Interview with Alexis Lothian: Fandom Scholar

On this episode of Mind the Tags, Vee and Emily interview Dr. Alexis Lothian, Associate Professor at The Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Maryland. We chat with Dr. Lothian about her foray into fanfiction in the early 2000s, as well as her scholarly work around speculative fiction, feminism and racism in fanfiction, and the power of fandom to shape political awareness and movements. 

Sources from this episode:

• Vidding: A History by Francesca Coppa
• AI Hype Enters Its Geopolitics Era w/ Timnit Gebru from the Tech Won't Save Us Podcast
• An archive of whose own? White feminism and racial justice in fan fiction’s digital infrastructure by Alexis Lothian and Mel Stanfill
• End OTW Racism: A Call To Action
• Archival anarchies: Online fandom, subcultural conservation, and the transformative work of digital ephemera by Alexis Lothian
• Fandom Is Ugly: Networked Harassment in Participatory Culture by Mel Stanfill
• Old Futures: Speculative Fiction and Queer Possibility by Alexis Lothian

Check out Dr. Lothian's faculty bio here.

Thank you to Erik Potteiger for producing our song and Haflacky for our logo design.