Slash 3

Slash 3 is Cultural Exchanges' annual conference dedicated to academic discussion of Slash. Slash is an interesting phenomenon where women write and publish fanfiction about two male characters in a sexual context. As you can imagine, it's more interesting than I'm making it sound.

It was a very interesting day. As usual I turned up late for it. Once I had recovered from that minor embarrasment I settled in to listen. I think my favourite panel was the one about race in fandom, because it was something I had been thinking about myself. The question seemed to be, is it fair to ignore race issues because you're after escapism? Can you still enjoy a movie or TV show even if you suspect it has racist undertones?

I admit I didn't take many notes. I'm not really all that good at academics, but I did listen. Also I took some pictures.

It was good fun overall. It's just a pity there won't be one next year. Hopefully there might be one held somewhere else...