I was struck when reading it how much I'd like to read a more wide-ranging account of women and fandom, let alone women and Doctor Who. Without being particularly scholarly, Doctor Who Magazine has produced very respectable overviews of the work of people involved in producing Doctor Who down the years so the, I suppose broadly speaking, journalistic skills are present within fandom even if the academic skills are not, so I don't see why you couldn't put together a wide-ranging examination of women and Doctor Who. But it would need less of a focus on the interview and the anecdote or, if it was going to go down that route, then a more ruthless selection of participants. Towards the end I began to roll my eyes a bit when an essay inevitably got to the "and then I started going to ChicagoTARDIS" bit.
I very much doubt we'll get a good academic study in the near future though. As you observe the aca-fans are invariably too close to the material and fandom as a whole has been too badly treated by academics from outside its circles. Any outsider seriously wanting to study the topic is going to meet a great deal of obstruction from significant parts of the community, rendering any study partial at best.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-27 05:29 pm (UTC)I very much doubt we'll get a good academic study in the near future though. As you observe the aca-fans are invariably too close to the material and fandom as a whole has been too badly treated by academics from outside its circles. Any outsider seriously wanting to study the topic is going to meet a great deal of obstruction from significant parts of the community, rendering any study partial at best.