At a Glance
○ INT (PhD in English and Cultural Studies, 2024)
○ DEX (Textuality, Digital Platforms, Queer Stories, Fandom, and D&D)
○ CHA (Perpetual Excited Capslocking!)
ABOUT ME
Maria K. Alberto (she/her) could have studied the blade. But instead, she became a reader, a teacher, a fangirl, and a nerd.
Maria earned her PhD in English from the University of Utah in 2024. She wrote her dissertation about texts, D&D canon, and drow; she still has plenty of thoughts about all of that.
Maria is a member of the organizing committee at Fan Studies Network North America, co-founder of CritRoleBib, and co-founder of the Tabletop Research in Practice collective.
She likes to play paladins and fighters.
PUBLICATIONS
Peer-Reviewed JOURNAL ARTICLES
- Alberto, M.K., and P. Booth. “‘So much for the prattling of sages’: D&D gaming paratexts, Fan(nish) distribution of knowledge, and Drow.” Convergence [OnlineFirst] (2024).
Sapuridis, E., and M.K. Alberto. “Self-Insert Fanfiction as Digital Technology of the Self.” Humanities 11: 3 (2022). - Alberto, M.K. “The Prosthetic Impulse Revisited in A.I. Artificial Intelligence.” M/C Journal 22: 5 (2019).
- Alberto, M.K. “Seduction as Mythopoeic Accounting for Evil in Tolkien’s Work.” Mythlore 35:2 (2017): 63-79.
- Alberto, M.K. “‘The effort to translate’: Fan Film Culture and the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien.” (2016). Journal of Tolkien Research 3:3 (2016): n.p.
BOOK CHAPTERs
Coming Soon...
- Return to Ravenloft: Dungeons & Dragons and the Development of Shared Storyworlds. Book proposal under review at University of Minnesota Press.
- “Fan-Created Paratexts and Player/Creator Interplay: A Critical Survey of Creativity in Fan Expansions of Analog Games.” Co-authored with Paul Booth; currently under review.
- “Queering the Architext in Tolkien Fanfiction.” In Queer Tolkien. Edited by Robin Reid. McFarland (Critical Explorations of Tolkien Studies series), 2025.
- “Stars & Wishes: A Disaster Queer Collaborative Autoethnography of Playing Thirsty Sword Lesbians,” co-authored with PS Berge, Adrianna Burton, Hibby Thach, and Brandon Blackburn, accepted in Essays on Indie Tabletop Roleplaying Games. Edited by Stephanie Hedge. McFarland, 2025/2026.
- A Critical Companion to Dimension 20. (scholarly multigraph.) Under consideration at University of Iowa Press.
Other Scholarly Writing
- Alberto, M.K., E. Sapuridis, and L. Willard. “Putting forward platforms in fan studies.” Introduction, “Fandom and Platforms” special issue, Transformative Works and Cultures 42 (2024). DOI:10.3983/twc.2024.2685
- Alberto, M.K., and B. Tringali. “Working with Fannish Intermediaries.” Transformative Works and Cultures 37 (2022). DOI: 10.3983/twc.2022.2227
- Alberto, M.K., and B. Tringali. “Anime Convention Attendance in Response to Covid-19.” The Journal of Manga and Anime Studies 3 (2022). DOI: 10.21900/j.jams.v3.986
- Alberto, M.K. “Fan-users and platform studies.” Transformative Works and Cultures 33 (2020), special issue “Fan Studies Methodologies.” DOI: 10.3983/twc.2020.1841
Recent book reviews written for: Transformative Works and Cultures (here, here), Kairos, Mythlore (here, here),The Journal of Fandom Studies, The Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds (here, here), The Australasian Journal of Popular Culture, and more.
LEADERSHIP ROLES
Advisory board member, Critical Explorations in Tolkien Studies (McFarland), 2024-present
Associate editor, Journal of Anime and Manga Studies, 2022-present
Leadership committee member, Fan Studies Network-North America (FSNNA), 2021-present
Organizing committee member, Digital Humanities for Utah (DHU), 2021-2022
TALKS + PRESENTATIONS
SELECT CONFERENCE TALKS
- “Fan(nish) Texts, Transmedia Storyworlds, and D&D’s Grand History,” Society of Cinema & Media Studies (SCMS), Mar. 2024
- “Platform Studies and Fandom Histories,” SCMS (virtual), Mar. 2021
Upcoming Talks
- “Fandom(s) and Thirdplaceness,” Society of Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS), Apr. 2025.
TEACHING
FEATURED COURSES
Department of English, University of Utah
Provides more in-depth look at digital humanities (DH) alongside science fiction novels about labor and technology. Upper-level undergraduate course.
Department of English, University of Utah
Introduces students to DH (data analysis & visualization, corpus management) and applies to literature. Fulfills qualitative requirement.
Department of English, Linguistics, and Writing Studies, Salt Lake Community College (SLCC)
Introduces students to the discipline of queer studies, covering history, culture, art and literature, and contemporary issues.
Department of English, University of Utah
Introduces Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) as a cultural text, social phenomenon, and formative game system.
Department of English, University of Utah
Introduces students to fantasy as a broad, diverse genre shaped by social, cultural, and market forces.
Department of English, University of Utah
Introduces students to literature by queer authors of different time periods, regions, and intersectional identities across the US.
For a full list of courses taught, see my full CV.
Currently Playing
I continually explore fiction and modes of storytelling! So, besides my teaching and scholarship, I’m always reading and playing something in the background too.
Here’s some of what I’ve been up to recently…