Only Words

So. Hubby and I just watched Cabin in the Woods.
Memo to myself: never watch Joss's stuff in German. Somehow the German voices felt wrong. Unfortunately, the movie theatre only showed the German version.
Second memo to myself: do not watch slasher or zombie movies - even if Joss makes them.
I suppose the meta is more fun if one watches the iconic movies of the genre on a regular basis.... I certainly recognized a handful of the references (I watched Evil Dead ages ago, and back then it scared me so much, I actually looked away until friends said it was safe to watch again), but i guess you have to be a fan to enjoy them.
I fail to see the fun in buckets full of blood and I hate character death. Friends lent me their walking Dead DVD but it's still sitting on my shelf, because zombies = scary.
So, CitW was fun, often clever und sometimes surprising, sometimes predictable. I don't regret watching it - but I won't rush out to buy the Bluray. Avengers on the other hand....

A while ago I was asked by my ex-lecturer to give a 45 minute seminar on fanfic and modern technology. He had only very vague ideas about what he wanted me to talk about. In any case I was mightily flattered and started surfing the net for interesting quotes and articles on fan creativity. I also asked the_resa_ii for help. She provided me with a great bibliography of books on the subject - which I didn't have time to read, but which I put on my handout anyway, after cross-checking them.

The seminar went very well. I showed fanvids, fan movies, and I also had a slide show featuring fan art, manips, and fan-made comics. I think people were pretty impressed.
Back then, I promised to post the handout of the seminar here. I tried to do it too, but my computer crashed. And then, when the compi was fixed, well, I promptly... forgot.
Okay, I can't post my lecture because I spoke freely, and mostly without notes: about copyright law, and about the fact that there are some stories nobody can own, not even multi-million dollar corporations like Disney, no matter how hard they try (even Disney can't TM Cinderella and many other myths). But hey, I can give you the handout. Please remember that the handout was for literature students with no or very little exposure to online fandom culture...
Enjoy.

( Modern Technology and the Emergence of a Participatory Culture )