Fans have been responding to literary works since the days of Homer s Odyssey and Euripedes Medea. More recently, a number of science fiction, fantasy, media, and game works have found devoted fan followings. The advent of the Internet has brought these groups from relatively limited, face-to-face enterprises to easily accessible global communities, within which fan texts proliferate and are widely read and even more widely commented upon. New interactions between readers and writers of fan texts are possible in these new virtual communities. From Star Trek to Harry...

The critically-acclaimed BBC television series Sherlock (2010 ) re-envisions Sir Arthur Conan Doyle s detective for the digital age, joining participants in the active traditions of Sherlockians/Holmesians and fans from other communities, including science fiction, media, and anime. This collection explores the cultural intersections and fan traditions that converge in Sherlock and its fandoms. Essays focus on the industrial and cultural contexts of Sherlock s release, on the text of Sherlock as adaptation and transformative work, and on Sherlock s critical...

An essential introduction to a rapidly growing field of study, The Fan Fiction Studies Reader gathers in one place the key foundational texts of the fan studies corpus, with a focus on fan fiction. Collected here are important texts by scholars whose groundbreaking work established the field and outlined some of its enduring questions. Editors Karen Hellekson and Kristina Busse provide cogent introductions that place each piece in its historical and intellectual context, mapping the historical development of fan studies and suggesting its future trajectories.

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Gathering some of Kristina Busse's essential essays on fan fiction together with new work, Framing Fan Fiction argues that understanding media fandom requires combining literary theory with cultural studies because fan artifacts are both artistic works and cultural documents.