Mel Stanfill
Institute of Communications Research
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
PDF Curriculum Vitae
Education
Ph.D. University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Communications and Media, May 2014 (expected)
Graduate minor in Gender and Women’s Studies
Dissertation: Domesticating Fandom: The Discursive Production of Sports and Speculative Media Fandom in the Internet Era
M.A. California State University, East Bay
Media and Cultural Studies, June 2008
B.A. University of California, Berkeley
English with Distinction in General Scholarship, May 2004
Minor in Spanish and Portuguese, May 2004
Publications
Stanfill, Mel and Megan Condis, eds. (Forthcoming, 2014). Special issue on Fandom and/as Labor. Transformative Works and Cultures
Stanfill, Mel. (2013). “’They’re Losers, but I Know Better’: Intra-Fandom Stereotyping and the Normalization of the Fan Subject.” Critical Studies in Media Communication. doi:10.1080/15295036.2012.755053
Stanfill, Mel. (2012) “Finding Birds of a Feather: Multiple Memberships and Diversity Without Divisiveness in Communication Research.” Communication Theory 22 (1): 1–24. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2885.2011.01395.x.
Stanfill, Mel. (2011) “Doing Fandom, (Mis)doing Whiteness: Heteronormativity, Racialization, and the Discursive Construction of Fandom.” Transformative Works and Cultures 8: n.p. doi:10.3983/twc.2011.0256.
Selected Manuscripts In Progress
Underdogs, the Usual Suspects, and the Great Third World Hope: The Inter/Nationalist Politics of World Cup Support
“Guys who’ve never slept with a woman and women who have”: Xena: Warrior Princess Fans and Cultural Anxieties of Sexuality
The Resurrection of the Author: Fans, Textual Authority, and “the Creator”
“Like the one from series two, ep eleven, just before the second act break”: Representations of Fan Obsession in Xena: Warrior Princess
Conference Presentations of Research
“Between Commodity and Consent: Implications of the Vanishing Distinction between Play and Work,” Invited Panel at Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Chicago, IL, March 2013
“Fannormalization: The Production of Fandom as Consumption in Film Representation” National Communication Association Conference, Orlando, FL, November 2012
“Finding the Labor in Fandom: To Make Sense of Fan Productivity between the Gift Economy and the Labor Theory of Value” National Communication Association Conference, Orlando, FL, November 2012
“Consuming Fandom: Web Interfaces as Normalization” Association of Internet Researchers Conference, Salford, UK, October 2012
“Old fashioned Economics for New Media Fanlabor? Theorizing Fan Work between Gift Economy and the Labor Theory of Value” Console-ing Passions, Boston, MA, July 2012
“The Interface as Discourse: Producing Norms of Sports Fandom through Web Design,” International Communication Association Conference, Phoenix, AZ, May 2012
“Domesticating Fandom: The Production Norms of Fandom by Web Design,” Association of Internet Researchers Conference, Seattle WA, October 2011
“The Fandom Menace: Social Consequences of the Metaphorical Treatment of ‘Fan’ as ‘Monster,’” National Communication Association Conference, San Francisco, CA, November 2010
“’Guys who’ve never slept with a woman and women who have’: Xena: Warrior Princess Fans and Cultural Anxieties of Sexuality,” National Communication Association Conference, Chicago, IL, November 2009
“From Crazy Fans to Fan Comrades and back Again: Variable Attitudes of TV Producers toward Fans and Their Consequences,” Invited Panel at National Communication Association Conference, San Diego, CA, November 2008
“From Structuralism to Agency: Fan Deployment of Negative Fan Stereotypes,” Invited Panel at Semiotic Society of America Conference, Houston, TX, October 2008
“At least we’re not as weird as the Trekkies: Fan Deployment of Negative Fan Stereotypes,” Central States Communication Association Conference, Madison, WI, April 2008
“’Like the one from series two, ep eleven, just before the second act break’: Representations of Fan Obsession in Xena: Warrior Princess,” Getting Obsessive: Culture and Excess, University of Southern California, March 2008
