Vidding: A History (UMichigan, 2022)

Vidding: A History (U Michigan, 2022) is now available in print or in a free-to-read, open access, expanded multimedia edition on Fulcrum with the vids included for you to watch and enjoy.

Pinter, Poetry, and the Post

From today’s Washington Post: “Why did 15 people gather in Istanbul the day of the murder? Who did these people receive orders from?” he asked. “Why was the consulate opened not immediately, but days later, for investigation? When the murder was obvious, why were inconsistent explanations given?” “Why is the body still not found?” From […]

Harold Pinter and the current moment

I am a fan of Harold Pinter’s late, political plays; yes, those plays, the ones that a lot of critics think are “unsubtle” for their forthright depiction of political violence, the boot smashing the face, the murder and rape, etc. I also am a fan of his famously unsubtle 2005 Nobel Prize speech “Art, Truth […]

The Fanfiction Reader wins the Prose Award for Best Media and Cultural Studies book 2018!!

#PROSEAwards winner – Media and Cultural Studies: University of Michigan Press for The Fanfiction Reader: Folk Tales for the Digital Age by Francesca Coppa @UofMPress pic.twitter.com/jgEwaob2aQ — The PROSE Awards (@PROSEAwards) February 8, 2018 See the full list of winners at: proseawards.com.

A Hollywood of Our Own

Plugging Women Do Genre in Film and Television (2017), just out and edited by Mary Harrod and Katarzyna Paszkiewicz, in which I have an essay:  “A Hollywood of Our Own: Media Fandom as Female Artworld,” which discusses various MCU fanworks:  Lim’s vid “Marvel,”  dropdeaddream’s fanfiction story, “Keeping up With the Kardashians,” and Shiro’s Ikea art project. […]

Joe Orton Laid Bare (BBC2)

I gave background for the BBC Two drama, “Joe Orton Laid Bare,” a documentary about Joe Orton’s life and death made for the 50th anniversary of his death and broadcast on November 25, 2017.  Fascinatingly, the documentary not only stages excerpts not only from the major plays but from interesting minor works such as “Until […]

Update

Sorry about the blog fail: this is what sabbatical does to a person, though I am writing, writing, writing (!!!) my book provisionally titled Vidding: A History.  But here are a few other updates from me. I had an absolutely marvelous time talking to Eric Molinsky and Stephanie Billman on Slate’s Imaginary Worlds podcast; my episode […]

Henry Jenkins interviews me about The Fanfiction Reader!

This is the placeholder parts for the 3 part interview about The Fanfiction Reader that I did with Henry Jenkins, Professor of Communications at USC and author of Textual Poachers (among many, many other influential works on fandom, participatory culture, and spreadable media.) Part One: “Bringing Fan Fiction into the Classroom: An Interview With Francesca […]

Billboard Interview

I was interviewed by Adrienne Gaffney for Billboard Magazine on how teenage girls and fandom impact the music industry. The resulting article, “The Business of Fandom: How Teenage Girls Predict the Future of Culture,”, was published on 9/13/2017. Excerpt: I think girls saw something in the Beatles that the Beatles then picked up on. So […]

The Culture Gabfest talks fanfiction & The Fanfiction Reader

The guys on Slate’s Culture Gabfest, a podcast, discussed fanfiction and my book, The Fanfiction Reader, as part of their September 6, 2017 episode “Look What You Made Richard Dreyfuss Do. The blurb for the episode: Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner discuss the 40th anniversary re-release of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, […]