Textual Echoes #1 @ Umeå
Feb. 11th, 2010 23:05![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dancing_moonI think I want to send everyone from SL up to Umeå and ask them to take a bus.... This is how you do commuting traffic. You can pay with your credit card, there are electronic signs that show what's going on with the traffic and they have a similar load'em'up system for the bus cards as Stockholm/Göteborg. A perfect mixture and so far there's also always been a bus every time I wanted to take one, or three minutes later.
Splendid.
But that was not quite the point of this post. No. I have arrived at the Textual Echoes symposium and it's been a highly interesting day. Long too, and I didn't sleep too well yesterday, so this post is somewhat coffee fueled and very rambling, I fear... I will however make a short report for J-fi later and I am taking very comprehensive notes ^_^
Oh, to write down before I forget - I talked about stuff during lunch with one of the Swedish presenters, and we discussed how anime/manga fandom looks here. How it's changed, what it is now. I mentioned that it should be possible, without too much trouble, to go through pictures of basically every cosplay event in Stockholm since back in the early nineties. The more I think of it, the more it seems a brilliant idea. I mean, yes, when you get to the size of Uppcon nowadays, you can't hope to capture everyone on camera, but at least the ones competing are well-documented. It would be interesting to see who cosplays, what series they cosplay and whatnot. Maybe I'll give it a try one day, haha. With a bit more work, I could probably find the Västerås and Malmö events too, and then basically the majority of the "Japanmedia focused" cosplay history of Sweden would be researched.
(These are the times when I really miss Nördwikin, because there I could just put up bits and pieces of this kind of info without too much effort.)
There were a lot of very interesting things said, unfortunately I'm too tired to recount them all. The opening by Elizabeth Woledge was good, she was a very entertaining speaker.
I really enjoyed the Star Trek Voyager presentation too, despite not knowing more about the series than that they're lost in space and what Janeway looks like. Her discussion of the defining moment episode, however, is something I recognize from a lot of other fandoms and it makes me think back to the first speaker, who compared fanficcing with literature criticizm. Is it felt that as a critic (of anything, really) you have to touch upon subject X once? In your beginning essays, at least, you will thread the same path as many others before you while still striving to bring something vaguely fresh into it - just like when you deal with "the prank" if you write Snape & Sirius focused fic?
Most of the speakers touch upon various media fandoms, which just increases my feeling that a lot, perhaps the majority of the interesting American/European fanresearch is made on media fandoms (and Harry Potter. It's hard to pass Harry Potter by). It was still very interesting and, contrary to what I feared, accessible for a non-TV watcher like me. Of course it helps that I know the basics of most of these fandoms, but there are many things general for all fandoms, for the fannish experience. Which imo just makes the differences more interesting, because if it was all alike or all completely different, it would be hard to make comparisons.
It also makes me long for autumn and to start studying again. Because I do want to discuss this, I want to read about it and find new tools for these discussions... And, all right, I want an excuse to invest in some more horribly expensive books about comics and manga from an academic perspective and see if they're any good. I was very pleasantly surprised by what Zimeon and Johan found for the second manga class, so I hope that the texts and research have continued to improve these last two years!
Splendid.
But that was not quite the point of this post. No. I have arrived at the Textual Echoes symposium and it's been a highly interesting day. Long too, and I didn't sleep too well yesterday, so this post is somewhat coffee fueled and very rambling, I fear... I will however make a short report for J-fi later and I am taking very comprehensive notes ^_^
Oh, to write down before I forget - I talked about stuff during lunch with one of the Swedish presenters, and we discussed how anime/manga fandom looks here. How it's changed, what it is now. I mentioned that it should be possible, without too much trouble, to go through pictures of basically every cosplay event in Stockholm since back in the early nineties. The more I think of it, the more it seems a brilliant idea. I mean, yes, when you get to the size of Uppcon nowadays, you can't hope to capture everyone on camera, but at least the ones competing are well-documented. It would be interesting to see who cosplays, what series they cosplay and whatnot. Maybe I'll give it a try one day, haha. With a bit more work, I could probably find the Västerås and Malmö events too, and then basically the majority of the "Japanmedia focused" cosplay history of Sweden would be researched.
(These are the times when I really miss Nördwikin, because there I could just put up bits and pieces of this kind of info without too much effort.)
There were a lot of very interesting things said, unfortunately I'm too tired to recount them all. The opening by Elizabeth Woledge was good, she was a very entertaining speaker.
I really enjoyed the Star Trek Voyager presentation too, despite not knowing more about the series than that they're lost in space and what Janeway looks like. Her discussion of the defining moment episode, however, is something I recognize from a lot of other fandoms and it makes me think back to the first speaker, who compared fanficcing with literature criticizm. Is it felt that as a critic (of anything, really) you have to touch upon subject X once? In your beginning essays, at least, you will thread the same path as many others before you while still striving to bring something vaguely fresh into it - just like when you deal with "the prank" if you write Snape & Sirius focused fic?
Most of the speakers touch upon various media fandoms, which just increases my feeling that a lot, perhaps the majority of the interesting American/European fanresearch is made on media fandoms (and Harry Potter. It's hard to pass Harry Potter by). It was still very interesting and, contrary to what I feared, accessible for a non-TV watcher like me. Of course it helps that I know the basics of most of these fandoms, but there are many things general for all fandoms, for the fannish experience. Which imo just makes the differences more interesting, because if it was all alike or all completely different, it would be hard to make comparisons.
It also makes me long for autumn and to start studying again. Because I do want to discuss this, I want to read about it and find new tools for these discussions... And, all right, I want an excuse to invest in some more horribly expensive books about comics and manga from an academic perspective and see if they're any good. I was very pleasantly surprised by what Zimeon and Johan found for the second manga class, so I hope that the texts and research have continued to improve these last two years!
no subject
Date: 2010-02-12 12:30 (UTC)I'm looking forward to hearing more from you in person. ^_^
krya på dig
Date: 2010-02-13 00:44 (UTC)Yeah, I heard about Neil just before I left - I'm glad for all Who fans, hope they turn out good!