Fandom’s paratextual memory: remembering, reconstructing, and repatriating “lost”Doctor Who

Abstract

Having defined paratexts' spatial coordinates as possessing a "location that can be situated in relation to the location of the text itself," Gerard Genette also reflects on the "temporal situation of the paratext" (1997: 4-5). Crucially, it is the spatiotemporality of paratexts that needs interrogation if we are to understand the role they play in cultural memory. At stake is the act of remembering textual encounters through paratexts that are shared inside and increasingly across national boundaries. This ensures that television heritage travels not simply as a fannish scouring for textual completeness but, we contend, within recuperating acts of nation and Empire. It is imperative, then, to reconsider the spatiotemporal situation of paratexts from a cultural memory perspective, linking Doctor Who fandom's seemingly apolitical memories to cultural-political national communities, as we'll go on to do. Rather than considering paratexts as activators of textual meaning we suggest that paratextual memory (i.e. memories of "being there" inserted around texts, and texts' transient contexts of "now-ness" and "then-ness" inserted into memory) inscribes specific texts with senses of longing and loss, identity and experience, that such texts could not originally convey. "Cultural memory," state Reading and Katriel, "emerges out of a blend of individual choices framed by institutional decisions and media constraints" (2015: 8). The first part of this article addresses how unofficial/official media texts constrain fans' paratextual memory, while the

Researching Historical Promotional Materials: Towards a New Methodology

“…56 Equally, recent work has noted that the 'spatiotemporality of paratexts … needs interrogation if we are to understand the role they play in cultural memory'. 57 While the link between spatiotemporality, paratexts, and cultural memory moves beyond the historical and methodological scope of this article, the materiality of the poster within fan acquisition may help underline the importance of reflecting on materiality (and the availability of material and digital objects) within data collection and selection processes when planning a study of historical promotional materials.…”

Researching Binge-Watching

“…This left little room in the schedules for re-runs. Yet, Matt Hills’ and Joanne Garde-Hansen’s research (2017) finds that audio recordings of Doctor Who (1963–1989) episodes were made when that technology became widely available in the 1970s, making it possible to re-visit episodes (at least in some fashion). This indicates that audience (or fan) desires for re-runs still existed.…”

Paratexts on a social network site and their relevance in the production of meaning—Results of a qualitative investigation of Twitter-Feeds

“…As such, with a view to (marketing-)paratexts and their preparatory functions [ 27 ], not only the engagement with the text/movie is predominant in the analysis of cinematic narratives. Ultimately, it is essential to understand how it becomes possible for meanings to be formed by audiences before text/movie reception, by recieving and interpreting companion texts [ 10 ; p. 1].…”