dimenoveladozen

[dimenoveladozen]

A little Calamity Jane project for the @dimenoveladozen project.

#cross stitch #dime novel serialization project #calamity jane #amazing!! we love to see it!

[dimenoveladozen]

Today's the day!

We're at our official start date for the dime novel serialization project! If you're at all curious, feel free to check out the pinned post for more info about joining in on the fun! We've already got two participants who've been incredibly generous in putting together audio book narrations of the chapters, so there are lots of ways to read along!

#dime novel serialization project #feel free to be in touch with questions #would love to have ya join us!

[dimenoveladozen]

We'll be getting started in just a few days now! You're always welcome to join later on, but if you'd like to be there from the start, now is your moment!

Also, if you'd already signed up through Qualtrics but haven't joined the Discord yet, come on over! We've got some fun stuff already happening, and that's where I'll be posting chapters each weekend :)

Fan Reading Project Recruitment!

Are you a fan, especially a femslash fan, who's interested in reading a funky little (~30 pp.) piece of 19th C. mass-popular literature serialized over several weeks? If so, I've got the project for you! Join us for a casual, opt-in reading group of a short 19th C. dime novel, beginning January 15, 2024!

You can sign up here if you're interested!

More on the Project:

I'm a PhD Candidate in English and Women's and Gender Studies working on a dissertation on nineteenth-century American working-class women, queer pleasure and possibility, and mass-popular literature. As part of my project, I've spent a lot of time in archives reading 19th C. story papers and dime novels, genres of degraded literature that were incredibly popular among factory and mill workers but that have received very little scholarly attention. What's fascinating is how similar this mass-popular literature is to fan fiction--not just in its sensational plots and queer elements (sometimes there really is just one bed in the cabin), but especially in how it was consumed (often in serial format, shared amongst exuberant, fannish communities who even had their own shipping wars in the letters to the editor columns!) and in how it was critiqued (before Anthony Comstock came for pornography, he led a whole campaign against this kind of literature as "perverting" and tending to promote "evil reading"). Although I'm a fan myself, I know that one person's readings can never fully capture the wide variety of responses and interpretations that a whole group of fans and consumers can have, which is where you all come in! For the final chapter of my dissertation, I'll be serially disseminating chapters of a short dime novel for a group of participants to discuss in a private Discord to explore the creative possibilities of fan reading practices.

You're welcome to be as involved as you would like - maybe you just end up reading along and reacting to the comments of others, or perhaps you find yourself writing fan meta or even making memes and other creative responses! If you have any questions, feel free to DM me here!

If you'd like to sign up (which doesn't obligate you to participate), you can use the following Qualtrics link, which provides more information about the project, including the study number for the IRB-issued exemption: https://umich.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1HAkpIJDEaUfWOa

#dime novel serialization project #fan recruitment #feel free to share and reblog to reach wider circles!

[dimenoveladozen]

Or perhaps you're worried that women won't get nearly enough to do and will be left as damsels in distress. Fear not!

We've got the famous "girl dare-devil" Calamity Jane who dressed in male attire and might easily be read as an early genderqueer folk hero (top left) and the well-dressed love interest Inza who can take up a knife and protect her fallen lover from wolves and enemies alike (top right). Or maybe you're interested in a tale of revenge, like that of Clotilde who seeks vengeance on her murderous husband by disguising herself as a sea captain (bottom left). Or maybe you want a good old-fashioned detective story like that of the fabulously well-dressed Denver Doll (bottom right). While are plenty of dime novels where women were forced into the role of the silent love interest or damsel in distress, those were far from the only parts they could play. And unlike in a lot of middle-class fiction, here women frequently broke all kinds of social convention to avenge themselves, their families, and their lovers!

As promised, I'll be posting a few snippets and images from some other dime novels and serialized sensation fiction from the period to give you a little taste for the genre (and maybe draw in a few new fan readers for my project in the process!)

For our first one, find the dandy "sport" Violet Vane (so nicknamed for the mistaken assumption that he would shrink like a violet at the face of violence) as he disproves all his critics by landing some real blows on the villain, as one does... (we all still love a homoerotic enemies to lovers fic, yeah?)

The caption to the image reads, "Baste 'im, Violets! Hain't thet delightful! Oh, Moses! Hain't this a jubilee!"

#dime novels #dime novel serialization project

[dimenoveladozen]

As promised, I'll be posting a few snippets and images from some other dime novels and serialized sensation fiction from the period to give you a little taste for the genre (and maybe draw in a few new fan readers for my project in the process!)

For our first one, find the dandy "sport" Violet Vane (so nicknamed for the mistaken assumption that he would shrink like a violet at the face of violence) as he disproves all his critics by landing some real blows on the villain, as one does... (we all still love a homoerotic enemies to lovers fic, yeah?)

The caption to the image reads, "Baste 'im, Violets! Hain't thet delightful! Oh, Moses! Hain't this a jubilee!"

#dime novels #bit of promo never hurt anyone #the queer and kinky nineteenth century

[dimenoveladozen]

This looks super cool, but I’m more of a slash and gen fan than a femslash fan. Can I still participate?

Absolutely! The particular novel I'll be serializing for the project has a lot going on in it, including the potential for all kinds of shipping and headcanoning different characters as LGBTQ if we want to use modern terms (with, in fact, a heavy emphasis on the T!). The main reason I included a specific request for femslash fans is that 1) femslash is often underrepresented, both in fandom more generally and in fan studies scholarship specifically, and 2) my own research asks if and how these sensational texts provided working-class women with the fodder for imagining, dreaming of, and even actively pursuing possibilities outside of the domesticating trajectory toward heterosexual marriage and motherhood that society pushed them toward.

But by all means, I'd love to have ya no matter where you've spent your time in fandom!

#ask me anything #anon #project faq #dime novel serialization project

[dimenoveladozen]

Five days into the AO3 Demographics Survey 2024, we have now received almost 9,000 responses!

We really appreciate everyone who has participated so far, sent feedback, or shared the survey. (If you haven't finished the survey yet, you can find it at https://forms.gle/2kt5J17ipzcAbnFY9)

We want to reach as many people as possible with this survey, in as many places as possible. If you use any non-Tumblr social media for fandom, we would really appreciate you making a post to spread the word! Bonus points if you send it for inclusion on our sharing page.

Thanks for all your support!

[dimenoveladozen]

Dime Novel Serialization Project FAQs

Based on a couple questions I received + trying to anticipate and preempt a few others, here's a brief Q&A:

What exactly does participation entail?

That's really up to you! Part of the beauty of this project is that the workingwomen I'm studying were avid readers, but they were also picky readers and busy readers. Sometimes a story didn't appeal and they walked away halfway through or never even began. Sometimes they missed installments in longer-form pieces and caught up when they had time or could afford to do so. They were still part of the reading community, though, and their responses to what they did read were no less valuable for the limitations.

That being said, if you feel so inclined to get fannish with it, I'm all about it!

When does this run?

I'll start posting chapter installments in time for January 15, 2024, then I'll drop a couple chapters weekly until we're through. If you want to join late, though, you can always access past materials on the Discord.

I'm worried about the period the lit is from. Is there content I should prepare myself for?

I'll add in some not quite author's notes, maybe we should call them compiler's notes, with each installment that you can take or leave, but I will say up front I have deliberately chosen a work that my students called "shockingly progressive" and "weirdly modern." The fun thing is that it's actually not! It's not that much of an outlier! But, for instance, while I've chosen a text of the "Old Western" genre set on the frontier, I have not chosen one rife with violence even though obviously settler colonial violence forms the unstated backdrop that enables these characters' presence on the land. The text I'll be serializing features a number of strong female characters and even characters who can quite easily and convincingly be read as queer and/or trans, to use modern terminology for established practices from the period.

What about accessibility?

I'll have a scanned PDF of the original manuscript for anyone who wants it, but I'm also currently hard at work in tying out an accessible text manuscript for anyone who needs or prefers that format!

In terms of readability, the language takes a few pages to get used to, but if you're able to read it aloud or slow down with it for the first chapter or two, my students have confirmed that it moves much more smoothly from then on out!

If you have any other questions, feel free to let me know! If you want to follow this account, I'll probably also post a few fun passages and images from stories that I won't be serializing for this run but that are nice little previews of the kinds of content readers could expect to find in these sensational texts.

#dime novel serialization project #project FAQ

[dimenoveladozen]

Fan Reading Project Recruitment!

Are you a fan, especially a femslash fan, who's interested in reading a funky little (~30 pp.) piece of 19th C. mass-popular literature serialized over several weeks? If so, I've got the project for you! Join us for a casual, opt-in reading group of a short 19th C. dime novel, beginning January 15, 2024!

You can sign up here if you're interested!

More on the Project:

I'm a PhD Candidate in English and Women's and Gender Studies working on a dissertation on nineteenth-century American working-class women, queer pleasure and possibility, and mass-popular literature. As part of my project, I've spent a lot of time in archives reading 19th C. story papers and dime novels, genres of degraded literature that were incredibly popular among factory and mill workers but that have received very little scholarly attention. What's fascinating is how similar this mass-popular literature is to fan fiction--not just in its sensational plots and queer elements (sometimes there really is just one bed in the cabin), but especially in how it was consumed (often in serial format, shared amongst exuberant, fannish communities who even had their own shipping wars in the letters to the editor columns!) and in how it was critiqued (before Anthony Comstock came for pornography, he led a whole campaign against this kind of literature as "perverting" and tending to promote "evil reading"). Although I'm a fan myself, I know that one person's readings can never fully capture the wide variety of responses and interpretations that a whole group of fans and consumers can have, which is where you all come in! For the final chapter of my dissertation, I'll be serially disseminating chapters of a short dime novel for a group of participants to discuss in a private Discord to explore the creative possibilities of fan reading practices.

You're welcome to be as involved as you would like - maybe you just end up reading along and reacting to the comments of others, or perhaps you find yourself writing fan meta or even making memes and other creative responses! If you have any questions, feel free to DM me here!

If you'd like to sign up (which doesn't obligate you to participate), you can use the following Qualtrics link, which provides more information about the project, including the study number for the IRB-issued exemption: https://umich.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1HAkpIJDEaUfWOa

#dime novel serialization project #fan recruitment #femslash fandom #inspired by dracula daily and whale weekly

[dimenoveladozen]

#community

[dimenoveladozen]

[dimenoveladozen]

#lolsob #abd life #academia

[dimenoveladozen]

Hey there! I'm not a bot, just a grad student waiting for Tumblr to see that I use this blog long enough to give me full site access privileges! This blog will be used for recruitment for a serialization project a la Dracula Daily for a chapter of my dissertation! If you're interested in participating (perhaps a new years resolution to read something outside of your usual in 2024?) feel free to give me a follow!

#tumblr things #not a bot (to be read in the not a doctor voice)