Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture

The twentieth anniversary edition of Henry Jenkins’s Textual Poachers brings this now-canonical text to a new generation of students interested in the intersections of fandom, participatory culture, popular consumption and media theory.

Supplementing the original, classic text is an interview between Henry Jenkins and Suzanne Scott in which Jenkins reflects upon changes in the field since the original release of Textual Poachers. A study guide by Louisa Stein helps provides instructors with suggestions for the way Textual Poachers can be used in the contemporary classroom, and study questions encourage students to consider fan cultures in relation to consumer capitalism, genre, gender, sexuality, and more.

Henry Jenkins is the Provost’s Professor of Communication, Journalism, Cinematic Arts, and Education at the University of Southern California. He was director of MIT’s Comparative Media Studies Program for more than a decade. His books include: Hop on Pop: The Politics and Pleasures of Popular Culture, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, and Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture.

Suzanne Scott is a Mellon Digital Scholarship Postdoctoral Fellow at Occidental College. She serves on the board of Transformative Works and Cultures, and is currently working on a book project based on her dissertation, ＂Revenge of the Fanboy: Convergence Culture and the Politics of Incorporation,＂ addressing the gendered tensions surrounding contemporary fan culture and fan studies.

Louisa Ellen Stein is Assistant Professor of Film and Media Culture at Middlebury College, and is coeditor of the collections Teen Television and Sherlock and Transmedia Fandom. Her current book project, Millennial Media, explores digital authorship and fandom in the millennial generation.