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Star Wars has reached more than three generations of casual and hardcore fans alike, and as a result many of the producers of franchised Star Wars texts (films, television, comics, novels, games, and more) over the past four decades have been fans-turned-creators. Yet despite its dominant cultural and industrial positions, Star Wars has rarely been the topic of sustained critical work. Star Wars and the History of Transmedia Storytelling offers a corrective to this oversight by curating essays from a wide range of interdisciplinary scholars in order to bring Star Wars and its transmedia narratives more fully into the fold of media and cultural studies. The collection places Star Wars at the center of those studies’ projects by examining video games, novels and novelizations, comics, advertising practices, television shows, franchising models, aesthetic and economic decisions, fandom and cultural responses, and other aspects of Star Wars and its world-building in their multiple contexts of production, distribution, and reception. In emphasizing that Star Wars is both a media franchise and a transmedia storyworld, Star Wars and the History of Transmedia Storytelling demonstrates the ways in which transmedia storytelling and the industrial logic of media franchising have developed in concert over the past four decades, as multinational corporations have become the central means for subsidizing, profiting from, and selling modes of immersive storyworlds to global audiences. By taking this dual approach, the book focuses on the interconnected nature of corporate production, fan consumption, and transmedia world-building. As such, this collection grapples with the historical, cultural, aesthetic, and political-economic implications of the relationship between media franchising and transmedia storytelling as they are seen at work in the world’s most profitable transmedia franchise.

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Editorial for "Fandom Histories," edited by Philipp Dominik Keidl and Abby S. Waysdorf, special issue, Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 37 (March 15, 2022).

N DECEMBER 2019, GERMAN NEWS CHANNEL N-TV BROADCASTED A special program on the world premiere of J. J. Abrams's Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Among the interviewees featured in the report was Thomas Manglitz, co-founder of the fan-run museum 1 Stars of the Galaxy in M€ onchengladbach, Germany (hereafter SOTG). Housed in a former indoor swimming pool vacated by the city, SOTG displays production materials and merchandise from a variety of science fiction productions. However, the vast majority of the amateur museum's displays are dedicated to the Star Wars franchise, ranging from action figures to LEGO sets, replicas, and collectible figurines. Because of this focus, SOTG has become a popular destination for local and regional press, as well as fellow fans, to interview Manglitz about Star Wars, including the history of the films, the success of the franchise's merchandise, its fan community, and the story behind the museum itself. Although Manglitz himself frames the project as a hobby without any economic agenda in such reports, the curatorial work of the fans behind SOTG should not be considered as mere leisure. Rather, following Mel Stanfill's plea to study fan practices and projects through a labor framework and "ask who benefits from these activities" (131), fan curating should be acknowledged as a form of work that creates cultural and economic value for different agents.

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This article discusses the phenomena of "transmedia historiography" and the "fanboy historian" to investigate the role of nonfiction practices in contemporary media franchising through a case study of Star Wars (George Lucas et al., 1977-). I argue that since 1977, Lucasfilm gradually developed a transmedia historiography to construct, disseminate, and manage a coherent cultural history of the franchise. Fans play a crucial role in this process. Lucasfilm incorporates the historical productivity of some fans to foster a cultural memory of the franchise and also invests much effort in writing the history of Star Wars to counter independently produced, fan-made histories that challenge the company's historical narrative. As such, transmedia historiography and the fanboy historian reinforce Lucasfilm's preferred versions of the past and guarantee future relevance and consumption of franchise products. 1 "Star Wars at 40," StarWars.com, accessed August 20, 2018, https://www.starwars .com/star-wars-40th. 2 Lucasfilm celebrated the twelve-month theatrical run of Star Wars: Episode IV-A New Hope with a poster showing Kenner toy company action figures around a birthday cake. See "Star Wars at 40: 40 Years of Star Wars Anniversary Posters," StarWars.