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As part of the Journal of Fandom Studies exploration of the field more than 20 years after the publication of Henry Jenkins’ Textual Poachers (which has been widely cited as one of the first major works paving the way for this area of study), this piece looks back at Textual Poachers’ approach to studying fandom, examines the dialogue that has taken place within fan studies over the past six years, and raises areas of consideration for fan studies to consider in the years ahead. In particular, the piece advocates for the need to continue to evolve the types of fandoms explored by fan studies scholars; to challenge ourselves to examine the field’s tendency to prioritize some forms of active audience engagement over others based on the media format or level of technical mastery the audience uses or the type of media text on which the engagement is focused; and to further explore what more widespread interest in, acceptance of, and adoption of the model of engagement from fandom means for our field.

For decades, fans of U.S. soap operas have formed social networks surrounding their shows, and they did so even before the concept entered the vernacular. Soap fans, who started on a geographically local scale and built their communities through grassroots efforts, have found a variety of venues to connect with one another over the past several decades. This study looks at the pre-Internet development of these social networks to show how that trajectory relates to the current online community of soap opera fans. Although several scholars have studied soap opera fandom, few have taken an historical approach at understanding the trajectory of soap fandom, a view especially necessary in an era where online social networks are at the center of audience studies and where cornerstone U.S. soap operas are struggling to retain relevance and audience. To fill this gap, I argue that understanding fan networks today requires looking back to previous methods of fan networking. Soaps' longevity (the youngest U.S. soap is more than 20 years old) and frequency (all U.S. daytime soaps are daily) make them crucial texts in demonstrating how the roots of fan social networks in a pre-Internet era helped shape that fandom's transition onto the Internet, and they also illustrate the continued evolution of these networks as fans move online.

Temperate phages play important roles in bacterial communities but have been largely overlooked, particularly in non-pathogenic bacteria. In rhizobia the presence of temperate phages has the potential to have significant ecological impacts but few examples have been described. Here we characterize a novel group of 5 Rhizobium leguminosarum prophages, capable of sustaining infections across a broad host range within their host genus. Genome comparisons identified further putative prophages infecting multiple Rhizobium species isolated globally, revealing a wider family of 10 temperate phages including one previously described lytic phage, RHEph01, which appears to have lost the ability to form lysogens. Phylogenetic discordance between prophage and host phylogenies suggests a history of active mobilization between Rhizobium lineages. Genome comparisons revealed conservation of gene content and order, with the notable exception of an approximately 5 kb region of hypervariability, containing almost exclusively hypothetical genes. Additionally, several horizontally acquired genes are present across the group, including a putative antirepressor present only in the RHEph01 genome, which may explain its apparent inability to form lysogens. In summary, both phenotypic and genomic comparisons between members of this group of phages reveals a clade of viruses with a long history of mobilization within and between Rhizobium species.

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