Looking for the perfect department! Fan Studies

[laboni]

Hey everyone,

My area is a bit niche, and I'm working on putting together a writing sample at the moment. I'm a first division BA, MA, Mphil holder from Delhi University, and I'm an ad-hoc teacher at the English department at Hindu College currently. I worked on participatory fandom cultures, fans as creators and the clash of signification between media producers and fans for my MPhil degree. It was a dissertation rooted in years of spectatorship - as an Indian fan in overwhelmingly white fan spaces dedicated to the consumption of Anglophone media, I was interested in documenting the kind of fan production and community I saw around me. Still, I've reoreinted my interests.

Now I want to look at fanfiction written by Indian fans for Indian TV serials like Qubool Hai, Bepannah, etc. I'm interested in questions of form - very interesting things are happening to the form of fanfic itself. Driven by IndiaForums, Wattpad or Tellyupdates, Indian fanfiction differs in its familiarity with the established, informal 'rules' for formatting, style, length, classification, etc. Many are irregularly or inconsistently formatted. The users writing in are overwhelmingly female, as is the audience for most Indian soaps. TV serials deal with the drama of the domestic and the familial, and most fanfictions deal with the same. There's a vast degree of difference in users' competency in English, too. It is a rich corpus of fan production in an under-theorised and mischaracterised area - Indian televisual media consumption in the 'age of the internet' (which arrived much later in India, or, still is arriving in many parts of the country). I'm interested in both diasporic engagements with Indian TV fanfiction (as a guilty pleasure, a return to a certain ethnic identity) as well as native Indian writers. To this end, I am familiar with both Western theorisations of fandom (Jenkins, Booth, Hills, etc) and am studying archival material for Indian traditions of fan writing

I am looking for the right departments to approach! Frankly, a little overwhelmed at all the choice. I'm not picky about Top 100/50/whatever. I'm applying for Spring 2019. Any and all comments, suggestions and barbs are welcome.

[rising_star]

I don't have ideas about departments, other than to suggest you like at Communications, Anthropology, and English departments as possible options. That said, wanting to start in Spring 2019 puts you off the traditional US graduate admissions cycle for a PhD program, which make both being admitted and getting funding much less likely.

[laboni]

Hi rising_star! I corrected my profile - I'm applying this year (By December 2018)  and want to start in the fall of 2019. I honestly got a little confused. I am looking primarily at Media studies and Communications departments.Thank you!