Disruptive gratitude: Challenging relationships between fangirls and curriculum theory

Abstract By pulling from the complex field of fan studies, I hope to show how fan studies, particularly fangirls and their practices, can inform the field of curriculum theory. In this article, through an autobiographical sharing of moments, I consider how fangirl practices have shaped the way I regard scholars, conferences, and relationships. I then introduce a notion of “disruptive gratitude” into understandings of both fandom and curriculum theorizing and discuss how that concept might be used as a way to interrupt those fan(girl) practices that silence, erase, and oppress. Then, I consider three moments of disruptive gratitude that demonstrate my fangirling and reflect on how those moments have shaped my interactions with the community (and a fandom) in scholarship, spaces, and structures. I conclude by theorizing how the notion of disruptive gratitude enacted through fangirl practices serves as a possible way to undertake the necessary work of curriculum theory in order to challenge the structures of the field that standardize education, demoralize the profession, and ignore inequities.