HUMA PhD Kalervo Sinervo awarded a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Calgary

Kalervo's work focuses on the intersections of commerce and creativity, studying how contemporary pop culture franchising functions in an environment of trans media storytelling and business strategy. His doctoral research engaged with the ways that intellectual property assets are strategically mobilized across different media, and how those practices impact the construction of 3D videogame spaces.

At the University of Calgary, Kalervo’s research will engage questions of transmedia strategy in the burgeoning fan festival industry. His post-doctoral project seeks to investigate how comic conventions converge and negotiate the myriad interests or festival organizers, massive corporate actors, municipal governments and businesses, and fans. Looking to fan festivals as cultural intermediaries, Kalervo will work with the SSHRC-funded project Comic-Cons: An Emerging Urban Media Industry to explain how the comic convention has grown from a site of niche fandom and bargain retail into a crucial node in the transmedia ecosystem.