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DePaul professor will visit alma mater NIU, offer graduate colloquium on ‘fandom,’ parody

March 26, 2012

Inspector Spacetime logoCan one be a fan without a text to be a fan of? What happens when fandom creates a text, and then poaches that same text?

Paul Booth, an assistant professor of new media and technology in the College of Communication at DePaul University, will visit the NIU campus at 1 p.m. Friday, April 20, as the featured speaker in the Spring 2012 Graduate Colloquium in Communication Studies.

Booth will discuss his study, “Fan I Am: Hyperreal Fandom and Parody,” which looks at the meteoric rise in the Internet fandom of Inspector Spacetime as a specific parody of fan activity.

Paul Booth

Paul Booth

Through an articulate analysis of Doctor Who, Inspector Spacetime fandom has emerged as a key text in fan studies and social media.

He will speak in DuSable Hall 276. A question-and-answer session will follow. The event is presented by the NIU Department of Communication and the Graduate Colloquium committee.

Booth received his Ph.D. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and his M.A. from NIU. At DePaul, he teaches classes in media studies, television narrative, convergence and digital media, popular culture, social media, communication technology and participatory cultures.

He also is the author of “Digital Fandom: New Media Studies,” which examines fans of cult television programs.

For more information, contact Renee Powers, GradCOMM Colloquium chair, at rpowers1@niu.edu.