Writer, researcher and Information School PhD student Phoenix C S Andrews has recently signed a book deal with Atlantic Books, who will release Andrews’ book I Heart Politics: Why Fandom Explains What’s Really Going On in 2022. "From Brexit rallies to the Capitol Hill Riot and QAnon to Extinction Rebellion, I Heart Politics argues that to understand what’s really happening behind the headlines we need to think about one overlooked phenomenon: fandom”, the synopsis reads. Whilst this is an area not explicitly related to Phoenix’s PhD study, it’s something that they have been interested in and writing about for some time.
Fandoms and politics may not seem obviously linked at first, but at their core, fandoms are about the shared emotional attachments that people have to certain ideas, people or media. For many, this can certainly extend to individual politicians, political parties, campaigns or even politics as a whole, whether or not the fans themselves realise it.
“Lots of people will say ‘oh no I’m not a fan’, but then you find out that they watch Question Time or PMQs every week and have a shelf full of political biographies”, Phoenix says, “so they’re definitely a fan of politics, even if they don’t identify as a fan of particular politicians.” The book uses the framework of fandoms as a way to explain why politics is the way it is and why people react to things in the ways that they do. Phoenix feels that this is particularly relevant in the age of social media, which has undoubtedly driven an increased feeling of polarisation in politics in recent years. However, they also argue that this is not exclusively a modern issue, drawing lines back as far as the public’s perception of Winston Churchill, and even mobs in Roman times.
“This way of thinking can help people to understand why they’re having the arguments that they are having, or why people think the way that they do”, Phoenix continues. “People find identity and community by being a fan.”
The signing of this book deal is the latest milestone in the long and evolving story of Phoenix’s career as a writer, journalist and commentator. Having been talking about the topics of fandoms and politics at events and on Twitter for years, Phoenix describes having always been a fan of politics themselves, as well as being involved in fandoms outside of politics, such as in music and comedy. “It just seemed to me like a really obvious way of explaining things”, they say.
“Lots of people will say ‘oh no I’m not a fan’, but then you find out that they watch Question Time or PMQs every week and have a shelf full of political biographies, so they’re definitely a fan of politics, even if they don’t identify as a fan of particular politicians."
After the 2017 General Election, Phoenix wrote an article for online open access magazine Discover Society explaining ‘Corbynism’, the youth-driven fandom built around then Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. Following this, Phoenix secured a short-term postdoc position in the politics department at the University of Leeds, researching populism in the political left. All this was running alongside their PhD at Sheffield, and they were also writing many articles and thought pieces in national and international newspapers about political fandom. “It was partly to get the ideas out there quicker - as publishing academic papers takes a lot more time and effort - and partly as a way for me to make money”, Phoenix explains. “Then people started asking ‘when are you going to write a book about this? We’d set it on our reading lists!’”
Questions like this underlined the fact that I Heart Politics needed to be a trade book, rather than an academic one. Phoenix always wanted to reach audiences wider than academia, though of course the book will still be academically rigorous and thoroughly researched. “I’ve used the skills I developed whilst researching for my PhD to write this book”, they explain, “as well as my access to the University’s library resources”.
Though Phoenix has a proposal and full outline of the book prepared, and a book deal signed, the book is not yet written. There is one other major milestone to reach first: the submission of their PhD. The deadline for that is this coming April, with the book due in October, to then be published in September of next year, 2022. “I often say that I sort of did a second PhD alongside my actual PhD”, jokes Phoenix. “For the past few years people have assumed that this is what my PhD is about, but it’s not - I’ve just made a lot of extra work for myself!”
“If you go into the politics section of your average bookshop or library, most of the books are by white men of a certain age, and the ones that are by women, LGBTQ+ people or people of colour tend to be by famous journalists or TV actors, so this is quite exciting.”
Phoenix does admit that I Heart Politics has some crossover with their PhD thesis, which is entitled 'Faffing about': gatekeepers, values and flows in research sharing infrastructures. Both look at peoples’ emotional perceptions of things; how they feel, rather than objective truths. The thesis looks at scholarly infrastructure and how research and library staff experience the flow of data in institutional repositories, and Phoenix started the project as an activist for the idea of Open Access - a movement they now feel is a fandom itself.
Signing with Atlantic Books is a big deal for Phoenix. “Atlantic are one of the bigger independent publishers in the UK”, Phoenix says. “They’ve published quite a lot of political books, but nothing quite like mine.” In the first week after the signing announcement, Phoenix found themselves in the top 10 publishing announcements amongst 9 verified famous faces, placed above Quentin Tarantino. “It’s quite a risk for publishers to take on new and unknown authors, especially at the moment whilst bookshops aren’t open and book festivals are all online”, they add.
Phoenix is very clear that the book is called I Heart Politics and not ‘I Love Politics’. There was even a heart emoji in the official title in most drafts of the proposal. “The people who work on the metadata said that I couldn’t have an emoji in the title because it doesn’t work very well on library systems”, they explain. However, there is hope in the design of the book’s cover, which is currently being worked on. “Academic book covers are often very dull, but I’m hoping, as this is a trade book, we can incorporate the heart emoji somewhere”.
"My dream of being a writer as a kid was never just to do one book.”
The ironic edge that the heart embodies is there to emphasise that this is a book intended to appeal to young, internet-savvy political readers, as well as people more used to reading dense political books. Phoenix’s own identity also factors into this break from the norm for political writings, as they explain: “If you go into the politics section of your average bookshop or library, most of the books are by white men of a certain age, and the ones that are by women, LGBTQ+ people or people of colour tend to be by famous journalists or TV actors, so this is quite exciting.”
Phoenix acknowledges that, alongside the excitement, there is some pressure that comes with publishing a trade book compared to academic papers. They say that whilst there is incentive to push your academic writings and build impact case studies, the impetus in academia is just to publish, whereas in trade publishing you really do need to sell units.
“Becoming a published writer is the dream for me, though this feels like the beginning rather than the goal”, Phoenix says. “Getting a book deal doesn’t mean I’ve written the book, and then publishing a book doesn’t mean that anyone will buy it, or that I’ll get to do another one. My dream of being a writer as a kid was never just to do one book.”
We will eagerly await whatever comes next.
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