[Air-L] New Book and Talk: Identity, Community, and Sexuality in Slash Fan Fiction: Pocket Publics

[AM Kustritz]

Dear all,

I will give a talk on my recently published book *Identity, Community, and
Sexuality in Slash Fan Fiction: Pocket Publics* (Routledge, 2024),
sponsored by the SCMS Fan Studies interest group (FaAS Sig -
https://lnkd.in/en2H8h9T; https://lnkd.in/e-_mimNm) on Tuesday, September
24th at 18:00 (BST) - Get in touch with the SIG for the zoom link:
https://lnkd.in/eTW5uGBs; https://lnkd.in/e2m_SVUw

 The book's Introduction is available to download via open access at
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003450030/identity-community-sexuality-slash-fan-fiction-anne-kustritz


Based on over ten years of online and in-person ethnography, *Pocket
Publics* documents the digital transition of the slash fan fiction
community around the turn of the millennium.  The term slash fan fiction
designates original stories written by and circulated within
female-centered communities about same-sex characters borrowed from
previously published sources, a feminist, queer media subculture whose
infrastructure, creativity, and ways of life are often obscured in dominant
histories of the internet’s development. Arguing that online slash
communities created an alternate public space that provided opportunities
for unanticipated encounters with a wide range of complex sexual,
relational, and political practices, the book contends that slash thereby
added to readers’ tools for experiencing and thinking about pleasure and
ways of living by forming a “pocket public,” that is a digital space public
enough to be found and protected enough to shield participants from
harassment and censorship.

Best,
Anne Kustritz
Assistant Professor of Media and Culture Studies
Utrecht University