Academic Books and Articles

Supernatural and our fandom has become a subject of academic interest with a number of books and articles published on a variety of aspects of both. For shorter fan writings in this area see Meta Essays

Books

• Some of us really do watch for the plot was published in 2007 through Cafe Press and was the first collection of meta on Supernatural
• In the Hunt: Unauthorized Essays on Supernatural
• The Supernatural Book of Monsters, Spirits, Demons and Ghouls
• The Mythology Of Supernatural
• TV Goes To Hell
• Fandom At The Crossroads
• Television, Religion and Supernatural
• Supernatural and Philosophy: Metaphysics and Monsters... for Idjits
• Fan Phenomena: Supernatural
• Fangasm: Supernatural Fangirls
• Supernatural, Humanity, and the Soul
• Death in Supernatural
• Fic: Why Fanfiction Is Taking Over the World (contains a chapter on Supernatural fanfic)
• Millenial Fandom: Television Audiences in the Transmedia Age by Louisa Ellen Stein includes a chapter on Misha Collins entitled "Misha Collins and the Power of Decentered Authorship."
• Crossing Fandoms: SuperWhoLock and the Contemporary Fan Audience] by Paul Booth (pdf download at link).
• Men with stakes: Masculinity and the Gothic in US Television. Wright, Julia M. 2016. Manchester University Press.
• TIME LORDS & TRIBBLES, WINCHESTERS & MUGGLES: THE DEPAUL POP CULTURE CONFERENCE (2017) Various Essays including Supernatural: Aker, Laurena. "Saving People: Supernatural and Social Issues." Booth, Paul and Isabella Menichiello. Time Lords & Tribbles, Winchesters & Muggles: The DePaul Pop Culture Conference A Five Year Retrospective. 117-120. AND Broesder, Allison. "The Family in Supernatural." Booth, Paul and Isabella Menichiello. 124-128. ISBN 978-1-36-607187-3.

Individual Chapters in Edited Volumes

Booth, Paul and Lucy Bennett. 2016. “Interview with Emily Perkins, Actor in Supernatural.” Seeing Fans: Representations of Fandom in Media and Popular Culture, eds. Paul Booth and Lucy Bennett. London: Bloomsbury. DOI: 10.5040/9781501318481

Freim, Nicole. 2011. “I’ll Take Our Family Over Normal Any Day: Supernatural’s Commentary on the Modern American Family.” Bound by Love: Familial Bonding in Film and Television since 1950, ed. Laura Mattoon D'Amore. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Fuchs, Michael. 2011. “Trapped in TV Land: Encountering the Hyperreal in Supernatural,” in Simulation in Media and Culture: Believing the Hype, ed. Robin DeRosa. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. http://www.academia.edu/400950/Trapped_in_TV_Land_Encountering_the_Hyperreal_in_Supernatural

Fuchs, Michael. 2012. “Play it Again, Sam … and Dean: Temporality and Meta-Textuality in Supernatural.” Time in Television Narrative: Exploring Temporality in Twenty-First-Century Programming, ed. Melissa Ames. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. DOI: 10.14325/mississippi/9781617032936.003.0006

Fuchs, Michael. 2014. “‘Three hundred channels and nothing’s on’: Metaleptic Genre-Mixing in Supernatural,” in Critical Reflections on Audience and Narrativity: New Connections, New Perspectives, eds. Bianca Mitu, Silvia Branea, and Valentina Marinescu. Hanover: ibidem-Verlag. http://www.fuchsmichael.net/index.php/news/47-publication-news/89-metaleptic-genre-mixing-in-supernatural#.V-lzVev3aK0

Golomb, Liorah. 2015. “Dipping a Toe into the DH Waters.” Digital Humanities in the Library: Challenges and Opportunities for Subject Specialists, ed. Arianne Hartsell-Gundy, Laura Braunstein, and Liorah Golomb. Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). http://www.alastore.ala.org/detail.aspx?ID=11391

Graham. Anissa M. 2013. “A New Kind of Pandering: Supernatural and the World of Fanfiction.” Fan CULTure: Essays on Participatory Fandom in the 21st Century, eds. Kristin M. Barton and Jonathan M. Lampley. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. http://www.mcfarlandbooks.com/excerpts/978-0-7864-7418-9.Pandering.pdf

Klein, Michael J. and Kristi L. Shackelford. 2012. “'Hey Sammy, We’re Not in Kansas Anymore’: The Frontier Motif in Supernatural.” Undead in the West: Vampires, Zombies, Mummies, and Ghosts on the Cinematic Frontier, eds. Cynthia J. Miller and A. Bowdoin Van Riper. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press.

Macklem, Lisa. 2014. “From Monstrous Mommies to Hunting Heroines: The Evolution of Women on Supernatural.” The Canadian Fantastic in Focus: New Perspectives, ed. Allan Weiss. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.

Larsen, Katherine and Lynn Zubernis. 2016. “We See You (Sort of): Representations of Fans on Supernatural.” Seeing Fans: Representations of Fandom in Media and Popular Culture, eds. Paul Booth and Lucy Bennett. London: Bloomsbury. DOI: 10.5040/9781501318481

Re, Valentina 2017. "The Monster at the End of This Book Metalepsis, Fandom, and World Making in Contemporary TV Series." in World Building. Transmedia, Fans, Industries. Boni, Marta (ed.) Amsterdam University Press.

Stein, Louise Ellen. (2013) “#Bowdown to Your New God”. A Companion to Media Authorship, eds Jonathan Gray and Derek Johnson. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, UK. doi: 10.1002/9781118505526.ch21

Wilkinson, Jules. 2013. “The Epic Love Story of Supernatural and Fanfic.” Why Fanfiction Is Taking Over the World, ed. Anne Jamison. https://www.wattpad.com/40308458-fic-why-fanfiction-is-taking-over-the-world-the

Academic articles

2018

Favard, Florent. 2018 Angels, demons and Whatever comes next: The storyworld Dynamics Of Supernatural Series. International journal of TV serial narratives Volume iv, nº 2, winter 2018: 19-26 https://series.unibo.it/article/view/8164/8711

Golomb, Liorah. 2018. “Let’s Go Gank Ourselves a Paris Hilton”: A Textual Analysis of the Dialogue of Supernatural (the First 10 Years). SHAREOK. https://hdl.handle.net/11244/317082.

2016

Brennan, Joseph. 2016. Queerbaiting: The 'playful’ possibilities of homoeroticism. International Journal of Cultural Studies. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1367877916631050

Harrisson, Juliette. 2016. “Shipping in Plato’s Symposium.” In “The Classical Canon and/as Transformative Work,” edited by Ika Willis, Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 21. http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2016.0690

Herbig, Art, and Andrew F. Herrmann. 2016. Polymediated Narrative: The Case of the Supernatural Episode “Fan Fiction”. International Journal of Communication, no. 10. http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/4397

Karkanias, Alena (2016) "The Transgressions of Gishwhes," Relics, Remnants, and Religion: An Undergraduate Journal in Religious Studies: Vol. 1 : Iss. 1 , Article 9. Available at: http://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/relics/vol1/iss1/9

2015

• “Teaching Multimodal Short Fiction: A Supernatural Gothic Tale.” by Matthew Schultz. Eureka Studies in Teaching Short Fiction, vol. 11–12, 2015, pp. 60–68.

• “Popping (It) Up: An Exploration on Popular Culture and TV Series Supernatural.” by Diana Gonçalves. DIFFRACTIONS, no. 4, Spring 2015.

Blake, Linnie. 2015. All Hell Breaks Loose: Supernatural, Gothic Neo-Liberalism and the American Self. Horror Studies, 6: 2, pp. 225–238. http://dx.doi.org/10.1386/host.6.2.225_1

Gonçalves, Diana. 2015. Popping (it) up: Popular Culture in Supernatural. Diffractions 4. https://lisbonconsortium.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/2-diana-gonc3a7alves_pop-culture-and-supernatural.pdf

2014

• A Black 1967 Chevy Impala: Fan Shibboleths as Cultural Password by Mark Stewart; Flow Conference 2014

• “Cowboys, Angels, and Demons: American Exceptionalism and the Frontier Myth in the CW’s Supernatural.” by Joseph M. Valenzano and Erika Engstrom. Communication Quarterly, vol. 62, no. 5, Oct. 2014, pp. 552–568.

• "You're My True Vessel": Knowledge and Digital Fan Culture Discussed on the Basis of Mediumship and Possession in Supernatural's Narrative and Fandom. Journal of Religion, Media and Digital Culture Vol 3, No 1. Kienzl, Lisa 2014

Torrey, K. T. 2014. Writing with the Winchesters: Metatextual Wincest and the provisional practice of happy ending. Journal of Fandom Studies 2: 2, pp. 163–180, http://dx.doi.org/10.1386/jfs.2.2.163_1 2013

• “Homilies and Horsemen: Revelation in the CW’s Supernatural.” by Joseph M. Valenzano III and Erika Engstrom. Journal of Communication & Religion, vol. 36, no. 1, Apr. 2013, pp. 50–72.
• “Television: Horror’s ‘Original’ Home.” by Lisa Schmidt. Horror Studies, vol. 4, no. 2, 2013, pp. 159–171. (covers Supernatural and The Vampire Diaries)

Howell, Charlotte E. 2013. The Gospel of the Winchesters (And Their Fans): Neoreligious Fan Practices and Narrative in Supernatural. Kinephanos 4:1 http://www.kinephanos.ca/2013/supernatural/

2012

• “Dean Winchester: An Existentialist Hero?/Dean Winchester: ¿Un Héroe Existencialista?” by Silva, Alyssa. Sesión No Numerada: Revista de Letras Y Ficción Audiovisual, vol. 2, 2012, pp. 67–83.

• “Hauntings: Uncanny Doubling in Alan Wake and Supernatural.” by Michael Fuchs. Textus: English Studies in Italian, vol. 25, no. 3, Dec. 2012, pp. 63–74.

• “The Politics of Taking: La Llorona in the Cultural Mainstream.” by Domino Renee Perez. Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 45, no. 1, Feb. 2012, pp. 153–172. (discusses pilot episode's adaptation of Mexican folkore figure of La Llorona as the [Woman in White])

Herzog, Alexandra. 2012. 'But this is my story and this is how I wanted to write it’: Author’s Notes as a Fannish Claim to Power in Fan Fiction Writing. Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 11. http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2012.0406

2011

• A Critical Analysis of Modern Fan Cultures Attached to Television Texts and the Participatory Nature of Their Activities. With Specific Focus on the Fan Culture of Supernatural June 2011

2010 Blake, Linnie. 2015. All Hell Breaks Loose: Supernatural, Gothic Neo-Liberalism and the American Self. Horror Studies, 6: 2, pp. 225–238. http://dx.doi.org/10.1386/host.6.2.225_1

• “Demon Hunters and Hegemony: Portrayal of Religion on the CW’s Supernatural.” by Erika Engstrom and Joseph M. Valenzano. Journal of Media and Religion, vol. 9, no. 2, Apr. 2010, pp. 67–83.

• “The Forensic Gothic: Knowledge, the Supernatural, and the Psychic Detective.” by Ann McGuire and David Buchbinder. Canadian Review of American Studies/Revue Canadienne d’Etudes Américaines, vol. 40, no. 3, 2010, pp. 289–307. (covers Supernatural and Medium)

Engstrom, Erika, and Joseph M. Valenzano, III. 2010. Demon hunters and hegemony: Portrayal of religion on the CW’s Supernatural. Journal of Media and Religion 9, (2), 67-83. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15348421003738785

• Transformative Works and Cultures published a special Supernatural issue in March 2010.

Åström, Berit. 2010. “Let’s get those Winchesters pregnant”: Male pregnancy in Supernatural fan fiction. Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 4. http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2010.0135

Bruce, Melissa N. 2010. The Impala as negotiator of melodrama and masculinity in Supernatural. Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 4. http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2010.0154

Chan, Suzette. 2010. Supernatural bodies: Writing subjugation and resistance onto Sam and Dean Winchester. Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 4. http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2010.0179

Felschow, Laura. 2010. “Hey, check it out, there’s actually fans”: (Dis)empowerment and (mis)representation of cult fandom in Supernatural. Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 4. http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2010.0134

Flegel, Monica, and Jenny Roth. 2010. Annihilating love and heterosexuality without women: Romance, generic difference, and queer politics in Supernatural fan fiction. Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 4. http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2010.0133

Freund, Katharina. 2010. “I’m glad we got burned, think of all the things we learned”: Fandom conflict and context in Counteragent’s “Still Alive.” Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 4. http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2010.0187

Gray, Melissa. 2010. From canon to fanon and back again: The epic journey of Supernatural and its fans. Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 4. http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2010.0146

McGuire, Ann and David Buchbinder. 2010. The Forensic Gothic: Knowledge, the Supernatural, and the Psychic Detective. Canadian Review of American Studies 40, (3), 289-307. http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/cras.40.3.289

Noone, Kristin. 2010. What are little ghouls made of? The Supernatural family, fandom, and the problem of Adam. Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 4. http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2010.0136

Petersen, Line Nybro. 2010. Renegotiating religious imaginations through transformations of “banal religion” in Supernatural. Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 4. http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2010.0142

Schmidt, Lisa. 2010. Monstrous melodrama: Expanding the scope of melodramatic identification to interpret negative fan responses to Supernatural. Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 4. http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2010.0152

Sivarajan, Deepa. 2010. Tlön, fandom, and source text: The effect of fan works on the narrative of Supernatural. Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 4. http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2010.0171

Stein, Louisa Ellen. 2010. “What you don’t know”: Supernatural fan vids and millennial theology. Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 4. http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2010.0158

Tosenberger, Catherine. 2010a. Love! Valor! Supernatural! [editorial]. Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 4. http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2010.0212

Tosenberger, Catherine. 2010b. “Kinda like the folklore of its day”: Supernatural, fairy tales, and ostension. Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 4. http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2010.0174

Wilkinson, Jules. 2010. A box of mirrors, a unicorn, and a pony. Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 4. http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2010.0159

Zarin, Babak. 2010. Infernal redemption. Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 4. http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2010.0156

2009

• "No Chick Flick Moments": 'Supernatural' as a Masculine Narrative, by April R. Boggs, at OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, 2009

• Squeeing, Flailing, and the “Post-Jared-and-Jensen Glow”: An Ethnography of Creation Entertainment’s March 2009 “Salute to Supernatural ” Conventions by Amanda Straw

2008

• "The epic love story of Sam and Dean": Supernatural, queer readings, and the romance of incestuous fan fiction by Catherine Tosenberger, in Journal of Transformative Works and Cultures, Volume 1, 2008

• "Latchkey Hero": Masculinity, Class and the Gothic in Eric Kripke's Supernatural, by Julia M. Wright, in Genders OnLine Journal, Issue 47, 2008

• "Not just spooky": the collaborative aesthetics of Supernatural fandom on Runet by Sudha Rajagopalan, for EASA Media Anthropology Network (Working Papers and e-Seminar Series)

• Themes and Models of Supernatural Hurt/Comfort Fan Fiction Supernatural "You break him, we post it by Amanda Straw

Theses and Dissertations

Unpublished Academic Works (i.e. Theses & Dissertations)

Bennett, Eve. 2015. “A Man’s End of the World? Gender in Post-9/11 American Apocalyptic Television.” PhD dissertation, De Montfort University. http://hdl.handle.net/2086/11439

Boggs, April. 2009. “No Chick Flick Moments: ‘Supernatural’ as a Masculine Narrative.” MA Thesis, Bowling Green State University. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1237564610

Brennan, Joseph Carl Linden. 2009. “I Am Your Worst Fear, I Am Your Best Fantasy: New Approaches to Slash Fiction.” Honours thesis, Department of Media and Communications, University of Sydney. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/5872

Burnell, Aaron. 2011. “Nobody’s Darlings: Reading White Trash in Supernatural.” MA Thesis, Bowling Green State University. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1305054871

Collier, Cassandra M. 2015. “The Love That Refuses to Speak its Name: Examining Queerbaiting and Fan-Producer Interactions in Fan Cultures.” MA Thesis, University of Louisville. http://dx.doi.org/10.18297/etd/2204

Dhalqvist, Ingeborg. 2011. “Competitive Talk and the Three Main Characters of Supernatural.” Unpublished manuscript, Mälardalen University. http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A511603&dswid=4389

Fathallah, Judith. 2013. “Changing Discursive Formations from Supernatural: Fanfic and the Legitimation Paradox.” PhD Dissertation, Cardiff University. http://orca.cf.ac.uk/id/eprint/58900

Genovese, Megan. 2015. “Boys, Girls, and Monsters: Regulation of Normative Gender in Supernatural.” Honors thesis, Baylor University. http://hdl.handle.net/2104/9354

Hampton, Darlene Rose. 2010. “Beyond Resistance: Gender, Performance, and Fannish Practice in Digital Culture.” PhD Dissertation, University of Oregon. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/11070

Handley, Christine. 2010. “'Playthings in the Margins of Literature’: Cultural Critique and Rewriting Ideologies in Supernatural and Star Wars Fanfiction.” MA Thesis, Dalhousie University. http://hdl.handle.net/10222/13027

Holder, Laura L. 2014. “Common Christs: Christ Figures, American Christianity, and Sacrifice on Cult Television.” PhD Dissertation, University of Louisiana at Lafayette. http://gradworks.umi.com/36/87/3687688.html

Karkanias, Alena. 2014. “The Intra- and Inter-Sub-Community Dynamics of Fandom.” Summer Research. Paper 230. http://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/summer_research/230

Karkanias, Alena. 2015. “And the (Fourth) Wall Came Tumbling Down: The Impact of Renegotiating Fan-Creator Relationships on Supernatural.” Summer Research. Paper 248. http://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/summer_research/248

Klungnes, Kristina Mariell Dulsrud. 2016. “Driver Picks the Music” - Supernatural - A Journey With Music as Fuel. MA Thesis, University of Oslo. http://urn.nb.no/URN:NBN:no-54625

Lander, Katherine. 2013. “That’s So Meta: Contemporary Reflexive Television and its Textual Strategies.” MA Thesis, DePaul University. http://via.library.depaul.edu/cmnt/18

Lausch, Kayti Adaire. 2013. “The Niche Network: Gender, Genre, and the CW Brand.” MA Thesis, University of Texas at Austin. http://hdl.handle.net/2152/22453

Lietz, Michelle. 2016. “Cannibalism in Contact Narratives and the Evolution of the Wendigo.” MA Thesis, Eastern Michigan University. http://commons.emich.edu/theses/671

Macklem, Lisa. 2013. “We’re on This Road Together: The Changing Fan/Producer Relationship in Television as Demonstrated by Supernatural.” MA Thesis, University of Western Ontario. http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/1748

Turner, Emily 2006. Scary just got sexy' The pleasure of transgression in the creative Supernatural fandom. Honours research project. School of Creative Arts. University of Melbourne.

Vermeer, Alicia Suzanne. 2014. “Searching for God: Portrayals of Religion on Television.” MA Thesis, University of Iowa. http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/4785

Wickersham, Alexandra. 2014. “Mothers, Martyrs, Damsels, and Demons: Women in Western Horror from Romanticism to the Modern Age.” ESSAI: Vol. 12, Article 36. http://dc.cod.edu/essai/vol12/iss1/36

Yerima, Adam Kem, "Saving Innocents: Tracing The Human Monster Hunter’s Hetero-Normative Agenda From The 1970s To Today" (2016). Wayne State University Dissertations. 1608. http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/oa_dissertations/1608