Rogue Archives: Digital Cultural Memory and Media Fandom

441 Pages·2016·10.09 MB·English

by  Abigail De Kosnik

Rogue Archives

Rogue Archives
Digital Cultural Memory and Media Fandom
Abigail De Kosnik
The MIT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
© 2016 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any
electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information
storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.
This book was set in Stone Serif and Stone Sans by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited.
Printed and bound in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: De Kosnik, Abigail, author.
Title: Rogue archives : digital cultural memory and media fandom /
Abigail De Kosnik.
Description: Cambridge, MA : The MIT Press, [2016] | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015044395 | ISBN 9780262034661 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Fan fiction--Archival resources. | Digital media--Social aspects. |
Collective memory. | Digital preservation.
Classification: LCC PN3377.5.F33 D425 2016 | DDC 026/.8083--dc23 LC record
available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2015044395
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Benjamin, my husband
and
Rosita, my late mother
Both computer programmers
Both creative fans
Both loving and beloved
Mahal na mahal kita

Contents
Acknowledgments  ix
Introduction 1
Break 0: A Glossary of Key Terms 25
1 Memory Machine Myth: The Memex, Media Archaeology, and
Repertoires of Archiving 41
Break 1: Canon and Repertoire 63
2 Archival Styles: Universal, Community, and Alternative Digital
Preservation Projects 73
Break 2: Archive Elves 123
3 Queer and Feminist Archival Cultures: The Politics of Preserving Fan
Works 131
Break 3: Fan Time versus Media Time 155
4 Repertoire Fills the Archive: Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice in
Fandom 161
Break 4: “Works” or “Performances”? 187
5 Print Fans versus Net Fans: Women’s Cultural Memory at the
Threshold of New Media 193
Break 5: A Femslash Parable of the Print-to-Digital Transition 221
6 The Default Body and the Composed Body: Performance through
New Media 227
Break 6: Body and Voice in Fan Production 263
viii Contents
7 Archontic Production: Free Culture and Free Software as
Versioning 273
Break 7: Licensing and Licentiousness 307
Conclusion: Fan Data: A Digital Humanities Approach to Internet
Archives 315
Appendix: Oral History Project, Demographics, and Ethical 
Considerations  349
Notes  355
References  367
Index  409
Acknowledgments
A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s
A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s
Thanks to Benjamin for your endless reserves of love and warmth. Thanks
to all of the members of my large family and my wonderful friends, for
your care and affection, and for always encouraging me to watch as much
television as I wanted. Thanks to my fantastic professors at Northwestern
University, especially Samuel Weber, Lynn Spigel, Alexander Weheliye,
and Jeffrey Sconce, for your invaluable mentorship, training, and advis-
ing as I launched this project. Thanks to all of the phenomenal faculty,
staff, and students at the University of California, Berkeley, with whom
I have worked, especially those at the Berkeley Center for New Media
and in the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies, for
giving me a tremendous amount of help and motivation as I labored
on this manuscript. Special thanks to Shannon Jackson, Catherine Cole,
Mark Griffith, Ken Goldberg, Greg Niemeyer, Laurent El Ghaoui, San
San Kwan, Angela Marino, David Bates, Shannon Steen, Lisa Wymore,
Brandi Wilkins Catanese, and Peter Glazer for your support and feed-
back, and for believing in my potential. Infinite thanks to all of my stu-
dents who played crucial roles in bringing this book into being, especially
Andrea Horbinski, Andrew Godbehere, Adam Hutz, Lisa Cronin, Renée
Pastel, Julia Havard, Kate Mattingly, Megan Hoetger, Kelsey Wong, and all
of the undergraduate transcribers. My heartfelt thanks also to all of the
fan archivists, fan authors, fan artists, and fan readers who contributed
their works and words, and who have long been my inspiration. Eternal
gratitude to Henry Jenkins, Diana Taylor, Lisa Nakamura, and Wendy
Chun for your brilliant input, insights, and advice. My deepest apprecia-
tion to my editor, Doug Sery, and the team at the MIT Press, particularly
Susan Buckley and Judith Feldmann, for allowing me to share this work
with the world.
The research projects through which I collected the primary data for this
book were made possible by grants from the Hellman Fellows Fund, the