Alexis Lothian

Alexis Lothian is a long-time science fiction and media fan. She is an academic who works on feminist and queer science fiction and its connection to fan works and fan cultures. Her web site is Queergeektheory. She is an Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies at University of Maryland College Park, where she teaches in the LGBT Studies program and is a core faculty member in the Design | Cultures and Creativity Program.
Alexis is also an academic vidder, who studies the intersection between fannish and academic, creative and analytic interrogations of texts in such vids as The Future Stops Here and Sons and Daughters, both of which reflect her academic preoccupation with queer futurities.
==Selected Bibliography of Fandom-Related Work==
===Scholarly Essays===
* Editor, Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media and Technology Feminist Science Fiction Special Issue. Open access peer reviewed journal published by the Fembot Collective. November 2013.
* Editor. Futures of Feminism and Fandom: The WisCon Chronicles Volume 6 Seattle, WA: Aqueduct Press, May 2012..
* Kristina Busse and Alexis Lothian. “Scholarly Critiques and Critiques of Scholarship: the Uses of Remix Video.” Camera Obscura 77. September 2011. 139-146.
* Living in a Den of Thieves: Fan Video and Digital Challenges to Ownership. Cinema Journal 48.4, Summer 2009. 130-136.
* Alexis Lothian and Amanda Phillips. “ Can Digital Humanities Mean Transformative Critique?” Journal of e-Media Studies special issue on “Computational Cultures After the Cloud.”
* Kristina Busse and Alexis Lothian. “Bending Gender: Feminist and (Trans)Gender Discourses in the Changing Bodies of Slash Fanfiction.” Internet Fiction(s). Ed. Ingrid Hotz-Davies, Anton Kirchhofer, and Sirpa Leppänen. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholar’s Press, 2009. 105-27.
* Alexis Lothian, Kristina Busse and Robin Anne Reid. “Yearning Void and Infinite Potential: Online Slash Fandom as Queer Female Space.” English Language Notes 45.2, Fall/Winter 2007. Special issue on “Queer Space.” Ed. Jane Garrity. 103-112.
* “Grinding Axes and Balancing Oppositions: The Transformation of Feminism in Ursula K. Le Guin’s Science Fiction.” Extrapolation 47.3, Fall/Winter 2006. 380-395.
* An Archive of One’s Own: Subcultural Creativity and the Politics of Conservation. Transformative Works and Cultures 6. 2011.
===Other Writings===
* “ Participations: Dialogues on the Participatory Promise of Contemporary Culture and Politics. ” Roundtable participant for “Forum” edited by Nick Couldry and Henry Jenkins. International Journal of Communication vol 8. 2014.
* “ Feminist Futures Out of Time: Reading Joanna Russ’s What Are We Fighting For?.” The Cascadian Subduction Zone: A Literary Quarterly . Joanna Russ Memorial Issue. August 2012. Review essay.
* “ Adaptation by Remix: Vidding Feminist Science Fiction .” Invited contribution to Antenna: Responses to Media and Culture. UW-Madison media studies blog. June 2012.
* Review of Wendy Gay Pearson, Veronica Hollinger, and Joan Gordon (eds.), Queer Universes: Sexualities in Science Fiction . 2008. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2010. Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 23.1. 2012. 438-441.
* Aca-fandom and Beyond. Invited dialogue with Roberta Pearson, University of Nottingham, as part of a series on academic and fan cultures published on Henry Jenkins's blog. August 2011.
* Pattern Recognition: a Dialogue on Racism in Fan Communities. Moderator and transcriber for roundtable article. Transformative Works and Cultures 3. 2009.
* Interview with the Audre Lorde of the Rings. Conducted and edited email interview with scholarly blog collective. Transformative Works and Cultures 1. 2008.
* Utopia, Fiction and Fandom: Conflict, Community, and ‘Queer Female Space. The WisCon Chronicles 3: A Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction. Ed. Liz Henry. Seattle: Aqueduct Press. 2009. 189-200. General-audience essay on subject of academic research.
* Entries for “Samuel R. Delany” and “Queer Science Fiction.” Women in Science Fiction and Fantasy: An Encyclopedia . Ed. Robin Anne Reid. Westport, CT: Greenwood. 2009. 83-85; 251-254
===Conference Presentations===
* “Queer Cinema Remixed Straight? Vidding, Aesthetics, and ‘Born in Flames.’” Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Conference. Seattle, WA. March 19–23, 2014.
* “Living in the Future: Science Fiction’s Queer Cultural Politics.” Modern Language Association Annual Convention. Chicago, IL. January 9–12, 2014
* Media Love or Media Justice? Toward a Genealogy of Critical Fandom on panel Race and Gender Politics in Science Fiction Media Cultures. Science Fiction Media: the 2013 Eaton/SFRA Conference. Riverside, CA, April 11–13, 2013.
* “Borrowed Time: Critical Fandom and Queer Temporality through a Cylon Digital Remix Machine.” LA Queer Studies Conference 2011 . University of California, Los Angeles. 14–15 October 2011.
* Vidding as Activist Critique at panel “From Wikipedia to Vidding.” Digital Media and Learning Conference 2010. University of California, San Diego. February 19–20, 2010.
* “An Archive of One’s Own: Ephemera, Legitimacy and Subcultural Memory Online.” PCA/ACA National Conference 2009. New Orleans. April 8, 2009.
* “Living in a Den of Thieves: Fan Video and Digital Challenges to Ownership.” Translating Media. Critical Studies / Interactive Media Arts and Practice Conference, University of Southern California. April 4, 2009.
* “Doing Boys Like They’re Girls, and Other (Trans)Gendered Subjects: the Queer Subcultural Politics of ‘Genderfuck’ Fan Fiction.” LA Queer Studies Conference 2008. University of California, Los Angeles. 10–11 October 2008.
* “Utopia, Fiction and Fandom: Conflict, Community, and ‘Queer Female Space’.” WisCon 32. Madison, Wisconsin. 23–26 May 2008.
* “Televisual Transformation and its Discontents: Slash Fan Fiction, ‘Queer Female Space,’ and Race.” Console-ing Passions, UC Santa Barbara, 24–26 April 2008.
* “ ‘Queer Female Space’ and Erotic Sociability: Textual Encounters in Online Fan Culture.” LA Queer Studies Conference 2007. University of California, Los Angeles. 19–20 October 2007.
Category:Academia
Category:Commentators
Category:Vidders