Allison Hawkins
Piracy as a Catalyst for Evolution in Anime Fandom (thesis)
Primary FTVM Faculty Advisor: Markus Nornes
Allison's thesis explored the relationship between piracy, technology, and fandom in the anime fan community. By researching the fan's role as creator, distributor, and consumer, she examined the way in which fans have used illegality to expand the anime community from a niche market to one that is both large and profitable. Speaking with fans, legitimate distribution companies, and anime creators, she found that the use of technology for piracy has helped to establish anime fandom as a viable market while still creating problems for profiting in that market. Despite this complex relationship between fandom and businesses, this thesis explores how the two parties might find ways to coexist, and how piracy could ultimately be beneficial to growing communities.
Wesley Swartz
Possession (film)
Primary FTVM Faculty Advisor: Terri Sarris
Lagos, Nigeria. An unknown narrator recounts a Nigerian tabloid story as ethnography is forcibly evicted from the house of rationality. Documentary footage of Lagos mixes with pirated ‘Nollywood’ images in a series of fictions, reconstructing notions of Africa and highlighting an ongoing Western fascination with the continent. This is not a film about 'Nollywood'. This is a film about ghosts/ghosting.
