Fan mail to Danish film stars in the 1910s: Exploring the agency and practices of early film fans

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Stephan Michael Schröder
• Subject Area: Theatre and Media Studies ; European and American Literary and Cultural Studies
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 508645041

The project investigates the emergence of film fans in the 1910s as well as the establishment and formation of early film fan practices. Instead of relying on third-party accounts about film fans, as has been done in research so far, the investigation makes use of two newly discovered, extensive collections of fan letters from the 1910s. This globally unique source material not only makes it possible to reconstruct the agency and practices of early film fans and their sociological, cultural, gender and age diversity. At the same time, the difference to the media representation of ›the‹ fan and his/her fandom provides insights into the functionalization of the discourse on fans and fandom in the respective cultural, social and media-historical context. Four subprojects will analyze (1) who the letter writers were as social and cultural agents, (2) how the writing of fan letters was constituted as a practice in the 1910s and how it changed, as well as which discursive strategies and discourse regulations the letters exhibit, (3) what kind of fan practices and self-constructions of ›fan‹ and ›fandom‹ are recognizable in the letters and how these relate to the contemporaneous and later mass media constructions, (4) what the fan perspective can contribute theoretically and specifically to the historiography of a New Cinema History and to a reception history with a globalized outlook.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants