubernis is a clinical psychologist and teaches in the Counselor Education program at West Chester University of Pennsylvania.

Katherine Larsen teaches courses on fame, celebrity and fandom in the University Writing Program at George Washington University. She is the associate editor of the Journal of Fandom Studies.

Dr Zubernis and Dr Larsen are co-editors of the forthcoming Fan Culture: Theory and Practice. They have also published four articles in Supernatural Magazine.

“Fandom At The Crossroads raises vital questions for contemporary fan studies. Pondering whether fan practices can be therapeutic, asking how boundaries between fans and producers are policed (from both sides), and considering fan conflicts, this is a rich and timely study of Supernatural fandom which also opens up wider issues surrounding convergence culture right now. Drawing on detailed, wide-ranging interviews with showrunners and the show’s cast, Fandom At The Crossroads also boasts a degree of access that’s incredibly rare in work of this kind. By combining their fan and scholarly identities, Larsen and Zubernis challenge all of us to see the subject anew.”

– Matt Hills, Cardiff University; Author of Fan Cultures and Triumph of a Time Lord

“Larsen and Zubernis have produced what will no doubt be a valuable addition to the growing scholarship on fan studies. Their passion as Supernatural fans shines through and they should be congratulated for researching and writing an influential book that asks the reader to not only consider their own relationship to a particular fandom but demands that they take notice and take seriously the diverse interests and emotional attachments millions have with their objects of affection.”

– Lincoln Geraghty, University of Portsmouth; Editor of the Directory of World Cinema: American Hollywood

“‘The fans’ are an incredibly important force in the entertainment industry: Powerful executives, directors and writers fear them, countless web sites cater to them and their support (or wrath) can make or break a project. But who are the fans? What do they want? How do they view their complex relationships with the stories and storytellers they obsess over? Fortunately, Lynn Zubernis and Katherine Larsen are here to take us on a fascinating journey into the belly of the beast – an appropriate metaphor, given their profound and passionate knowledge of the complex and challenging spooky serial Supernatural. But you don’t have to be a fan of the Winchester Brothers to enjoy this witty, thoughtful and intelligent guide to the nature of fandom and the endless varieties of the fan experience. As Dean Winchester would say, ‘They get it.’”

– Maureen Ryan, Television Critic, AOL/Huffington Post

Price Uk Gbp: 39.99
Price Us Usd: 59.99

Sample pdf (including Table of Contents)

We recommend

Language and Literature
Middle-earth and Beyond: Essays on the World of J. R. R. Tolkien

History
Arctic Discourses

Education
The Supportive School: Wellbeing and the Young Adolescent

Interesting reviews

From Navigating Music and Sound Education

“We rarely have the opportunity and time to engage with the practicalities of music teaching through the lens of evidence-based practice. This book provides us with a wonderful exception that is accessible to beginning and established teachers. It contains a wide range of stimulating and thought-provoking material that draws on real-world experiences and events, which are contextualised, informed and structured by theory. This is a powerful combination that we can visit again and again for insight and inspiration. Congratulations to all involved, particularly the editors for shaping such a valuable contribution!”
—Professor Graham F. Welch, University of London; President, International Society of Music Education

“Navigating music and sound education draws together a range of issues increasingly acknowledged to be at the basis of reflective and effective music learning and teaching: social settings, cultural dimensions, gender, indigeneity, varying cognitive approaches, inter-disciplinary connections, technology, types of learning, and creativity. It opens up areas of pedagogy that go beyond classroom methodology to acknowledge student individuality and encourage music learning and teaching grounded in the reality of students’ musical and social lives. It will be invaluable for those training to become educators and for teachers already in the field.”
—Associate Professor Peter Dunbar-Hall, University of Sydney

“This book brings an important contribution to music teacher education as it challenges the readers to rethink their paradigms of music education. It highlights the importance of preparing a reflective teacher, autonomous, creative and conscious of the multifaceted and multicultural locus in which they will work. The book also draws on the importance for music teachers to consider the context in which they work, and establish a dialog between local musical traditions, informal music practices and global trends of music teaching and learning. Most importantly, all chapters are in one way or another derived from research carried out on specific areas, thus stressing the importance of the research informed practice in music education.”
—Professor Liane Hentschke, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil; International Society of Music Education Immediate Past President

Many readers will appreciate Steve Dillon and Kathy Hirche’s description of the future of education in their work with dynamic technological contexts.

Navigating Music and Sound Education is a wonderful guide and resource for pre-service music teachers, for teachers in the field, and for teacher educators.

It offers a range of fresh perspectives on the state of music education as it is and as it might be. Kari K Veblen

Navigating Music and Sound Education is an ambitious project which features current research from 20 individuals whose professional identities run the gamut from musician to songwriter to student to educator to music therapist to ethnomusicologist. The book’s scope is perhaps the most exciting aspect of Navigating Music and Sound Education.
Kari K Veblen
University of Western Ontario
British Journal of Music Education
October 2011