FIMS Profile

Effie [she/her]

I am a Media Studies PhD candidate in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at Western University. I hold a Master’s degree in English literature from the University of Massachusetts Boston. 

Tentative Title: Networked Storytelling on New Media Platforms

My dissertation explores digital storytelling on new media platforms, such as TikTok, the importance of storytelling and, especially, telling many stories from varied perspectives—this dissertation will emphasize the danger of the single story, even in fictional worlds. It focuses on the moment of crisis which occurs—and which necessitates storytelling as a countermeasure—when recognition is withheld, or when identity is erased. This project builds off of prior work on self-insert fanfiction across traditional text-based platforms and on self-insert fanvids (fanmade videos in which the fan/creator inserts themselves, physically, into the story world) on media-based platforms. Engaging in a feminist close reading of TikTok videos, this project explores the restorying of identity that occurs in these videos, via the content and dialogue, but also via negotiated uses of the physical body. This performance and the networks being build within and across platforms allows for a "collaborative construction" of a new, or rebuilt, storyworld. This project engages an interdisciplinary framework informed by digital humanities, intersectional feminism, ethics of care, and fan and platform studies. 

In Progress Projects

Currently, I am working on my dissertation and a special issue, for Transformative Works and Cultures, focused on fandoms and platforms. My work has been published in Transformative Works and Cultures and Humanities. 

I moderate a Discord community for fan studies scholars, and another one for scholars interested in the intersections between fan studies and digital humanities. I am a new member of the Fan Studies Network North America Conference committee. Additionally, I am the founder and editor of Fterota Logia, an online young adult literary magazine, as well as the Reviews Editor for the Journal of Fandom Studies. I am also the Outreach and Communications Editor for Transformative Works and Cultures and I have managed the Facebook presence of literary magazine, AGNI, for several years. 

Scholarships and Awards

2023 Senior Women Academic Administrators of Canada Graduate Student Award of Merit, for academic achievement, service, and leadership
2022 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Fellowship, for research and academic achievement
2021 Ontario Graduate Scholarship, for academic achievement
2020 Ontario Graduate Scholarship, for academic achievement
2019 Western University Dean’s Entrance Scholarship

Western University
Teaching Assistant (with tutorial section)

MIT 1020E: Intro to Media Studies   [year-long]      (2022-2023)
MIT 2025B: Research Methods for the Digital Age [winter] (2021-2022)
MIT 1025F: First Year Foundations for MIT [fall] (2021-2022)
MIT 1020E: Intro Media Studies       [year-long]      (2020-2021)
MIT 1020E: Intro to Media Studies   [year-long]      (2019-2020)

University of Massachusetts Boston
Instructor of Record

ENG 273G: The Art of Fiction          (F2016)
ENG 262G: The Art of Literature      (F2015, S2016)

Teaching Assistant

ENG 258 Intro to World Cinema       (S2015)

Other Teaching Experience

2020-2022 Graduate Fellow: Huron University Writing Services
2017-2022 Freelance Tutor [K-12, College, SAT/ACT Prep]    
2017-2019       Academic/College Essay/Test Prep Tutor: JBG Educational Group     

Research Experience

2022-2023 Platforming Culture: Accessing Art and Heritage through Google Arts & Culture
Funded by Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Art, Culture and Global Relations
PI: Dr. Sarah Smith
Completed a targeted assessment of the collections represented on the platform

2021   Desire in Sight: The Aesthetics of Knowledge Organization 
SSHRC Insight Grant research project 
PI: Dr. Melissa Adler
Helped set up virtual exhibit using ARCGIS StoryMaps; began coordinating in-person exhibits in local Ontario libraries

2019-2022 Dr. Chris Marquis (now at Cambridge University)
Proofread and edited chapters of Dr. Marquis upcoming book on sustainable business; created a narrative out of original interview transcripts and research content

2020-2022 What Were Comics? Research Project
SSHRC-funded research project
PIs: Dr. Benjamin Woo, Dr. Bart Beatty, Dr. Nick Sousanis
Numbered comic book panels; numbered dialogue in comic book panels [200+ media objects]

2020    “The Use of Tags in Social Media: Deixis, Indexicality and the organization of Digital Reality”
A project of The CulturePlex Lab at Western University
Conducted a literature review relevant to the subject

2017-2019 Dr. Chris Marquis (Harvard Kennedy School / Cornell SC Johnson College of Business)
As Dr. Marquis’ RA: conducted extensive research, interviewed participants, and drafted a non-fiction manuscript on B Lab and B Corporations; published in September 2020 titled “Better Business: How the B Corp Movement is Remaking Capitalism”; sold more than 5,000 copies in the first six months 
• Winner of the 2021 Axiom Business Book Awards Gold Medal in Business Ethics
• Winner of the 2021 Responsible Research in Business and Management Award
• Finalist for the Porchlight Books Book of the Year  

2015-2016 Dr. Elizabeth Fay (University of Massachusetts Boston)
Editorial Assistant to Dr. Fay on the New Urban Atlantic book series, under Palgrave Macmillan.

2015 50th Anniversary Oral History Project (University of Massachusetts Boston)
Compiled and curated an oral history project to commemorate the school’s 50th anniversary.

Publications
Edited Special Issue Journals
Alberto, Maria, Effie Sapuridis, and Lesley Willard, eds. “Fandom and Platforms.” Special Issue Transformative Works and Cultures, forthcoming in Spring 2024. 

Refereed Journal Articles
Sapuridis, Effie, and Maria K. Alberto. “Self-Insert Fanfiction as Digital Technology of the Self.” Humanities, vol. 11, no. 3, May 2022, p. 68. https://doi.org/10.3390/h11030068.

Sapuridis, Effie. “Gendered Fairy Tale Heroics: Ginny Weasley in The Source.” Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 30. https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2019.1687

Marquis, Chris, and Effie Sapuridis. “Danone North America: The World's Largest B Corporation.” HKS Case Program, Harvard Kennedy School, 26 Apr. 2019, https://case.hks.harvard.edu/danone-north-america-the-worlds-largest-b-corporation/.

Multimedia
Sapuridis, Effie. “Wealth and Heteronormative Romance Tropes in Harry Potter Fan Fiction” [multimedia]. In "Fan Studies Pedagogies," edited by Paul Booth and Regina Yung Lee, special issue, Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 35. https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2021.2079.

Conference Activity
Invited Speaker
“Beyond Consent: Building Movements that Sustain Us.” Students For Consent Culture speaker series, Virtual, May 2022. 

“Women in Leadership.” American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association: Montreal Chapter, Virtual, May 2022.

Conference Presentations
“Self-Insert Fanvids and Restorying Identity.” Console-ing Passions, Calgary, AB, June 2023.

“Neutral!Reader: Self-insert Fic Tagging as a Form of Data Violence.” The Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Denver, CO, April 2023.

“Fanon Characters, Cross-Platform Conversations, and New Media.” Fan Studies Network North America, Virtual, October 2022.

“Advocating for Antiracist Approaches to Writing in Canadian Contexts.” Canadian Writing Centers Association, Virtual, May 2022. 

“Understanding Digital Storytelling on New Media Platforms as Fanfiction.” Mediations graduate student lecture series, Virtual, April 2022. 

“Digital Methods and Digital Fan Practices.” Moderated by Black, Suzanne and Effie Sapuridis. Fan Studies Network North America, Virtual, October 2021.

“My Blood Status is Purer than Yours!: (Problematic) Hyperreality within Fanfiction and Fandom Communities.” Congress of the Federation of Humanities and Social Sciences, Virtual, June 2021.

“If I Went to Hogwarts…: Tiktok, Self-Insert Fanvids, and Fandom’s Face-to-Face with Fan Visibility.” Popular Culture Association, Virtual, June 2021. 

“Pureblood for a Day: Fetishization of Wealth and the Subversion of Heteronormative Romance Tropes in Harry Potter Fanfiction.” Fan Studies Network North America, Virtual, October 2020.

“"So Much More Romantic!": Anne Shirley, the hyperreal troubadour, and Romantic Victorian Medievalism in Anne of Green Gables.” Medievalism Transformed, Virtual, September 2020.

“Crafting Daphne Greengrass in Fanon: An Analysis of the Creation of a Minor Role Character through Fanfiction.” Fan Studies Network North America, Chicago, October 2019.

Scholarships and Awards

2022-2024 SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship

2021-2022 Ontario Graduate Scholarship

2020-2021 Ontario Graduate Scholarship

2019-2020 Dean's Entrance Scholarship

Service

University

2022-present University Board of Governors – Voting Member
2020-2022 University Senate – Graduate Senator
2019-2021 Union Steward (PSAC 610)

Society of Graduate Students

2021-2022 Vice President Student Services
2020-2021       Speaker

Faculty of Information & Media Studies

2020-2022 Member of the FIMS Peer Mentor Program
2020-2022 Co-Chair of the mediations Graduate Lecture Series Committee
2021-2022       PhD Representative on the FIMS Faculty Council
2020-2021       PhD Representative on the Media Studies Programming Committee

Other

2023-present Fan Studies Network North America Conference committee
2021-present Co-Founder of the Safe Campus Coalition [registered not-for-profit]
2020-2022 Racial Equity and Anti-Racism Working Group (Huron Writing Services)
2018-present   Social Media Staffer, Fanlore.Org
2020-2018 Executive at American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association [registered not-for-profit]

Membership

Editorial Experience

2021-present   Outreach and Communications Editor (Transformative Works and Cultures)
2019-present   Reviews Editor (Journal of Fandom Studies)
2017-present   Founder & Editor in Chief (Fterota Logia)   
2015-present   Social Media Manager and Editorial Assistant (AGNI)
2015                Editorial Assistant (Consequence)
2010-2013       Editorial Assistant (Shoreline Press)

Additional Skills

Grant-writing
Basic Python skills
Basic Latex skills
Qualtrics

Languages

English (native)
French (fluent)
Greek (fluent)