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Daniel Cavicchi @danielcavicchi.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Hardcover of *Admirers, Fanciers, and Devotees: The Early History of Fandom* is now available at a lower price. link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

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Daniel Cavicchi @danielcavicchi.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

I like that some of us on this site are signaling how we sound.

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Daniel Cavicchi @danielcavicchi.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

This beautiful set of individual puzzles just arrived, in time for an opening forensic exercise with students in my Advanced Inquiry Seminar. #NewCourses #LearningResearch

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Daniel Cavicchi @danielcavicchi.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Exploring more of fandom’s history by reading Kabuki Heroes on the Osaka Stage, 1780-1830, ed. by C. Andrew Gerstle (U. Hawaii Pr., 2005). Why didn’t I know about this extraordinary book earlier?! #FandomHistory #Kabuki #HiikiRenjū

Title page spread. The detail of a print, featuring a Kabuki actor’s grimaced face, is on left two-thirds. The right third has an orange background, on which “kabuki heroes” is printed in yellow along the right edge, followed underneath, in normal orientation, by “on the Osaka stage, 1780-1830.”

First page of “Osaka Kabuki Fan Clubs and Their Obsessions” by Yōko Kaguraoka. Title and author information occupies the left two-thirds of the page, beside a single column of text on the right.

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Daniel Cavicchi @danielcavicchi.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

I saw *Black Swan* at the American Repertory Theater today. Amazing dancing, choreography, lighting; the music was mostly for mood. Interesting to see a creepy Aronofsky film become a weirdly-sinister version of 42nd Street. #BlackSwan #A.R.T. #musicals

Cover of program, with “BLACK SWAN” in black, slightly stained with red blood, on a white background, stained with gray splotches. The whole cover is framed at the right edge with black tail feathers. At the bottom reads: "#BlackSwan @AmericanRep" and “Experience a.r.t. 2025/26 Season."

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Daniel Cavicchi @danielcavicchi.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Enjoying the topical range in the latest issue of Reception, including essays on "unhinged women lit.,” the popular reception of Maxwell Anderson’s Mary of Scotland in the 1930s, "literary scrap" on Tumblr, and the "leather suit of Christ" in medieval performance. #Reception #ReceptionStudySociety

Journal cover, whose upper half, is gray, with the title “reception” in large white letters, over the subtitle "Texts, Readers, Audiences, History,” smaller in size and in brown. The lower half of the cover is white, with “vol. 17 2025” on the left margin, an image of a theater audience watching action on stage dominating most of the center/right, and “The Pennsylvania State University Press” in small print along the bottom.

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Daniel Cavicchi @danielcavicchi.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Just finished When Trees Testify: Science, Wisdom, History, and America’s Black Botanical Legacy, by @berondam.bsky.social. Such a powerful book. The trees remember.

Cover of When Trees Testify, with title and author information on black background, surrounded at the edges by green vegetation: diverse tree leaves, cotton boles, and an apple.

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Daniel Cavicchi @danielcavicchi.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Thanks! Current course description:

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Daniel Cavicchi @danielcavicchi.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

Faulknerian stream-of-consciousness is not for everyone, but this one-sentence WWI novel by Daniel Kraus is an astounding piece of writing: violent, surreal, and moving. It also made me think of the film 1917. What is with WWI and the use of a single shot/sentence? #AngelDown #booksky

Cover of Angel Down, with title in capitalized white letters at top and author’s name, “Daniel Kraus,” also in capitalized white letters, at the bottom. The background is composed of red and gray clouds/smoke, intersected by two concentric circles that suggest the view through a gun scope or a bullseye.

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Daniel Cavicchi @danielcavicchi.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Nice piece by Barack Obama on “The Music That Made Us” in the current Rolling Stone (June 2026): “Great music has a way of helping us feel seen; more than that, it helps us see others, enlarging our hearts and our moral imaginations.”

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Daniel Cavicchi @danielcavicchi.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

In “‘His God is Rossini’: Enthusiastic Opera Audiences in Restoration Paris,” Lindsay A. Weaver discusses the dilettanti at the Théâtre-Italien in the 1820s as a recognizable community of fans before the 20th century. #FanStudies #FandomHistory link.springer.com/chapter/10.1...

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Daniel Cavicchi @danielcavicchi.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

In “The Search for a Deep Time of Theatrical Fandom,” Peter W. Marx explores the historical implications of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century theater’s recirculation of older forms adoration and veneration. link.springer.com/chapter/10.1... #FanStudies #FandomHistory

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Daniel Cavicchi @danielcavicchi.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

“Naming Historical Fans” summarizes my research on the range of English-language terms used to describe an avid person before “fan” emerged in the 1880s. #FanStudies #FandomHistory link.springer.com/chapter/10.1...

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Daniel Cavicchi @danielcavicchi.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

Abstract for “‘A Dear Child with Many Names’: An Introduction to Expanding the History of Fandom”, by Daniel Cavicchi and Stephan Michael Schröder. link.springer.com/chapter/10.1...

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Daniel Cavicchi @danielcavicchi.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

NEW BOOK: Admirers, Fanciers and Devotees: The Early History of Fandom. E-book version released today: link.springer.com/book/10.1007... #FanStudies #FandomHistory

Screenshot of Contents page: ‘A Dear Child With Many Names’: An Introduction to Expanding the History of Fandom, Daniel Cavicchi and Stephan Michael Schröder / Naming Historical Fans, Daniel Cavicchi / The Search for a Deep Time of Theatrical Fandom, Peter W. Marx / ‘His God Is Rossini’: Enthusiastic Opera Audiences in Restoration Paris, Lindsay A. Weaver / ‘Long Live Mrs Heiberg!’: Fame, Theater and the Birth of Fan Culture in Nineteenth-Century Copenhagen, Clemens Räthel / Celebrities and Confectionary: The Edible History of Theater Fandom, Agata Łuksza / Possessing Actors and Actresses: Theater Stars and Early Film Stars on Postcards in Comparison, Stephan Michael Schröder.

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Daniel Cavicchi @danielcavicchi.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

Coming soon: *Admirers, Fanciers and Devotees: The Early History of Fandom*, a new anthology I edited with Stephan Michael Schröder (and the latest release in J.B. Metzler's Szene & Horizont Series). Initial information up now at: link.springer.com/book/9783662...

Book cover, with editors and title information in white, on a red background, beneath a horizontal B&W image of four matinee girls, leaning on a balcony railing, looking through opera glasses.

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Daniel Cavicchi @danielcavicchi.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

"Origin of Term ‘Fan' Is Mooted Question." San Francisco Call, Volume 110, Number 176 (23 November 1911): 10.

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Daniel Cavicchi @danielcavicchi.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

Highly recommend Unabridged, by @stefanfatsis.bsky.social. Especially in an environment of unchecked doublespeak, it’s good to read about people who have devoted their lives to the principle that words and their definitions matter.

Orange cover, with author’s name across the top. The title occupies the top third, in the style of a dictionary entry. Beneath that is a double-torsoed man in gray: one half stands, looking at text on a phone, and the other bends down at the waist to attend to an oversized fragment of a dictionary page.

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Daniel Cavicchi @danielcavicchi.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

Arrived in the mail today. Time for rereading.

The cloth cover of a first edition of Erich Maria Remarque's Arch of Triumph (1945). The cover is a worn gray/blue, with the title and author imprinted in gold.

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Daniel Cavicchi @danielcavicchi.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

Washington Black on Disney+ is an outstanding watch; I hope it encourages people to read Esi Edugyan's novel, as well. #WashingtonBlack #EsiEdugyan

Cover of the Washington Black novel, depicting the Jules Verne-like flying machine featured in the story.

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Daniel Cavicchi @danielcavicchi.bsky.social · 04/08/2025

My 12th Newport Jazz Festival this past weekend. Loved: Tyshawn Sorey Trio’s masterclass in composed improv; the surprising beauty of Fleck, Sanchez, and Castañeda's banjo/drums/harp combo; and Parlor Greens’ ferocious grooves. Long live the trio. #NewportJazzFestival

Musicians on stage, in front of a large “Newport Jazz” banner: Aaron Diehl on piano (l), Harish Raghavan on bass (c), and Tyshawn Sorey (r) on drums.

Musicians on stage, in front of a large “Newport Jazz” banner: Béla Fleck on banjo (l), Antonio Sanchez on drums (c), and Edmar Castañeda (r) on harp.

Musicians onstage, in front of a large “Newport Jazz” banner: Adam Scone on organ (l), Jimmy James on electric guitar (c), and Tim Carman (l) on drums.

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Daniel Cavicchi @danielcavicchi.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

Cultivating young fans, from @TheAwayFans on Instagram. [There is a Bluesky account--@theawayfans.bsky.social--but it has no posts, yet].

Three newborns, lined side-by-side in hospital cribs, are wearing the same Bolognafc1909 shirt. The shirts are slightly oversized for their tiny bodies and feature wide, vertical, black and red stripes.

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Daniel Cavicchi @danielcavicchi.bsky.social · 23/03/2025

American students define “fan" for a fellow student from Japan, 1923: “...A fan is a person utterly devoted to some pursuit." "Fans keep posted on all the latest news." "They never tire of interesting everybody else." "In other words, a fan is an enthusiast….” (The Epworth Era, Oct. 1923: 57).

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Daniel Cavicchi @danielcavicchi.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

I had a wonderful conversation last night with Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz of Talking Heads, as part of a RISD-sponsored screening of the remastered *Stop Making Sense.* The event was sold-out, and their stories--about the film and the band’s evolution--were funny and inspiring.

Daniel Cavicchi, Tina Weymouth, and Chris Frantz are seated on a stage. Frantz is speaking into his microphone. The heads of audience members in the first few rows, darkly-lit, occupy the foreground.

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Daniel Cavicchi @danielcavicchi.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

Prepping the next iteration of my first-year seminar, in which students practice cultural history by researching, identifying, and making a case for the first rock record. Objections, difficulties, and complexities invariably emerge--which is the point.

Snippet of the first page of the course syllabus, with an image of a poster for the 1955 film, "Rock 'N Roll Revue," featuring the heads of stars like Nat Cole, Martha Davis, Duke Ellington, and the Delta Rhythm Boys floating on a pink background.

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Daniel Cavicchi @danielcavicchi.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

Francis Jeffrey, writing about London's cultural life in 1810, identified an "Encyclopedical trifling," marked by excessive access to books, tables, engravings, museums, "coups d'oeil of information" and "provoking talk." He thereby predicted both social media and my job.

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Daniel Cavicchi @danielcavicchi.bsky.social · 24/11/2024

The story of the Cuming shell collection, especially Mrs. J. E. Gray, the sudden gale, and the enduring vexation of the conchologists, reads like the script of a quirky period comedy. I'll watch when it hits Netflix. #BritishMuseum #NaturalHistory

Excerpt from Lynn Barber, The Heyday of Natural History, 1820-1870 (1980), describing how Mrs. J. E. Gray, wife of the Keeper of Zoology at the British Museum, carried the open drawers of the newly-acquired Cuming collection of shells across a courtyard in a gale, which blew away all the labels. "The Cuming collection has been a sources of vexation and controversy to conchologists ever since."

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Daniel Cavicchi @danielcavicchi.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

The abstract reminds me of Greil Marcus’s Dead Elvis.

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Daniel Cavicchi @danielcavicchi.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

Thinking a lot about the trend of fannish descriptors in English after 1800. Add in the hundreds of other words that pop up in slang, and it gets *really* interesting. #HistoricalFandom

NGram chart showing use of enthusiast, devotee, connoisseur, and maniac peaking between 1800 and 1860.

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Daniel Cavicchi @danielcavicchi.bsky.social · 10/11/2024

I am obsessed with audience iconography. For several years, I have been collecting digitized images of historical audiences, posting them on Instagram (@ardentaudience), and studying their patterns and meanings. Another book project to complete someday.

A colorful painting by Hippolyte Michaud (~1860) depicts an engaged audience in a theater gallery. Their faces, starkly lit from below by the stage lighting, display heightened emotion in reaction to a sad moment in the melodrama.

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Daniel Cavicchi @danielcavicchi.bsky.social · 09/11/2024

I might as well start with introducing my fascination with pre-"fan" naming, including a paper last month at the U. of Cologne: "Devotees, Fanciers, Hunters, and Maniacs: The Onomastics of 19th-Century Enthusiasm." Swimming in slang!

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