Fan Studies

Catalog description

This interdisciplinary course explores the culture and societal impact of participatory media audiences, commonly known as “fans.” Drawn from the word “fanatic,” the fan has often been cast in a negative light, but fans are also integral to media marketing and are increasingly prominent in popular culture. From Beatlemania to the Big Bang Theory, fans are not only consumers, but also the subjects of representation in popular media. As a result of this increasing media influence, there is now a considerable body of scholarly literature on the worlds of fans or “fandom.” In this course, students engage with a selection of classic and contemporary works in fan studies from a variety of academic disciplines, applying concepts and methods learned in the course to the study of specific fan cultures in order to understand the impact of fandom on culture and society.