FSNNA History

Join Mailing List

A Brief History of FSNNA

Early Years

Fan Studies Network – North America (FSNNA) grew from the inspiration of US fan studies scholars in the mid- and late-2010s, as they saw the need for a North America-based organization dedicated to scholarly research of fans, fan works, and fan activities. The original planning committee consisted of Paul Booth, Louisa Stein, Lori Morimoto, Kristina Busse, and Lesley Willard.

At the time, other organizations and initiatives were doing parts of this work, thus serving as blueprints and motivation for FSNNA.

  • FSN: In the UK, Fan Studies Network (FSN) was founded in 2012 by Lucy Bennett and Tom Phillips. Through 2019, FSN held an annual conference with keynote speakers including scholars like Paul in 2014 and Louisa in 2017.
  • FSN-A: In Australia in 2017, Bertha Chin, Ika Willis, and Sue Turnbull organized a fan studies conference held at the University of Wollongong in New South Wales. In 2019, a second iteration of FSN-A was organized at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne by a different group of scholars.
  • SCMS: Paul co-founded the Fan and Audience Studies Special Interest Group (FaAS SIG) at the Society of Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS) with Casey McCormick; Lori was an early committee member. Despite the SIG’s foundation though, SCMS still had higher barriers to entry for fan studies scholarship than it would in later years.
  • Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC): This open-access academic journal, dedicated to scholarly work on fans and fanworks, was founded in 2008. TWC has published at least one issue per year, moving to 2-3 issues in 2009, and many issues include work by FSNNA organizers and presenters.
  • PCA: The Popular Culture Association (PCA/ACA) and its regional offshoots like SWPCA sometimes featured individual fan studies panels, and PCA would later create a formal “subject area” specifically for fan studies. However, neither PCA nor its conferences focus primarily on fan studies.

FSNNA organizers came together from several of these spaces: Kristina was deeply involved with TWC and Lesley worked closely with SCMS, while Paul and Lori had experience with both SCMS and FSN and Louisa had just been an FSN keynote speaker. During conversations at SCMS and FSN in 2017, the initial group decided to plan a fan studies conference in the US based on the same ideas as the original FSN. And after securing FSN’s permission to create an offshoot, FSNNA was off and running!

The original goal? A one-time scholarly symposium that was rigorous yet accessible, welcoming to a diverse range of scholars, and more informal; where fan studies was the central focus; and where connections among scholars and their expertise (sometimes established, sometimes emerging) could be fostered, often by new offerings such as speed-geeking, roundtables, and even a vidshow. And after the rousing success of 2018, that initial symposium became an annual conference.

The first two FSNNA conferences (2018-2019) were held at DePaul University in Chicago, IL, USA. Paul was tenured faculty there, had been running the DePaul Pop Culture Conference on-site for years, and handled conference logistics. Lori managed the website, Lesley was the graduate student representative and organized the mentor-mentee events, Louisa spearheaded programming, and all five organizers shared general organizing duties. (Fun fact: Several future FSNNA organizers, including Benjamin Woo, EJ Nielsen, Effie Sapuridis, and Maria K. Alberto, attended one or both of these first FSNNA conferences at DePaul!)

hen in 2019, Kristina stepped back due to other commitments, and Jacinta Yanders joined the organizing committee, bringing her expertise on pedagogy and equity.

(For a taste of the time, check out the 2018 and 2019 conference programs in our Archives!)

Big Changes: Moving Online

In 2020, FSNNA had to pivot abruptly due to Covid-19. The lockdowns of March 2020 hit right as conference planning for the year was starting, which gave the FSNNA team just enough time to rework the CFP, learn the novelties of Zoom, and plan how to run a conference online using Zoom and Discord.

And despite the unexpected learning curve, FSNNA 2020 turned out a major success! A record number of scholars from beyond the US were able to join, and a poster-only format was introduced for those who could not attend synchronously. Overall, the online format was so popular and well-attended that even after Covid lockdowns ended in 2021, FSNNA has continued as an online conference ever since. (Even though the specifics continue to evolve year by year!)

Continuing to Grow and Welcoming New Committee Members

As FSNNA continued online, the roster of our organizing committee also shifted, with new members bringing new ideas and energy.

In 2022, Paul and Lesley stepped back from the committee, while Benjamin Woo, EJ Nielsen, Maria K. Alberto, and Sarah Sinwell joined. Ben in particular stepped into the role of graphics designer, creating a new visual identity for FSNNA through a new logo and organization website, plus handling program design for three consecutive conference programs (2022-2024). 2022 also saw two more big changes in the online conference format: “Inside Voices” was FSNNA’s first conference theme, a tradition we have continued since, and that year FSNNA also switched to Gather instead of Zoom, using this platform’s 8-bit-inspired features to create virtual rooms that housed posters, hosted keynotes, and enabled hanging out in the halls. (FSNNA would use Gather for the 2022 and 2023 conferences until accessibility issues necessitated a return to Zoom.)

2023 through 2025 have seen further changes in both the organizing committee and conference programming. For 2023, Lori Morimoto stepped back, while Adriana Amaral, Jenessa Williams, Effie Sapuridis, and Jonathan Rose joined the organizing committee. Also, in addition to a keynote, talks, and posters, the 2023 conference included a hands-on workshop on topic modeling facilitated by Julia Newgarten, speaking to participants’ interests in online events beyond talks. Then in 2024, EJ, Sarah, and Louisa stepped back, while Emily Coccia, Gwen Nesbitt, and Renee Ann Drouin joined the organizing committee. 2024 also saw our return to Zoom; the return of the FSNNA vidshow (now organized by Maria); our first official policy about generative AI; and our first use of keynote-like roundtables facilitated by major fan studies scholars, each of whom organized a group of fellow experts on a chosen topic. (Fun fact: while Ben initially proposed this approach to complement the 2024 theme “monsters of fan studies,” the format was such a success that we’ve kept to it since!)

Then for 2025, Ben, Adriana, and Jonathan stepped back, while J Overholser, Chi Zhang, Yvonne Gonzales, and Su Sakarya joined the organizing committee: Su stepped into big shoes, taking on conference program design, and this year’s conference continued the popular “monster” roundtables introduced in 2024. Now in 2026, the organizing committee has waved a sad farewell to our beloved Jenessa and welcomed on board Acacia Chan, Max Dosser, Gamze Kelle, Jasmine Proctor, Brenna Sherrill, and Meredith Sinclair.

That’s just the story so far! Today, FSNNA continues building upon the foundations set in place by both the initial organizers and the many dedicated folks who have left their indelible marks on our organization since.

(Special thanks to Paul and Lori, who shared their experiences to help inform this history!)