Abstract
This article investigates the Lewis Carroll Society of Great Britain, suggesting parallels between popular media fandom and the “high cultural” literary society: the need for community, the obsession with close reading, the pleasures of pilgrimage, and the importance of defending the chosen text from criticism. However, the Lewis Carroll Society diverges from popular fandom in its comparatively greater cultural power, its potential to guide meanings in broader social discourse, and its blurring of the lines between amateur and academic publishing. Through these points of sameness and difference, it offers new insight into practices common to both popular and high cultural fandom.
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