At a Glance
○ INT (PhD in English, 2024)
○ DEX (Canon & Texts, Digital Platforms, Analog Games, and Fandom)
○ 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: you can read it on ProQuest here, OR Drive here.
Maria currently works as Assistant Professor of English at Richland Community College, where she teaches classes on college writing, technical writing, literature, and gender. She is also a member of the organizing committee at Fan Studies Network North America and co-founder of the Tabletop Research in Practice collective.
(Her office features just a sample of her ever-growing dice collection…)
PUBLICATIONS
Peer-Reviewed JOURNAL ARTICLES
- Booth, P., and M.K. Alberto. “Fan-Created Paratexts and Player/Creator Interplay: A Critical Survey
of Creativity in Fan Expansions and TTRPG Dynamics.” Transformative Works and Cultures
(Forthcoming March 2026). - 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 31:3 (2025).
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...
- Fans, Fandoms, and Tabletop Roleplaying Games, co-edited with Adrianna Rivas-Berge. Book under contract with the University of Michigan Press, forthcoming 2027-2028.
- Return to Ravenloft: Dungeons & Dragons and the Development of Shared Storyworlds. Book proposal under review at University of Minnesota Press.
- “Fanfiction.” In The Oxford Companion to J.R.R. Tolkien. Edited by Dimitra Fimi and Luke Shelton. Oxford
University Press, forthcoming 2026.
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
Recent CONFERENCE TALKS
- “Fandom(s) and Thirdplaceness,” Society of Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS), Apr. 2025.
- “Fan(nish) Texts, Transmedia Storyworlds, and D&D’s Grand History of the Realms,” Society of Cinema & Media Studies (SCMS), Mar. 2024
Upcoming Talks
- applications in progress!
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…