Disruptive gratitude: Challenging relationships between fangirls and curriculum theory

Abstract

By pulling from the complex field of fan studies, I hope to show how fan studies, particularly fangirls and their practices, can inform the field of curriculum theory. In this article, through an autobiographical sharing of moments, I consider how fangirl practices have shaped the way I regard scholars, conferences, and relationships. I then introduce a notion of “disruptive gratitude” into understandings of both fandom and curriculum theorizing and discuss how that concept might be used as a way to interrupt those fan(girl) practices that silence, erase, and oppress. Then, I consider three moments of disruptive gratitude that demonstrate my fangirling and reflect on how those moments have shaped my interactions with the community (and a fandom) in scholarship, spaces, and structures. I conclude by theorizing how the notion of disruptive gratitude enacted through fangirl practices serves as a possible way to undertake the necessary work of curriculum theory in order to challenge the structures of the field that standardize education, demoralize the profession, and ignore inequities.

Keywords:

• Fan studies
• gratitude
• curriculum studies
• women authors
• whiteness

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Claudia Eppert for the conversations and hard work that created this symposium and followed it to the final stage. I would also like to thank Nichole Guillory, Isabel Nuñez, and Hongyu Wang for their wonderful contributions to this symposium and the CI editorial team and reviewers for their incredible insights and suggestions. Finally, special thanks to Petra Hendry and Laura Choate, my writing group, for their ongoing support. I am a fan of you all.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.