{"id":18,"date":"2021-12-15T13:42:59","date_gmt":"2021-12-15T13:42:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dlf.uzh.ch\/sites\/spoiltheconference\/?page_id=18"},"modified":"2022-03-17T08:37:52","modified_gmt":"2022-03-17T08:37:52","slug":"vortragende","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/dlf.uzh.ch\/sites\/spoiltheconference\/vortragende\/","title":{"rendered":"Speakers"},"content":{"rendered":"
Keynotes<\/h5>\n
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Kristina Busse, Independent Scholar<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"Spoiler Warnings: Negotiating Originality, Genre Expectation, and the Enjoyments of Repetition <\/em>
\nKristina Busse (PhD English, Tulane University) is an independent scholar and media fan. Her primary research is on fan fiction and fan cultures, and her work has appeared in various collections and journals, including Cinema Journal, Camera Obscura, <\/em>and Popular Communication<\/em>. She is founding coeditor of the online peer-reviewed academic journal Transformative Works and Culture<\/em> (2008\u2013 ). Kristina is the author of Framing Fan Fiction<\/em> (U of Iowa, 2017) as well as coeditor of Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet<\/em> (McFarland, 2006), Sherlock and Transmedia Fandom<\/em> (McFarland, 2012), and The Fan Fiction Studies Reader<\/em> (U of Iowa, 2014). She is currently coauthoring Fan Fantasies and the Politics of Desire<\/em> (U of Michigan, 2023) with Alexis Lothian.<\/p>\nAbstract<\/span>

In this talk I suggest that there exist structural parallels between an inclination for spoilers and fannish engagements that rewards and requires repeated reading\/viewing of the text. Fan engagement tends to value repetition: fannish texts are often comprised of genre shows or series that extend existing universes; most fans repeatedly watch and discuss episodes and entire seasons, often collectively; the sharing of screen shots, GIFs, and videos on social media platforms recalls favorite scenes; and, finally, fan fiction revisits familiar moments in the source tex\u2014again and again.Fan fiction is heavily indebted to familiar genre tropes, which is demonstrated in fandom\u2019s intricate archival tagging structures. Tags offer readers basic paratextual information ranging from fandom, age ratings, and triggering content, to setting, characterization, and narrative tropes. These folksonomies are also gaining popularity in professional book marketing and reviewing; this paratextual expansion beyond fannish boundaries suggests that there may be substantial groups of readers who prefer detailed information before starting a text.There has been important recent work that sidesteps the moral judgment so often attached to spoiler discourses. In its stead, there is a greater focus on the exact relationship between types of spoilers and texts and their respective effects on audience enjoyments. I look at receptions within fan and genre studies specifically, in order to argue that anticipating, experiencing, and fulfilling specific expectations can generate deep satisfaction. Drawing from the reception of \u201cretold stories,\u201d I conclude that spoiled texts can offer the safety of the familiar and the comfort of the known.
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Albrecht Koschorke, University of Konstanz <\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"Some Notes on Suspense<\/em>
\nAlbrecht Koschorke is a professor of German literature and literary studies at the University of Konstanz and an extraordinary professor at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. Recent publications: On Hitler\u2019s \u00abMein Kampf\u00bb. The Poetics of National Socialism<\/em>. Cambridge\/MA: MIT Press 2017. \u2013 Fact and Fiction. Elements of a General Theory of Narrative<\/em>. Berlin Boston: de Gruyter 2018.<\/p>\nAbstract<\/span>

What do spoilers spoil? They deprive people of surprise & suspense. But what is suspense, how is it built into a story, and how does it affect the story\u2019s consumers? There are many genres or ways of storytelling whose attractiveness doesn\u2019t depend on providing suspense. And there are stories that might be considered suspenseful but won\u2019t lose any of their appeal when read, listened to or watched yet again. Thus spoilers are a threat only to a specific kind of narration and certain techniques of finalizing a plot. \u2013 The lecture aims at exploring the background of the conference\u2019s topic from a narratological point of view.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Judith E. Rosenbaum, University of Maine<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"Spoilers and the Narrative Experience: Lessons from Ten Years of Empirical Research<\/em>
\nJudith E. Rosenbaum (Ph.D., Radboud University Nijmegen) is an Associate Professor in Media Studies and Chair of the Department of Communication and Journalism at the University of Maine. She conducts research focused on understanding how people actively use media content in their daily lives and how this usage is related to their identities, relationships, and perceptions of reality. Her research has specifically looked at the role played by spoilers in the narrative experience; how social media usage impacts people\u2019s attitudes, behaviors, and connections; and media literacy, fake news, and misinformation. Her work has appeared in a variety of peer-reviewed journals, including Communication Research, Media Psychology, Journal of Media Psychology, Communication Teacher, Journal of Media Literacy Education,<\/em> and Psychology of Popular Media Culture<\/em>. She also authored Constructing Digital Cultures: Tweets, Trends, Race and Gender<\/em> (Lexington, 2018) and co-edited Twitter, the Public Sphere, and the Chaos of Online Deliberation<\/em> (Palgrave-MacMillan, 2020).
\nAbstract<\/span>

In the past decade, empirical research into how spoilers impact people\u2019s enjoyment of a narrative has grown exponentially. Starting with a single study published over ten years ago (Leavitt & Christenfeld, 2011), which showed that spoilers enhanced enjoyment, and a follow-up study a few years later (Johnson & Rosenbaum, 2015) that found the opposite, the field quickly moved from proving whether or not spoilers impacted enjoyment to understanding how this relationship works. Dozens of publications have since explored how and when spoilers impact the narrative experience. Empirical research into spoilers mainly utilizes experiments and initially relied on literary short stories but eventually switched to clips taken from films, movie trailers, and entire episodes of popular television shows to test new ideas. To date, all this research has produced an impressive, but also conflicting, body of knowledge about the impact of spoilers.The relationship between spoilers and people\u2019s enjoyment of and transportation into a narrative has been shown to hinge on a variety of factors, some connected to the consumers themselves, and others linked to the nature of the spoiler or the narrative. Research has examined the role played by consumer-related variables such as personality traits, reactance, or the level of frustration someone experiences when confronted by a spoiler, as well as people\u2019s level of identification with and concern for the characters in a movie or show. Furthermore, investigations have looked into whether the genre of the narrative that is being spoiled matters and if the nature of the spoiler (major or minor) or its placement in the story is relevant to its impact on the narrative experience. Recognizing the shortcomings of some of the experimental designs used in the past, research is currently focused on utilizing more naturalistic settings to examine under which circumstances people might select spoilers and how this impacts their experience. While studies to date have produced an impressive amount of information about how spoilers impact narrative consumers, findings are not always consistent across studies. This raises questions about the complexity and nuance of the role that spoilers play in people\u2019s enjoyment of narratives as well as the methodologies used in these studies. This presentation will address these questions and more by providing an overview of the major findings that have come out of this decade of research. It will also consider the methodological choices made by various researchers and examine the challenges and opportunities associated with these approaches. Finally, this talk will reflect on unresolved issues surrounding spoilers and ways to move forward.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Panels<\/h5>\n
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Matthias Br\u00fctsch, University of Zurich<\/strong>
\n\"\"Plot Points, Twists and Spoilers: Notes on the Dramatic Impact of Withholding and Revealing Narrative Information in Films and TV series<\/em>
\nMatthias Br\u00fctsch is senior lecturer at the Department of Film Studies of the University of Zurich. His research interests lie in film narratology and dramaturgy with a particular focus on forms of complex narration. Among his recent publications are \u201cPuzzle Plots in TV Serials\u201d (in Panoptikum<\/em>, 22\/29, 2019), \u201cComplex Narration in Film\u201d (in Schickers\/Toro eds, Perturbatory Narration, Berlin 2018<\/em>) and \u201cHow to Measure Narrativity?\u201d (in Hansen et al. eds, Emerging Vectors of Narratology<\/em>, Berlin 2017). In addition to his academic activities, he was an active member of various selection committees, film commissions and boards of trustees of film festivals, funding institutions and promotion agencies in Switzerland.
\nAbstract<\/span>

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Debates about spoilers frequently focus on the question whether it is good or bad to reveal narrative information in advance, whether \u201cignorance is bliss\u201d for first-time viewers of a film or TV show. Depending on the personal preferences of each individual spectator, answers to these questions are bound to remain inconclusive. What seems much less controversial, however, is the fact that the viewing experience (whether experienced as enjoyable or not) can be quite different for those who are in the know of relevant pieces of information before they are \u201cofficially\u201d conveyed in the process of narration. And the bigger the difference, the bigger the potential spoiler. Spoilers thus interfere with the \u201cknowledge management\u201d set up by filmic texts. I therefore propose to focus on the following questions:<\/p>\n