Acafan Conundrum

If I am writing a paper on slash (which I am) and if I have written slash myself (which I have) and if I'm talking about acafandom and being aware of/sympathetic to the way in which fandom and slash writers have been discussed in previous scholarship (which I will be), should I make it clear that I've written slash?

I'm a bit torn. On the one hand I want to make it clear that I'm active in fandom and am aware of the way fandom has been treated previously, and so have taken steps to ensure that I am treating slash writers ethically and not making judgements or sweeping generalisations about them. In that respect I feel like I should position myself as having written slash (if not prolifically) as a justification (of sorts) for my metholodolgy. On the other, I don't know if coming out and saying I've written slash would affect me as a (future) academic. Henry Jenkins has said on his blog that he's written slash, but I don't know if he's ever talked about it in 'proper' academic work (book chapters, journal papers, etc.). Plus, Henry Jenkins is big in the academic world while I'm not. It might be easier for him to say he's written slash than it would be for someone just entering the field.

It's a toughie.

The X Files - Twenty Years On

The abstract for the above journal has been revised and sent! Just got to keep all my fingers crossed that it gets accepted, and that I can get ethics committee approval from uni for it (I'm planning on questioning/interviewing fans under the age of 16 so I need to put a good proposal forward to the committee). I am a little worried that I'm going to take on too much if it does get accepted, but the stuff I'd be looking at for the paper links directly to the research I'm doing on my lit review, and first drafts don't need to be in til January next year, which gives me plenty of time to work on it. Plus, I'm doing a PhD on The X Files. I can't pass up an opportunity to submit something to a journal that's doing a special edition on that very topic!

In other news, the slash book chapter I'm writing seems to be going well. I've had lots of thinky-thoughts on it, which have translated into about 6000 words of notes, and that's without any quotes from my interviewees or their fic in there! One thing I do need to find though, are femslash writers in the Twilight fandom. It's a long shot, I know, but do any of you happen to know anyone who'd be interested in being interviewed?

PhD Meeting

I met with my tutor on Wednesday to go over the first draft of the encoding/decoding section of my lit review. He was broadly pleased with it, which was good. He's said a couple of times now that I won't have a problem with the writing itself, I just need to a) be more critical and b) be more assertive in locating my work. I've got to submit another draft in June/July and that'll be it for this section. He's also wangled it so that I don't have to submit a methodology essay in June. It doesn't make sense for me to do it now because I'm a part time student so while the full timers will be moving onto the methodological work next academic year, I won't be doing it for another 18 months or so. It makes more sense for me to concentrate on my lit review now. I'm very pleased by that.