There are many different kinds and many areas of overlap between fan and academic work: for example, both can be created purely out of love for a text and both can involve scholarly engagement and research. There isn’t a clean divide between the two, but the following distinctions regarding content, aim, audience, and context can help you to decide whether your proposal is best suited for submission to the fan track or the academic track of Barricades!
Fanwork:
- May be analytical or speculative in nature, and may involve personal interpretations of the source material, such as fanon and headcanons, drawing on other fanwork and the fandom in general.
- May be supported by and engage with a variety of sources, including informal work produced by other fans (e.g., Tumblr posts).
- For and accessible primarily to other fans (and perhaps also wider, more general audiences without specific insider fandom knowledge).
- May be produced individually or collaboratively with other fans, or following institutional support, but does not need to stem from any kind of formal study or research.
- You do not need to be a student or academic, or have any kind of academic or scholarly experience (though all scholars, including students, postgrads, postdocs, early career researchers, unaffiliated scholars, and established academics/faculty members, are very welcome to submit proposals to the fan track if the proposed work is best suited to it). Fanwork does not need to aspire to academic standards or conditions, such as having a line of argument or a thesis statement or being supported by secondary reading, though it may naturally emulate them.
- Proposals may be for any programming format that can be run via videoconference—individual presentations, Q&A sessions, panel discussions, etc. Standard programming length is 50 minutes; proposals for longer events may be considered, but if you propose something longer, consider how you would cut it down to 50 minutes.
- Proposals will be considered based on feasibility, attendee interest, availability of panelists and volunteers, and potential to generate good conversation among other fans.
Fan Track call for programming
Academic work:
- Likely involves or is grounded in close reading or analysis of textual evidence.
- Supported by robust and reliable secondary reading (e.g., peer-reviewed journal articles, books published through a university press or established publishing house, etc.).
- Situated within a wider body academic work concerning Les Mis and/or related fields.
- Generally aims to make an original or significant contribution to existing academic work concerning Les Mis and/or related fields.
- Likely to be produced with or following institutional support (e.g., with experience of producing academic work within a university, with access to academic journals, etc.).
- May stem from formal study in related areas (e.g., a French literature MA).
- Although made accessible to a wide audience for the purpose of the con, there may be specialist areas of study involved.
- May draw on fanwork, but that fanwork is considered in an academic context.
- You might (but not necessarily) be a student, postgrad, postdoc, early career researcher, unaffiliated scholar, or an established academic/faculty member.
- Proposals may be for any programming format that can be run via videoconference—individual presentations, Q&A sessions, panel discussions, etc. Standard programming length is 50 minutes; this may consist of, for example, a 30-minute solo presentation followed by a Q&A, or a 10-minute presentation that will be assigned to a group panel, among other variations. Proposals for longer events may be considered, but if you propose something longer, consider how you would cut it down to 50 minutes.
- Proposals will be considered based on the above criteria, feasibility, attendee interest, availability of panelists and volunteers, and potential to generate good conversation among attendees.
Academic Track call for programming
There are lots of areas where fan or academic approaches to the same topic have loads of potential. Essentially, and very generally, if you have a thesis you’re supporting with evidence, that’s an academic proposal, even if you’re not an academic; if you want to chat about a topic with other people, that’s a fan proposal!
Barricades is a fan convention and, in the spirit of the experimental nature and creativity of a great deal of fanwork, submissions proposing all kinds of programming for both tracks are encouraged; there is scope for a great deal of flexibility and innovation in the programming for both. The programming for both tracks can be moderated by Barricades volunteers, to help facilitate both the programming itself and interactions between fanwork and academic work where relevant (the interaction of fanwork and academic work is just one component of the con). One of our aims with the inclusion of an academic track is to make academic work surrounding Les Mis more accessible to non-academic fans. The con will be a space where scholarly research and academic work can be shared without any requirement that audiences consist of scholars or academics or have any experience in those circles. Submissions to the fan track especially don’t need to be concerned with formality; they can very much be for nothing more or less than a fun and relaxed experience with other fans. The programming is being created by you, so there can be panels on anything you want there to be panels on!
