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 project explores whether storytelling and the affordances of new media platforms offer avenues that help address the tensions found in fandoms and in storytelling. Storytelling has deep roots in offering space(s) for individuals who are facing moments of crises, of erasure, of withheld recognition. However, the exclusionary nature of many source texts, fandoms, and fan works, informed and shaped by society and by media industries, by individuals and by communities, leads to the aforementioned moments of crises. This dissertation explores whether storytelling on new media platforms can help address these tensions. This project is primarily focused on how individuals, particularly with marginalized identities, use new media platforms to restory their identities and to collaboratively (re)construct the storyworld. It also begins applying ideas of data ethics to the field of fan studies and to fanworks.
In Progress Projects
Currently, I am working on my dissertation and teaching as an adjunct at Adelphi University. 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
Adelphi University
Adjunct Faculty
ENG 267: Literature & Other Arts - Fanfiction [fall] (2024-2025)
ENG 107: Art & Craft of Writing [fall] (2024-2025)
ENG 251: Literature, Gender, and Sexualities [spring] (2023-2024)
ENG 107: Art & Craft of Writing (2 sections) [spring] (2023-2024)
New York University
Teaching Assistant (with 2 sections)
CORE UA400: Texts & Ideas - Objectivity [fall] (2023-2024)
Western University
Teaching Assistant (with 1 section)
MIT 1020E: Intro to Media Studies [year-long] (2022-2023)
MIT 2025B: Research Methods for the Digital Age [spring] (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 (with 1 section)
ENG 258 Intro to World Cinema (S2015)
Other Teaching Experience
2020-2022 Graduate Fellow: Huron University Writing Services
2017-present Freelance Tutor [K-12, College, SAT/ACT Prep]
2017-2019 Academic/College Essay/Test Prep Tutor: JBG Educational Group
Research Experiencen
2023-present Advancing Social Justice in an Age of Datafied Governance
SSHRC Insight Grant research project
PI: Dr. Joanna Redden
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, 14 March 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/.
Journal Articles
Batacharya, Sheila, Emilie Brancato, Vidya Natarajan, Mandy Penney, Marci Prescott-Brown, Effie Sapuridis, and Masa Torbica. “Advocating for Antiracist Approaches to Writing in the Canadian Postsecondary Context – A Roundtable Discussion.” SKRIB: Critical Studies in Writing Programs and Pedagogy, forthcoming in 2024.
Sapuridis, Effie. Review of Harry Potter and the Other: Race, Justice, and Difference in the Wizarding World, by Sarah Park Dalen and Ebony Elizabeth Thomas. The Journal of Popular Culture, forthcoming in 2024.
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.
Media Interviews
Minkel, Elizabeth. “Sexy Ai Chatbots Are Creating Thorny Issues for Fandom.” Wired, August 28, 2023. https://www.wired.com/story/sexy-ai-chatbots-fanfiction-issues/.
Conference Activity
Invited Speaker
“Change-Making 101.” Provincial Forum for Eradicating Gender-Based Violence on Campus, University of Toronto Students Council, Toronto, ON, March 2022.
“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
“Digital Embodiment and Restoried Identities in TikTok Self-Insert Fanvids.” The Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Boston, MA, March 2024.
“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.
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
2010-2018 Executive at American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association [registered not-for-profit]
Membership
CCA -- Canadian Communication Association [2019-present]
YASA -- Young Adult Studies Association [2020-present]
SCMS -- Society for Cinema and Media Studies [2019-present]
PCA -- Popular Culture Association [2019-present]
FSNNA -- Fan Studies North America [2018-present]
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)
