Photo: Deney Terrio

USC Professor Henry Jenkins is a hard-core fan with hard-core fans.

I should know. I'm one of the audience members who stalked him at a conference a few years ago after his keynote, hoping to have a conversation about a paper he'd just published at the time. — Read the rest

Media scholar Henry Jenkins and Babylon 5 creator Joe Straczynski are doing a double-header at MIT on May 22, and it's open to the public. Sounds like a hell of a way to spend an evening.

Previously known best for his role as the creator of the cult science fiction series Babylon 5 and its various spin-off films and series.

Andrew sez, "Thought you might like to hear that a DVD of Neil Gaiman's lecture/interview with Henry Jenkins is going on sale today and
that some great clips are already posted on Henry's blog: http://henryjenkins.org/2008/12/from_neil_gaiman_to_j_michael.html. Definitely worth a gander."

Our first speaker, appropriately enough, was Neil Gaiman, whose work spans comics (The Sandman), fiction (American Gods), cinema (Mirrormask), television (Neverwhere), the blogosphere, and much much more.

Eleanor sez, "Games for Change, the non-profit that promotes games which further social awareness and/or activism, will host their fifth festival on June 2-4. Keynote speakers are Henry Jenkins (of MIT) and James Gee (of Arizona State University) and the closing keynote is the Honorable Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who is working with Dr. — Read the rest

MIT prof Henry Jenkins is pretty much the sharpest person I've ever met when it comes to the cultural implications of fandom, fannish activity, fan fiction, and participatory culture (a phrase he coined). He's started a blog, and just from the first handful of entries I know I'm going to be finding gems there every day. — Read the rest

Henry Jenkins (previously) is the preeminent scholar of fandom and culture; Colin Maclay is a communications researcher with a background in tech policy; on the latest episode of their "How Do You Like It So Far" podcast (MP3), we had a long discussion about a theory of change based on political work and science fictional storytelling, in which helping people imagine a better world (or warn them about a worse one) is a springboard to mobilizing political action.

Sam from MIT sez, "This 2-day conference at MIT brings together 50 leading thinkers about innovation in the media and marketing industries. Issues tackled include the importance of listening to their audiences and putting yourself in their shoes; the politics and ethics of curation in a spreadable media world; the move from "participatory culture" to "political participation," curing "the shiny new object syndrome" of putting the hype of new platforms over storytelling strategy, and rethinking copyright for today's world. — Read the rest

Mimi Ito sez,

The State of the Art of DIY Video is a feature-length program of the best from the world of do-it-yourself video. The screening will feature the latest in online, geek, remix, and fan culture, curated to highlight the most recent trends and techniques emerging from anime music videos, political remixes, fan vids, videoblogs, and the YouTube scene.

Nick sez,

This year's graduate theses from MIT's Comparative Media Studies (the last class to work with Henry Jenkins before he moved to USC) are now online. Topics include:

-undergraduate female gamers at MIT
-an alternate reality game based on The Count of Monte Cristo
-TV ratings after digital distribution
-the history of player pianos
-Twilight anti-fans
-live mobile video
-and more!

After spending his youth happily playing computer and table-top role-playing games as pale-grey-skinned elves with long, straight, silver hair (usually over one eye), or "forcing African-coifed robot pilots into the anime world of Macross," Fox Harrell says he started wanting to play characters that expressed and presented themselves in ways that captured his real world cultural values, though still set in those same fantasy worlds. — Read the rest

Fred sez, "Students for Free Culture has organized another awesome Free Culture conference on February 13th and 14th in Washington D.C. and registration is open.

Public Knowledge's Gigi Sohn and cyberscholar Jonathan Zittrain will be keynoting on the first day, and the second day will be an unconference tackling all the cutting edge issues of the free culture movement. — Read the rest

Nice profile of Neil Gaiman in this week's New Yorker, written by Dana Goodyear, who really followed Neil around to get the story — caught their duo act at the WorldCon in Montreal last year, where Ms Goodyear was being introduced to everyone who had a good Neil story to tell. — Read the rest

Congrats to pals Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer on the announcement of their
upcoming nuptials. You two are adorable together. Many years of happiness,
comics, rock and roll, and copyfighting for both of you!

Telling the World: An Official Announcement

Ellen Kushner sez,

The Interstitial Arts Foundation supports artists whose work falls outside of traditional disciplines, genres and other classification systems. This fall the IAF is publishing Interfictions 2, its second anthology of short interstitial fiction, and it's conducting an experiment in crowdfunding to make it happen.

Eleanor sez,

Games for Change, the non-profit devoted to promoting, well, games for change, will hold their fifth annual festival in New York City from June 2-4. Keynote speakers are Henry Jenkins and Jim Gee and the closing keynote is the Honorable Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

Howard Rheingold points us to an event taking place this weekend in Los Angeles, "24/7: A DIY Video Summit." He explains:

The event is an effort to
bring together the various academic, technology, and creative
communities that have a stake in the evolution of the amateur and
DIY video space.

Howard Rheingold writes in with news of the DIY Video Summit (Feb 8-10, USC, Los Angeles):

24/7: A DIY VIDEO SUMMIT
February 8-10, 2008 School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California

I'm thrilled to moderate a session on Feb 9 that will include Yochai Benkler, John Seely Brown, Joi Ito, Henry Jenkins, and Lawrence Lessig.

The graduate theses of MIT's Comparative Media Studies program are now online. CMS is taught by super academic-fan Henry Jenkins, guru of all things fan-theoretical. I once spent a mind-blowing day at his program, meeting super-smart people seriously unpicking things like pro-wrestling fandom and understanding what makes it tick. — Read the rest

Henry Jenkins, my favorite pop-culture scholar, has just posted the first part of a long essay dealing with the theoretical origins of steampunk. Jenkins connects steampunk to the eBay retro-collectibles urge and dead media — themselves products of inhabiting a high-speed world where the things we love go obsolete fall to rot in the blink of an eye. — Read the rest

Scott "Understanding Comics" McCloud is taking his family — including his talented 13-year-old daughter, Sky — on a one year cross-country tour. Scott's going to be touring with his new book Making Comics, giving speeches, and his kids will be home-schooled by producing a blog and a series of podcasts and video podcasts documenting their travels. — Read the rest