A One-Day Conference
Friday 6 September 2019
Keynotes: Elizabeth Wilson and Professor Richard Dyer
Camp has enjoyed many definitions throughout decades of
academic discussion and debate. For Susan Sontag it is a ‘sensibility’: ‘the
essence of Camp is its love of the unnatural: of artifice and
exaggeration’(1964: 515). For Richard Dyer (1977), as argued in an essay titled
‘It’s being so camp as keeps us going’, camp is a form of queer resistance, a
way of looking at objects rather than any inherent qualities in those objects
themselves. Fabio Cleto (1999) also sees camp as an unstable, but powerful,
progressive critical tool; while for David Halperin, camp is connected to irony
as a strategy of subversion. ‘Camp,’ Halperinwrites, ‘is a reminder of the
artificiality of emotion, of authenticity as a performance’(2012: 288). In both
academic and popular terms, camp is clearly a quality that evades easy
definition.
Throughout its history, camp has performed many
countercultural functions, as a means of articulating alternative
self-identification, of securing group coherence, of challenging dominant
conventions, meanings and power structures. At the same time, camp has been a
recognisable component of broad popular entertainment. Many classic
entertainers such as Mae West, Marilyn Monroe and Liberace embody recognisable
aspects of camp performance. In the UK, camp served as a way of sneaking queer
discourses into mainstream culture, with comedians such as Kenneth Williams,
Frankie Howerd and the programme /Round the Horne /bringing the gay language of
Polari to a BBC audience. British television of the subsequent era was full of
performers like Larry Grayson, Kenny Everett and John Inman, while later
generations grew up with Julian Clary, Graham Norton and
drag-queen-turned-teatime-entertainer Paul O’Grady. The revival of /Mystery
Science Theatre 3000/, the popularity of /Rupaul’s Drag Race/, the critical
acclaim surrounding Lady Gaga, suggests that camp retains a significant role in
contemporary culture.
Sontag’s essay ‘Notes on Camp’ was both notorious and
controversial//on its publication in 1964 and remains so. Fifty-five years
later, and more than half a century since the decriminalization of
homosexuality in England, in an age of gay marriage, how significant is camp?
Do the functions that it once served remain important to gender and cultural
politics? If films from /Carry on Camping/ to /Pulp Fiction/ can be described
as camp, can the term retain its meaning? When the work of a filmmaker like
John Waters becomes repackaged as mainstream musical theatre, has camp become
too commodified? Or do such questions misunderstand the very complexities and
contradictions which make camp so fascinating?
This conference, to be held at the University of Brighton on
Friday 6 September 2016, will investigate camp in both its historical and
contemporary manifestations, and interrogate its relevance today.
We invite panels and papers on topics including, but not
restricted to:
- Camp icons: film stars, musicians, writers
- Camp cultures: film, music, theatre, literature, television
- Camp spaces: clubs, bars, theatres, tourist sites, domestic spaces
- Camp fashion
- Camp histories
- Camp practices
- Camp women
- The politics of camp
Deadline for proposals: Monday 1 July 2019
Contact: Ewan Kirkland – (e.kirkland@brighton.ac.uk)
Conference fee: £40/ concessions: £20
Lunch and refreshments will be provided
References:
Cleto, F. (ed). 1999. Camp: queer aesthetics and the
performing subject: a reader. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press
Dyer, R. 2002. It’s Being So Camp as Keeps Us Going. In:
Richard Dyer, The Culture of Queers. London: Routledge, 49-62
Halperin, D. M. 2012. How to be Gay. Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press
Sontag, S. 1964. Notes on “Camp”. Partisan Review. 31(4),
515-530
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