“Aliens and Monsters,” “Exterminate!” and “Who’s that Doctor” — DePaul’s Doctor Who Club hosted jeopardy night on Thursday, Oct 3, 2024.
The club has been around for about a decade, finding its beginnings in a “Doctor Who”— centered Focal Point Seminar led by associate dean Paul Booth. A group of students who took Booth’s class in 2014 expressed interest in watching, discussing and overall, learning more about “Doctor Who.” Booth was quick to accept the position of faculty sponsor.
Booth has been a fan of ‘Doctor Who’ since he was a kid. His father introduced him to the show.
“As I grew up and became a professor, I studied fans and media — that’s my area of expertise,” Booth said. “‘Doctor Who’ became a part of what I researched. Being the faculty advisor for the Doctor Who Club has been really important to me. (I am) able to pass on my love and knowledge of ‘Doctor Who.’”
The club meets every Thursday from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. and hosts a variety of different activities, but typically the group always watches one or two “Doctor Who” episodes each week. Doctor Who Club also has a thriving Discord server with over one hundred members, club president Emma Brown said.
“We have a lovely community going,” Brown said. “We’re super open. I think you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who is not queer in that room.”
The club has hosted a handful of guest speakers. Last year, Nev Fountain, author of “Doctor Who”-focused audio dramas and webcasts, met with students via Zoom to discuss his work. Former BBC visual effects designer Matt Irvine also came to the club and gave a presentation about the miniatures he designed for “Doctor Who” in the 1980s.
“Doctor Who” has been running for a little over 60 years, first airing in the United Kingdom on Nov. 23, 1963. It has become an institution, with fans spanning over multiple generations.
“My dad has been into ‘Doctor Who’ for years — his Doctor was the Fourth Doctor in the seventies,” club member Melanie Doweiko said. “He had gotten into it because of his sister, who is a generation older, almost. We watched the whole new season together. He’s so excited to see me getting into the old stuff and to talk to me about it. It’s really, really sweet. It’s nice to be able to connect on those levels.”
On Friday, Oct. 11 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. the Doctor Who Club will be partnering with the crocheting and knitting club, Hook & Needle, to knit a scarf inspired by the Fourth Doctor.
The scarf is about 14 to 18 feet long depending on the season, Brown said. Each attendee will knit a small section and, at the end of the event, the scarf will be connected.
For about eight years, Doctor Who Club has hosted a panel at Chicago TARDIS, the largest “Doctor Who” convention in the Midwest. The club, Booth said, has a good relationship with the convention. This year the club’s panel topic will be representation within “Doctor Who.”
“There’s a lot of consistency, but (‘Doctor Who’) also changes with the times,” Booth said. “The Doctor right now is played by a person of color and is queer, canonically queer. It’s very much a product of 2024. As culture develops (and) as culture changes, ‘Doctor Who’ changes as well.”
In the past, Doctor Who Club has also attended a convention in Los Angeles.
“It’s a space for multiple generations to come together and have (boundary pushing) conversations,” Doweiko said. “It has a big web and it’s a place where you can find something for everybody.”
Doctor Who Club is open to all students, regardless of prior knowledge surrounding the universe of the show. Club member Sky Mest joined to make new friends, not caring a great deal about “Doctor Who” before getting involved.
“People were really welcoming and explained things,” Mest said. “It’s a great show to jump into and a great place to make friends at.”
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