Loving Fanfiction: Exploring the Role of Emotion in Online Fandoms

Loving Fanfiction explores emotion within the context of fandoms, specifically online fanfiction. Through exploring fans’ narratives about themselves and the fanwork they produce and consume, the author theorizes how identity, cognition, emotion, the body, and embodiment come together in literacy development and practices. Drawing on affect theory to explore the complex roles of emotions, literacy, identity, and the digital, both in their own position and in the worlds of engaged fans, Brit Kelley systematically analyses work from a six-year ethnographic study across fandoms—from Harry Potter and WWE, to Gotham and Twilight. Their analysis expands upon current understandings of fandom by more thoroughly theorizing the deeply emotional element of fanfiction practices, and connects to the academic fan community to draw connections and implications for the role of emotion in teaching and research. This unique perspective on emotions, love, and fandoms will be of significant interest to scholars and students of media and communication studies, fan studies, literature, creative writing, cultural studies, digital humanities, and literacy studies.