Swedish Fanzine Scholarship Rewarded

The Swedish Royal National Library announced April 11 that “Research on science fiction fanzines gets this year’s Klemming Scholarship”. Hampus Eckerman has provided a translation of the press release.

Jerry Määttä, PhD in Comparative Literature, has been awarded this year’s Klemming Scholarship of 50 000 swedish crowns from the Royal National Library. He receives the award for his project “Swedish science fiction fanzines, about 1970-1990: bibliography, functions, forms of expression.”

The citation reads: “A scientifically rigorous application with realistic implementation plan on an exciting and underutilized category of material that deserves more attention.”

A fanzine is a simple amateur produced publication that is primarily intended for a small circle of readers with a common, but in the public’s eyes narrow interest. This year Klemming scholar Jerry Määttä studies the Swedish science fiction fanzines uniqueness, functionality and expression.

The project is meant to result in a bibliography of the most important Swedish science fiction fanzines from the 1970s and 1980s. The aim is also to study the fanzine as an expression of a pre-digital Community similar to that of digital media (mailing lists, web forums and social media) later launched to a wider public.

The applications in this year’s call for proposals have been assessed by Dr Erika Kihlman, Stockholm University, tf. Head of Department Miriam Nauri, KB, and associate professor Jonas Nordin, KB.

Määttä’s webpage outlines his other scholarly activities:

He is currently involved in research of the study “The End of the World: The Rhetoric and Ideology of Apocalypse in Literature and Film, ca. 1950–2010”. He seems drawn to this area as his previous study was “Elegy for an Empire: The Disaster Stories of John Wyndham, 1951–1957”. Another study on the same subject, “Keeping Count of the End of the World – A Statistical Analysis of the Historiography, Canonisation, and Historical Fluctuations of Anglophone Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Disaster Narratives”, can be downloaded from here: http://www.cultureunbound.ep.liu.se/v7/a23/cu15v7a23.pdf

The download is in English.

[Thanks to Hampus Eckerman for the story.]

One thought on “Swedish Fanzine Scholarship Rewarded

  1. Jerry is a Guest at Fantastika in June. I will look forward to meeting him there.

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