Karl Berglund och Camilla Wallin Lämsä har tilldelats medel från Vetenskapsrådet

Karl Berglund och Camilla Wallin Lämsä har tilldelats medel från Vetenskapsrådet för projektet "Boltgun book talk: A mixed-methods approach to Warhammer 40K literature and its online reader communities” (2027–2029).

Project abstract:

This project examines Warhammer 40,000 (40K) literature and its online reader communities. While online book discussions are predominantly associated with female-dominated platforms such as “BookTok” and Goodreads, Warhammer 40K constitutes a striking counterexample: a large-scale, male-dominated reading culture centred on speculative fiction within a fictional universe emanating from a miniature table-top wargame, and organised primarily on masculine, gaming-coded platforms such as Reddit and 4chan. The project combines perspectives from empirical reading studies, fan studies, and research on transmedia storytelling, and employs a mixed-methods design integrating digital ethnography with computational text analysis. It investigates how readers engage with the Warhammer 40K storyworld, how reading practices and reader identities are negotiated at the intersection of fandom and gaming, how gender and masculinity are represented in the literature and performed among the readers, and how platform affordances shape online book discussions. By focusing on men’s recreational reading outside educational contexts, the project challenges existing narratives about men as non-readers, and broadens prevailing conceptions of what reading is and can be in contemporary digital culture. In doing so, it generates new knowledge about masculine reading cultures and contributes to wider contemporary debates on gender polarisation online.

För mer information om projektet, kontakta Karl Berglund.