Abstract
The chapter defines the ambivalence at the heart of the Shakespeare fandom as a praxis called antefandom. Antefandom is, this chapter argues, a self-induced stasis in which the fan, out of comfort or complacency, refuses to engage with the growth that the multiverse and cyborg reading facilitates, actively tipping over into anti-fannish activities to protect the purity of Shakespeare. This chapter suggests that in spite of a third wave of creative capitalism that exploits fan work, and fandom’s own susceptibility to these hegemonies, antefandom activates a corrosive bardolatry that insists on white, male, western genius and attempts to constrain the multiverse.