It's a Thing!: Recent Episodes
Lori Morimoto
"It's a Thing!" is a podcast that introduces new and historically significant work in the field of fan studies to all comers interested in learning more about what we do. It features accessible interviews with established and up-and-coming fan studies scholars, as well as fan studies-adjacent journalists, critics, writers, and fans, all with the purpose of demonstrating that fan studies is indeed a thing.
This special episode of "It's a Thing!" features a conversation with Dr. Rebecca Wanzo, Professor and Chair of the Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and author of the paradigm-shifting fan studies essay, "African American Acafandom and Other Strangers: New Genealogies of Fan Studies," and the SCMS Katherine Singer Kovács Book Award-winning book, The Content of Our Caricature: African American Comic Art and Political Belonging (New York University Press, 2020). This Zoom conversation was the keynote event of the 2020 Fan Studies Network North America conference in October 2020.
On this special episode of "It's a Thing!" I'm talking with Dr. Crystal Anderson, Assistant Director for Teaching Excellence at the Stearns Center for Teaching and Learning at George Mason University about online pedagogy in the time of the Covid-19 pandemic. We also talk about her forthcoming book, Soul in Seoul: African American Popular Music and K-pop.
On this episode of "It's a Thing!" I talk with Dr. Ross Garner about collecting and material fan cultures, dinosaur fandom and Jurassic Park, and his experiences at Tokyo's otaku haven, Nakano Broadway.
On this episode of "It's a Thing!" I talk with Dr. Benjamin Woo about comic books, conventions, race and whiteness in fandom and fan studies, and the study of geek cultures.
In this episode of "It's a Thing!" I talk with Dr. Paul Booth about being a prolific writer, life after tenure, fan studies pedagogy and, of course, Doctor Who.
In this episode of "It's a Thing!" Paul Booth of DePaul University interviews me! We talk about transcultural fan studies, scholarship, and even a bit about genealogy.
In this episode of "It's a Thing!" I'm talking with Dr. Alfred L. Martin, an assistant professor at the University of Iowa. We talk about ballet fandom, Tyler Perry, and cultures of race in fandoms and fan studies.
On this episode of "It's a Thing!" I'm talking with Dr. Louisa Stein, an Associate Professor at Middlebury College. We talk about fanvids and even a bit about Yiddish women's erotic poetry.
In this episode of "It's a Thing!" I talk to Dr. Mel Stanfill about how media industry exploits fans, "reactionary fandom," and fanboy auteurs.
In this episode of "It's a Thing!" I talk with Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn and EJ Nielsen about acafandom, fanfiction, AUs [alternate universes], academic publishing, and the TV show Hannibal.