How should one theorize Boys Love as a fandom phenomenon? What makes BL fandom – and indeed, BL media more broadly – queer? Are there any distinctions between BL fandom and other forms of fandom for queer media? Is there anything about BL and its fandom that are distinctly Asian? If so, how should we make sense of this?

These are just some of the many questions I am asked by my students, fellow academics, and also fellow fans who are curious to learn more about BL.

Motivated in part to provide my answers to these questions, when I was approached by the editors of the newly released Routledge Companion to Media Fandom, 2nd Edition to write a contribution I eagerly took the opportunity to write on BL as a form of transcultural fandom. In my new chapter “Boys Love Media across Asia: Theorizing the Role of Queer Affect in Transcultural Fandom” I suggest that scholars should pay attention to the queer affective responses which unite fans together into a transcultural community to make sense of BL fandom and its power to emancipate marginalized subjects not only across Asia, but around the world.

Here’s the abstract:

Grounded in romantic and sexual narratives focused on men, Boys Love (BL) has generated an increasingly globalized fandom culture that appeals to both heterosexual female and LGBTQ+ consumers. This chapter draws upon extensive ethnographic research of BL fans across Asia to consider how a transcultural approach can help fan studies scholars understand the role of affect in the production of fandom culture. Specifically, through exploring both fans’ motivations for consuming BL products as well as investigating the fantasy work to which they put their consumption of BL in their everyday lives, I reveal how this internationalized fandom is ultimately grounded in “queer affects” that challenge societal heteronormativity. Throughout my analysis, I also consider how the specifically Asian nature of this media phenomenon and fandom culture can nuance dominant theories utilized within the Western academy to make sense of queer representation in popular culture texts. Taking a reparative approach sensitive to the transcultural affective work of BL culture, I suggest that BL fandom in Asia provides theorists an opportunity to reconsider questions relating to queerbaiting, thus recentering fan studies discussions on the role of affective affordances as a site for producing novel understandings of queer media’s political potentials.

You can find a free PDF of my chapter here (please note that this is a corrected proof version of the paper that contains some minor infelicities of style and comments from me as editor!)