Klingon Style

Interview mit Betreiberin von TrekNation

Heute habe ich ein zweistündiges Interview mit Nadia Volkrodt, der Betreiberin von TrekNation, einer Plattform für Star Trek-Fan Fiction, geführt.

Sheldon and the napkin

Jean-Luc im Star Trek-Regal

Gene Roddenberry Star Trek Collection @ UCLA

The Online Archive of California offers a finding aid to the Gene Roddenberry Star Trek Television Series Collection, 1966-1969 which is archived at UCLA Library, Performing Arts Special Collections: "Collection consists of material related to the television program, Star trek. Includes story outlines, treatments and various drafts of scripts, shooting schedules, cast lists, title sheets, photographic lists, budget reports, and memoranda".

Conrad Quilty-Harper: "Star Trek: The Tour Phasers on Stun!", 5. Februar 2008, Flickr, CC-BY-NC-SA

Der Star Trek Defender-Charaktertest ;-)

Der "Star Trek Defender" Charaktertest Captain Lairis Ilana Du weißt, was du willst, stehst für deine Sache ein und die Leute halten dich für eine geborene Führungspersönlichkeit. Deine Warmherzigkeit und dein Humor sind so ansteckend, wie deine Temperamentsausbrüche abschreckend sind. Für Schwächere setzt du dich rückhaltlos ein - auch wenn das bedeutet, dass du selbst in die Schusslinie gerätst. Wenn du etwas für richtig hältst, findest du sehr unorthodoxe Wege, dich durchzusetzen - manches grenzt schon an hinterhältige oder illegale Methoden. Damit machst du dir natürlich nicht nur Freunde. Kein Wunder, dass du öfter mal sarkastisch bist. Click Here to Take This Quiz

Quizzes and Personality Tests

Early web: 50% porn, 50% Star Trek fansites

"The 50% of the early world wide web that wasn't porn was made up of Star Trek: The Next Generation fansites", sagt Damien Walter in seinem Kommentar "Fandom matters: writers must respect their followers or pay with their careers", der am 9. Mai 2012 im Guardian erschienen ist und bisher 91 Mal kommentiert wurde.

Expressing what I thought was wrong

In ihrer Masterarbeit "Cataloging the Whedonverse: Potential Roles for Librarians in Online Fan Fiction" zitiert die Autorin Jessica Freya Kem auf S. 20 eine Interviewpartnerin:

"I was delighted to find fanfic. It was such a wonderful way of expressing what I thought was wrong with the original TV show, and putting it right".

Das bringt es so auf den Punkt, dass ich überlege, es als Motto für meine Diplomarbeit zu verwenden...

Ankündigung: Pictorial History of Science Fiction Fanzines

Für Juli 2013 ist das Buch "The Interpretation of Zines: A Pictorial History of Science Fiction Fanzines" von Luis Ortiz bei Nonstop Press angekündigt.

Verlagstext: "A remarkable journey through the development of a popular subculture, from its earliest fans in the 1930s who used primitive desktop-printing technology to create amateur zines mimicking newsstand magazines to more recent zines dedicated to media science fiction, this chronicle of sci-fi fandom is a unique, eccentric, and richly entertaining look at the genre. This visual compendium showcases the best, most interesting, and strangest fanzines ever produced and provides the historical background of their development and detailed information on the writers and artists involved in their creation. From Ray Bradbury and Gene Simmons to Stephen King and Roger Ebert, the work of famous sci-fi zinesters is explored as well as all the marginal ephemera from a once isolated little genre that has now gained worldwide recognition and acceptance".

Whatcha mean, what's a zine?

In der bibliothekarischen Comicreihe "Unshelved" von Gene Ambaum und Bill Barnes widmet sich eine Ausgabe dem Buch "Whatcha Mean, What's a Zine? The Art of Making Zines and Mini Comics" von Esther Pearl Watson und Mark Todd, erschienen 2006 bei Graphia Books [follow the link].

Marvel and Wonder in Literature and Literary Theory

via h-germanistik: <zitat>The seminar "Marvel and Wonder in Literature and Literary Theory" will be held at the annual American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) convention from April 4-7, 2013 in Toronto, Canada.

Our panel seeks to explore the concept of wonder and how it functions in literature, both as an emotional response to the foreign and as a stimulus for contemplation and critical reflection. It is through this very emotion, one could argue, that we position ourselves in the world and separate the Self from the Other. Yet, this experience is also what prompts our curiosity for discovery and provokes our search for explanations.

Genres such as travel literature seek to capture these moments of encounter with the foreign in terms of 'content'. Wonder, however, is also an effect that can be sought in the literary 'form' as well and has been a topic of theoretical discussion throughout the ages: from Aristotle (to thaumaston), the medieval Arab world (ta'ajjub), medieval Europe (meraviglia/admiration), the Enlightenment (sublime), to Russian Formalism (defamiliarization/Verfremdung).

We aim at discussing questions such as:

How is wonder defined?

What are the conditions under which it arises (both in terms of form and content)?

Can attitudes towards wonder inform us about the values of a particular cultural/social/historical context andtheir view of themselves in relation to the world?

Are there immutable aspects of wonder?

What is at stake with wonder?

While participating in Orientalism, can it also contribute to cultural understanding and dialogue?

How are pleasure and fear related to wonder?

The seminar welcomes papers looking at any of these aspects of wonder, in any period and region, either as it is treated theoretically or as an analysis of a literary text. Please submit a 250-words abstract by November 15, 2012 through the following link: http://acla.org/submit/index.php.

Seminar organizers: Lara Harb (New York University): lara.harb@gmail.com; Reinhard Möller (Justus Liebig Universität Giessen/Cornell University): Reinhard.M.Moeller@gcsc.uni-giessen.de. For any questions, please feel free to contact the seminar organizers directly by e-mail.<zitatende>

Bibel als Fan Fiction?

Im Smithsonian Magazine ist der sehr interessante Artikel "The Inside Story of a Controversial New Text About Jesus" von Ariel Sabar erschienen. Darin geht es um die Entdeckung eines Papyrusfragments, auf dem Jesus von seiner Frau spricht (genauer gesagt: auf dem die Rede davon ist, dass ein Mann namens Jesus von seiner Frau spricht). Mich hat ein Kommentar amüsiert - M.B. (ich war's nicht) schreibt: "So we have a fragment of a heretical document from nearly 5 centuries after Christ's death, written in what looks like child's scratch (compared to earlier fragments.) Why is this news at all? I'm sure folks in the 6th century were writing all sorts of fan fiction" ;-)

Harriet Potter

"Thanks to fan fiction, we get Harriet Potter and erotic 'Twilight'", schreibt Edward M. Eveld im Kansas City Star. Eine der befragten Personen ist übrigens Bibliothekarin: "Liz Lockett of Kansas City admits to some racy prose in her fan fiction career, which goes back more than a dozen years. At least, said the assistant librarian, she's never indulged in 'Mpreg,' in which a male character becomes ... pregnant". - Generell ein informierter Artikel, der verschiedene Aspekte beleuchtet und zeigt, dass sich der Journalist mit dem Thema auseinandergesetzt hat.

Star Trek bei "Planet Wissen"

Morgen, Dienstag, in der Sendung "Planet Wissen" auf BR alpha zu sehen: "Die Physik von Star Trek - Von Zeitreisen, Phasern und Wurmlöchern".

Das bloße Öffnen der Konvolute

Bei der Lektüre von W.G. Sebalds Roman "Austerlitz" bin ich auf eine Passage gestoßen, die mich sehr stark an das Schreiben von Diplomarbeiten (und ja, auch an das Schreiben meiner Diplomarbeit) erinnert ;-)

"Je größer die Mühe, die ich über Monate hinweg an dieses Vorhaben wandte, desto kläglicher dünkten mich die Ergebnisse und desto mehr ergriff mich, schon beim bloßen Öffnen der Konvolute und Umwenden der im Lauf der Zeit von mir beschriebenen ungezählten Blätter, ein Gefühl des Widerwillens und des Ekels, sagte Austerlitz. Und doch sei das Lesen und Schreiben immer seine liebste Beschäftigung gewesen. (...) Jetzt aber war mir das Schreiben so schwer geworden, daß ich oft einen ganzen Tag brauchte für einen einzigen Satz, und kaum daß ich einen solchen mit äußerster Anstrengung ausgesonnenen Satz niedergeschrieben hatte, zeigte sich die peinliche Unwahrheit meiner Konstruktionen und die Unangemessenheit sämtlicher von mir verwendeter Wörter. Wenn es mir dennoch durch eine Art Selbsttäuschung bisweilen gelang, mein Tagespensum als erfüllt anzusehen, dann starrten mir jeweils am nächsten Morgen, sowie ich den ersten Blick auf das Blatt warf, die schlimmsten Fehler, Ungereimtheiten und Entgleisungen entgegen" (W.G. Sebald: Austerlitz. München: Hanser 2001, S. 175 - 176).

Character formation in fan fiction

Scherf, Manuela: Character formation in fan fiction based on popular TV series. Universität Wien, Diplomarbeit, 2008. Abstract: "This study is concerned with character formation processes in fan fiction, a literary genre that gains more and more importance through the internet. Two contemporary TV series – Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Veronica Mars -, and the related media fandoms serve as the basis of this investigation. It is the aim of this study to create a typology that explains character formation processes in heterosexual romantic fan fiction, based on episodic television series".

Archives and fannish history

"A printed zine from the 1970s may last longer than a story published online in the last six months. In fact, continual changes in publication preference and fannish infrastructure have impacted the accessibility and permanence of fan fiction: zines may have a much lower initial circulation, but hard copies have a permanence that newsgroup posts, mailing-list e-mails, or blog posts may lack".

Zitat aus: Versaphile: "Silence in the library: Archives and the preservation of fannish history". In: Transformative Works & Cultures 6 (2011), S. 2

Zines in Bibliotheken - warum?

Auf die Frage "Why do you have zines in the library?" antwortet die Timberland Regional Library:

"Zines are the purest form of counterculture expression that exists in printed form, and insightful indicators of current times. They represent the under-represented and give voice to marginalized members of society. Zines are interesting and cheap, and as a public library, it is our job to provide access to all types of information".

Dissertation über SF-Fankultur

Die Dissertation "Close encounters of a different kind: A study of science fiction fan culture and its interactions with multiple literacies", die Gail A. Bondi heuer an der Indiana University of Pennsylvania geschrieben hat, kann online abgerufen werden.
Aus dem Abstract: "This study reveals science fiction fan culture as it was observed during a science fiction convention in southern California in 2009. Conventions, although social gatherings, are also places where learning takes place, and the culture is shared. The researcher, a fan herself, collected demographic data through an anonymous survey, then interviewed several fans to develop information about their educational history, cultural attitudes, and interactions with text. The evidence presented shows this group identifies itself as a subculture with its own language, arts, values, and traditions. Fandom also exhibits many characteristics of an affinity group as described by Gee (2003), in that its members are united by a common cause, and hold similar attitudes toward knowledge acquisition and information sharing".

Zine Fest mit Bibliotheksbeteiligung

"Minnesota Center for Book Arts will be there doing artsy book things, the Minneapolis Community and Technical College Library will have part of its zine collection there, the Fly Away Zine Mobile will be parked outside to act as a reading lounge, and the Zine Apothecary library will a part of its collection there".

Organisatorin Lacey Prpic Hedtke in einem Interview mit Loren Green über das "Twin Cities Zinefest" in Minneapolis für das Blog dressingroom.