Anna Felicia Sanchez is a published author, a professor at the University of the Philippines, and a Palanca Awardee. She is also, (refreshingly) unabashedly not only a fan of anime/manga but also a fanfic writer, and one of the few people I’ve found locally who deem fan writings to be an important aspect of popular culture worthy of academic study. I missed her fanfic writing seminar last summer, when I heard that the UP Lingua Franca organization was having her as a guest speaker to talk about fanfiction, I decided it was worth braving the Katipunan school day traffic to hear what she had to say.
Over roughly one and a half hours, Professor Sanchez discussed, amongst others, definitions of Geek and Fan (and what role gender/sex plays in each definition), how it feels to be a girl surrounded by geeks, the Noranians-Vilmanian War, “Aca-Fans”, Consumerism/Cosplay/Community in fandom, Subject and Object in the Shoujo genre and what the real world advantages are to writing fanfic.
With the gracious consent of the organizers and Professor Sanchez, I’ve uploaded excerpts from her talk “Confessions of a Shipper: The Joys and Transgressions of Fan Writing” which she gave in front of a packed classroom in the UP College of Arts and Letters. Enjoy!
More video excerpts under the cut:
In this excerpt: gendered meanings, Alan Dean Foster and Conhitina Cruz, Big Bang Theory, SFF in books vs SFF in television
In this excerpt: the definition of a shipper, Professor Sanchez’s collections, fandom as subculture (collection, cosplay, community), shoujo culture
In this excerpt: fanfic stigma, fanfic as subversion, fanfiction.net
In this excerpt: fanfic as subversion, canon literature, the print paradigm, George Lucas, slash, advantages to writing fanfic
I linked to this post from our website and Facebook. Thanks for this! I know a lot of people wanted to go to the lecture but missed it.
No problem – it was a great talk and I’m thankful you and Professor Sanchez allowed me to put it up for those who couldn’t be there.
Si Anna! I love her. She’s an immense fanfic person talaga, known her for a decade already at ganyan talaga siya ever since. She has a huge GHOSTFIGHTER fanfic novel that she finished even before I met her! She should have her stuff published!
She does good work – it’s great to see fanfic being studied/treated seriously…