It is in fact precisely the point that it's women scholars working from within fandom that makes this set of concerns so important to me, because I do most sincerely want you to represent me, include me, value my fannishness. Do I expect more of you than I do of the straight white man? Yes. And perhaps that's unfair. I don't know.
It might be unfair, but it's not at all unusual. Women faculty get evaluations all the time that "judge" them in ways white male faculty are not judged; we're used to it.
I wouldn't try to represent you or your fannishness--at least, that's not how I talk about and see my scholarship. Fans are myriad, all ages (I stay away from minors because of legal issues and also personal choice--I hated adolescents when I was one, and would never teach in high schools), all ethnicities, all genders, all nationalities, all areas of ability/disability, all the human condition.
By virtue of being one person writing from a related batch of theories/methodologies, I'm excluding most of fans/fannishness. I am interested in queerness and how it manifests itself within LOTR online LJ fandom. I am interested in racism imbroglios. I am interested in f/f slash--and I'm very interested in why little academic scholarship on fandom covers either race or f/f/ slash (more is coming! we have an essay for our anthology on f/f slash in ST). I'm also interested in why most academics ignore RPF--a good number of my works in progress (it can take me two years to write an essay, another two years to get it published, academic time being what it is) point out gaps in the scholarship, gaps that I've noticed because they connect mostly to what I see/value in fandom. I am not going to spend a lot of time writing about other fandoms (if I'm not in it, I'm not going to write about it); I'm not going to write about gen or het. At the moment, I am thinking that a new and interesting project would be fan scholarship and meta, because that's so often overlooked. So unless your fannishness fits in that very narrow area, I am excluding you -- because as far as I'm concerned, a more limited focus/argument is stronger. I am not saying Fan/fandom is X, I'm saying there's this thread/type of discourse among a million others in fandom.
I'm sorry if this sounds horribly elitist: but I have no desire to try to represent "all" kinds of fannishness. I cannot; it would be insane to even try. My goal would rather be to create opportunities for more work by more scholars covering all the cool stuff that's out there that's barely been touched upon. And I am working on a super sekrit plan for just that that you'll all be hearing about in a few months.
So being criticized for not representing X and Y--well. I have no defense. I don't, I haven't, and I won't.
I know that early movements in a new field have to paint with broader strokes--and that's what happened. But I'm not interested in broad strokes, universal or foundational theories, or major structural issues--and I'm not interested in psychology (I analyze texts). That's why I was criticizing Henry's claim: that fanfiction was created by women forced to watch male texts and they wrote romance in.
I don't like or read romance. I refuse to designate sf a male text, as did the feminist and women writers of sf I love. And nobody forced me to read anything (although I did have to sit through a helluva lot of country music shows growing up when anad were I did).
So I know I'm babbling, I know I'm over the text limit, but I guess--I've admired how you've written in the past, and I'm frustrated because there is no way that I can see that I can do what you would like me to do.
no subject
It might be unfair, but it's not at all unusual. Women faculty get evaluations all the time that "judge" them in ways white male faculty are not judged; we're used to it.
I wouldn't try to represent you or your fannishness--at least, that's not how I talk about and see my scholarship. Fans are myriad, all ages (I stay away from minors because of legal issues and also personal choice--I hated adolescents when I was one, and would never teach in high schools), all ethnicities, all genders, all nationalities, all areas of ability/disability, all the human condition.
By virtue of being one person writing from a related batch of theories/methodologies, I'm excluding most of fans/fannishness. I am interested in queerness and how it manifests itself within LOTR online LJ fandom. I am interested in racism imbroglios. I am interested in f/f slash--and I'm very interested in why little academic scholarship on fandom covers either race or f/f/ slash (more is coming! we have an essay for our anthology on f/f slash in ST). I'm also interested in why most academics ignore RPF--a good number of my works in progress (it can take me two years to write an essay, another two years to get it published, academic time being what it is) point out gaps in the scholarship, gaps that I've noticed because they connect mostly to what I see/value in fandom. I am not going to spend a lot of time writing about other fandoms (if I'm not in it, I'm not going to write about it); I'm not going to write about gen or het. At the moment, I am thinking that a new and interesting project would be fan scholarship and meta, because that's so often overlooked. So unless your fannishness fits in that very narrow area, I am excluding you -- because as far as I'm concerned, a more limited focus/argument is stronger. I am not saying Fan/fandom is X, I'm saying there's this thread/type of discourse among a million others in fandom.
I'm sorry if this sounds horribly elitist: but I have no desire to try to represent "all" kinds of fannishness. I cannot; it would be insane to even try. My goal would rather be to create opportunities for more work by more scholars covering all the cool stuff that's out there that's barely been touched upon. And I am working on a super sekrit plan for just that that you'll all be hearing about in a few months.
So being criticized for not representing X and Y--well. I have no defense. I don't, I haven't, and I won't.
I know that early movements in a new field have to paint with broader strokes--and that's what happened. But I'm not interested in broad strokes, universal or foundational theories, or major structural issues--and I'm not interested in psychology (I analyze texts). That's why I was criticizing Henry's claim: that fanfiction was created by women forced to watch male texts and they wrote romance in.
I don't like or read romance. I refuse to designate sf a male text, as did the feminist and women writers of sf I love. And nobody forced me to read anything (although I did have to sit through a helluva lot of country music shows growing up when anad were I did).
So I know I'm babbling, I know I'm over the text limit, but I guess--I've admired how you've written in the past, and I'm frustrated because there is no way that I can see that I can do what you would like me to do.