Revolutionary America from Concord and Lexington to Ferguson: Folk Transmediation of Historical Storytelling

Abstract

Examining nonfiction remix demonstrates fandom's role in helping maintain a lively public engagement with history. By rewriting and remixing the life of Alexander Hamilton, the AIDS epidemic, and the African American civil rights movement, professional and amateur artists create a living "history of the present," excavate the genealogy of modern problems, and intervene in contemporary political storytelling by writing a new version of the foundational national past. As a result, transmedia with roots in the public domain offers an important curb against the encroaching media industry and facilitates folk creativity and civic interchange in a shared symbolic language.