Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture

Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture is a non-fiction book written by aca-fan Henry Jenkins and originally published in 1992.
It was massively influential in the development of fan studies and coincidentally introduced many new fans to media fandom.In 2001, Jenkins noted, "Textual Poachers has now been passed from generation to generation of fans, it’s one of the things you read when you want to be integrated into the fan community. They say, ‘you want to be a fan? Read this…’ It’s become a sort of ‘how to’ book." (Intensities interview at Console-ing Passions, University of Bristol, July 7, 2001. ) The book was unusual for its time in that it celebrated fandom instead of pathologizing it.
 
The book's focus is on media fans as an "interpretive community" that "poaches" media texts in order to subvert their intended meaning and reclaim ownership of popular culture from massive corporate interests. In Jenkins' words, the book "documents a group insistent on making meaning from materials others have characterized as trivial and worthless." 
The book was published before commercial Internet service providers allowed mass access, and to some fans now, appears dated in its focus on old-school slash fandom. However it remains a sympathetic and insightful book about media fans and our creative community. It features chapters about fanac (fan activities) like fanfic, fan art, vidding, and filk. One of Jean Kluge's ST:TNG drawings was used as the cover for the book.
Some of the book was originally an essay published in the journal Critical Studies in Mass Communication in 1988.Henry Jenkins III, "Star Trek Rerun, Reread, Rewritten: Fan Writing As Textual Poaching". Critical Studies in Mass Communication 5 (1988), 85-107.
Another influential book published at almost the same time was Enterprising Women: Television Fandom and the Creation of Popular Myth.
==An Oft-Repeated Quote==
Textual Poachers has a quote that fans often employed in discussion, and as a statement, on their websites, particularly in the late 1990s and early 2000s: Zine Union and the deconstruction of pop culture: my fanfiction and Idylls of the Wizard and An Apocrypha of Muses and The Library: GreenWoman's Fanfiction and Iolausian Library are some of the MANY, MANY examples. .
 
"Fan fiction is a way of the culture repairing the damage done in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations instead of owned by the folk."
==Fan Permissions==
Jenkins was adamant about preserving fan anonymity and permissions. In 1994, Gayle F wrote: 
==1992: Jenkins Talks About "Textual Poachers"==
* Henry Jenkins and Camille Bacon-Smith at Gaylaxicon 1992 (part one)
* Henry Jenkins and Camille Bacon-Smith at Gaylaxicon 1992 (part two)
==2001: Jenkins Talks About "Textual Poachers"==
In 2001, Henry Jenkins spoke at great length about the book's conception, reception, influence, the doors it opened (and closed), and the effect it had on his career. See: Intensities interviews Henry Jenkins @ Console-ing Passions.
Some of many comments: 
==Glimpses of Fannish History==
In his discussion of various fan activities, Jenkins used examples of then-current fandoms and fannish moments that now offer a glimpse into history:
*Close reading of a K/S VCR vid by Mary Van Deusen
*Beauty and the Beast fans' dismay over changes in the show's direction, especially the replacement of Catherine (the first female lead) with Diana
*Twin Peaks fans theorizing about "Who killed Laura Palmer?"
*Fanfiction in the print zine era
*The chapter on slash quotes from Gayle F.'s Cosmic Fuck Series, as well as stories by Jane Carnall, HG, M. Fae Glasgow, and many others.
*This new thing we now call vidding 
==Focus on Fans, Not Private Lives ==
==Slash and Male Intimacy==
While the majority of "Textual Poachers" is not about slash, it was one of the first academic books to address it respectfully and thoughtfully. At a 1993 panel at Escapade, Jenkins described his beginning awareness of slash and what he felt were its possibilities:
==Regarding the Art on the 2012 Edition==
From the book: 
==Fan Reactions and Reviews==
===1992===
===1993===
===1994===
===1994===
===1996===
 
===2003===
Textual Poachers was referenced in the meta Fan Fiction Comes Home to Roost.
===2007===
alixtii wrote Why Femslash Is Different, Part 1,001.
===2010===
===2011===
===2012===
===2013===
===2015===
==References==
Category:1992 Academic Commentary
Category:2012 Academic Commentary
Category:Slash Academic Commentary
Category:Slash Academic Commentary
Category:Perspectives on Fans
Category:2018 Featured Articles