Conference Report: Fans in the Theatre? About Unbeloved Fannish Spectators and Theatre’s Self-Image 1860-1920

Authors

  • Carina Eltrich University of Cologne

Keywords:

historical fandom, 1910 fan mail, early fans, fan studies, theatre studies, theatre fans, fannish practices, fan letters, theatre collection Wahn

Abstract

The conference “Fans in the Theatre? About Unbeloved Fannish Spectators and Theatre’s Self-Image 1860-1920,” organized in the context of the DFG (German Research Foundation) research project “Fan Mail to Danish Film Stars in the 1910s: Exploring the Agency and Practices of Early Film Fans,” took place from October 23-25, 2024 in the premises of the Theatre Collection at Schloss Wahn, Cologne (Germany). Although fannish behavior and fannish practices in theatre were ubiquitous and much discussed during the heyday of theatre in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, fan studies and theatre studies have rarely been brought together. Thus, the conference aimed to create a space for encounter and exchange between the two disciplines in order to gain a better understanding of both fandom and theatre history.

Author Biography

  • Carina Eltrich, University of Cologne

    Carina Eltrich studies media culture and Scandinavian studies at the University of Cologne, Germany, where she is currently both working at the Scandinavian studies’ library as well as a research assistant on the DFG project “Fan Mail to Danish Film Stars in the 1910s.” Her academic interests lie in early film and the development of fan practices over time as well as in the visibility of queer fandoms and cultures.

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Published

2025-06-21

Issue

Vol. 2 No. 1 (2025): Fandom | Cultures | Research

Section

Conference Reports

License

Copyright (c) 2025 Carina Eltrich

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/