*CFP* "SUICIDE AND POPULAR CULTURE", BOOK CHAPTER

According to the World Health Organization, more than 700,000 people die by suicide every year; one in 100 global deaths is by suicide. In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported 45,000 deaths by suicide (14.2 per 100,000) for the year 2020, representing a 30 percent increase over a 20-year period. Suicide is the eleventh leading cause of death in the U.S., and among persons between the ages of 10 to 34, it is the second leading cause. Women are more likely than men to attempt suicide, but men are three to four times more likely than women to die by suicide. In short, suicide is an intractable public and global health issue that has shown few signs of abating. The growing salience of suicide in popular culture is unsurprising in light of these worrisome trends.

Representations of suicide and suicidality abound in popular culture. More recent examples include young adult literature like Jay Asher’s Thirteen Reasons Why and Jennifer Niven’s All the Bright Places, on which the Netflix original series and movie, respectively, were based; narrative videogames like Life is Strange, The Suicide of Rachel Foster, and Indigo Prophecy; Charles Forsman’s graphic novel, I Am Not Okay with This (also the basis of a Netflix series); the ABC TV series, A Million Little Things; Eric Steel’s documentary film, The Bridge; and media coverage of and tributes to celebrity suicides like Robin Williams, Anthony Bourdain, Mindy McCready, and Chester Bennington. As many of these representations illustrate, suicide is not reducible to a singular cause, but lies at the juncture of myriad intersecting forces. 

*CFP* "THE IDEA OF THE SHAKESPEARE ACTOR", EDITED COLLECTION

What comes to mind when we think about the Shakespearean actor, or Shakespearean acting? What do actors past, present, and future consider ‘Shakespearean acting’ to be? Is the idea of the Shakespearean actor helpful, or does it limit and restrict the notion of what Shakespearean performance can be?

Histories of Shakespearean acting have often provided catalogues of names weighted in favour of white cisgender actors including David Garrick, John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, Derek Jacobi, Kenneth Branagh, and Mark Rylance, in favour of cerebral or declamatory performance styles, and in favour of performing in an English accent. This collection will read against the grain of theatre history to confront the idea of the Shakespearean actor.

As performance trends have changed over the last thirty or forty years, and as landmark works in Shakespeare and early modern performance studies have shown, the limits and definition of ‘the Shakespearean’ have expanded.[1] New approaches address the limits of a teleological, British-centric approach to the histories of Shakespearean acting and acting practices: there have been interesting challenges to the limits of 'Shakespearean acting' from earlier periods, from figures such as Ira Aldridge, Paul Robeson, Asta Nielsen, Ellen Terry, Sarah Bernhardt, Fanny Furnival, Sarah Siddons, and even Edward Kynaston.

*CFP* "PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING AND AUTHENTICITY", SPECIAL ISSUE, CELEBRITY STUDIES JOURNAL

We are currently editing a special issue of Celebrity Studies on the topic of Professional Wrestling and Authenticity. At present the issue ranges from general theorisations to specific case studies unpacking how authenticity and celebrity can be figured in the world of wrestling, drawing upon star studies, celebrity studies, sports studies and audience studies to gain a full understanding of the wrestling star image.

We are seeking further submissions to our issue, particularly focussed on how formations of authenticity and celebrity within wrestling have been impacted by the pandemic.

Article topics might include, but are not limited to:

• Wrestlers, social media, and Covid awareness 
• Case studies of wrestler star images and transitions to new forms of labour (e.g. streaming, OnlyFans) 
• The development of ‘cinematic’ wrestling and its relationship to ‘authentic’ performance

 

*CFP* "THE POLITICS OF CASTING IN MEDIA", UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH WALES CONFERENCE (ONLINE)

"The Politics of Casting in Media"

Faculty of Creative Industries

University of South Wales

20-21 November 2021

We invite proposals from academia and industry for 20-minute papers and 80-minute panels to be presented at the international and interdisciplinary two-day online conference The Politics of Casting in Media, hosted by the Faculty of Creative Industries at the University of South Wales.

We particularly welcome proposals from postgraduate students, PhD candidates, early career researchers, industry experts, trade bodies,  guilds, NGOs, and charities. Submissions from a variety of perspectives,  theoretical underpinnings, and methodological approaches that cover all  media – such as film, television, theatre, radio, animation, video games, advertising – are welcome, with possible topics including (but 

not limited to):

• Character representation and identity (such as race, gender,
• sexuality, age, class, and ‘non-normative’ bodies)
• The role of casting director within media productions
• Auditioning processes
• Support for marginalised groups gaining employment
• Marketing, paratextual, and transmedial engagement with casts
• Celebrity, stardom, and performance
• The re-casting of characters
• Media texts centring on casting, such as /Black Hollywood: ‘They
• Gotta Have Us’ /(BBC Two, 2020) and /Disclosure /(Netflix, 2020)
• Colourblind casting
• Casting in bi-lingual/back-to-back productions
• Audience responses to cast choices
• Fan and anti-fan practices
• Toxic audience behaviour
• Casting and Covid-19
• The political economy of casting
• International media collaborations
• Casting and pedagogy
• Casting outside of Hollywood and mainstream media
• Voice acting in radio, video games, animated media, and CGI
• Background actors, non-speaking roles, and extras
• Industry commitments to inclusion and diversity
• Tokenism and the burden of representation
• Histories of castin

For individual papers, please send abstracts (maximum 350 words) and
bios (maximum 150 words) to James Rendell james.rendell@southwales.ac.uk

Submissions should include your name, the title of your paper, and your institutional or professional affiliation (if appropriate; we strongly welcome independent scholars and freelance professionals). We also seek proposals for 80-minute panels. Panel submissions (maximum 1050 words)  should include abstracts, institutional/professional affiliations, and  contact information for all speakers. As an inclusive international online conference, speakers will have the option to present live or submit pre-recorded videos.

Submission Deadline: 31 July 2021

More information

*CFP* "KIMPOSIUM! THE SEQUEL", SYMPOSIUM

Kimposium! The sequel

14 - 16 September 2021

 

In 2015 we held Kimposium! to great success.  Now, as Keeping Up with the Kardashians draws to a close after twenty seasons, we revisit and renew our feminist thinking about these globally famous women.  Renowned and reviled, loved and hated, the Kardashians are quintessential icons of early 21st century celebrity cultures.  But this family represents and embodies so much more.  Indeed, studying the Kardashians and their products leads to consideration of some of the most pressing social and cultural issues of our time.

Dr Meredith Jones, from Brunel University London, says:

“Love them or hate them, the Kardashians are arguably the USA’s new ‘royal’ family, their every move scrutinised. But unlike the British Royals these people invite the public in to observe their everyday lives. In the course of doing this they have redefined reality television and had profound social impacts: Notably, Kim is at the forefront of an international change to what an ‘ideal’ woman’s body is, and Caitlyn has brought trans into the mainstream like nobody before her.”

*CFP* "REFOCUS: THE FILMS OF DAVID MAMET", EDITED COLLECTION

We are seeking abstracts of 250-500 words for essays to be included in a book-length anthology on David Mamet to appear in late 2022. We have received a number of strong proposals already, but looking for a few more to add to the volume’s lineup. The intended scope of the work is to analyze Mamet’s unique position as an artist of note in both the theatre and the cinema, as well as his very specific ideas about dramatic structure, performance style, and economical visual storytelling. It will argue, for the first time, that Mamet’s film work is an essential, but underappreciated dimension of his artistic career.

Possible areas of inquiry could include: Mamet’s films as writer/director; Mamet as script doctor; Mamet as screenwriter for other directors; Mamet and dramatic theory; Mamet and gender; Mamet and adaptation; Mamet and adaptation of theatrical productions; Mamet and Jewish identity; Mamet and confidence games; Mamet and Chicago; Mamet and performance; Mamet and visual style; Mamet and dialogue; Mamet and profanity; Mamet and politics; Mamet and class; Mamet and frequent collaborators; Mamet in popular culture; Mamet and celebrity; Mamet and Hollywood; Mamet and magic; Mamet and authorship. Areas outside of those listed here are also welcome.

*CFP* "STEVE MCQUEEN: 'I WANT THE BURDEN'", 14TH ANNUAL CONTEMPORARY DIRECTORS SYMPOSIUM

Steve McQueen: “I want the burden”

14th Annual Contemporary Directors Symposium

University of Sussex, online, Friday 24 Sept. 2021

 

Working across a range of formats, from video art and gallery installations to Hollywood to BBC1 with his recent Small Axe pentalogy, Steve McQueen’s prodigious output has been marked by formal ambition and political urgency, engaging most notably, but not exclusively, with black experience in racialised settings. This symposium interrogates his body of work, its political, aesthetic and institutional dimensions, and the interfaces between them.

Proposed papers are especially welcome on, but not limited to, the following topics:

*CFP* "THE COMEDY OF RICKY GERVAIS: CRITICAL ESSAYS", EDITED ANTHOLOGY

For over twenty years, Ricky Gervais has entertained audiences with a brand of comedy all his own. The groundbreaking sitcom The Office pioneered the mockumentary genre and has influenced countless programs. Subsequent projects have continued to propel comedy into new directions, forms, and platforms.

The editor of the forthcoming anthology, The Comedy of Ricky Gervais: Critical Essays, is currently soliciting chapters that analyze any aspect of Gervais’ career: as comedian, as actor, and as writer-director.  Essays may examine a single work by Gervais or take a comparative, thematic approach. This work is wide-reaching and hopes to survey as much of Gervais’ work as possible.  This includes the television programs The Office, Extras, The Ricky Gervais Show, An Idiot Abroad, Life’s Too Short, Derek, and Afterlife; films, including The Invention of Lying, Cemetery Junction, Special Correspondents, and David Brent: Life on the Road; and his stand-up comedy specials, including Animals, Science and Humanity. Although this collection focuses film, television, and stand-up comedy, the editor also seeks original essays that address Gervais’ music, Flanimals book series, radio shows / podcasts, and social media presence.

*CFP* "'THE CINEMATOGRAPHIC STARDOM IN SPAIN': ACTRESSES UNDER FRANCOISM", I INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS

I International Congress

"The cinematographic stardom in Spain": Actresses under Francoism

Online edition, May 25 - 27th 2021

 

The I International Congress "The cinematographic stardom in Spain": Actresses under Francoism intends to open a way of thinking upon the cinematographic star-system in Spain, and, particularly, upon the actresses' role during Franco's dictatorship. This initiative is part of the research project Representations of Female Desire in Spanish Cinema during Francoism: The Gestural Evolution of the Actress under Censorship (Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness, REF: CSO2017-83083-P). To this extent, the aim is to gather specialists in Spanish cinema history and the Star Studies methodologies to think about the role of the female stars during Francoism concerning the behaviours that the regime had established for women. We are interested in the normative models, as much as possible contradictions, transgressions, and alternatives inside the industry itself generated by the actresses on and off the screen. Moreover, we are interested, mainly, in the possible elements of creative subjectivity that actresses played in the configuration of their roles as stars and constructing the characters they played.

*CFP* "DISCOURSES ON THE FUTURE OF FOOD", THE 2ND BIENNIAL CONFERENCE ON FOOD & COMMUNICATION

The 2nd Biennial Conference on Food & Communication

Discourses on the Future of Food

Ljubljana, 15-17 September 2021

(due to Covid-19 postponed from 23-25 September 2020)

 

We kindly ask participants that submitted their abstracts last year, when the conference was cancelled due to Covid-19 pandemic, to resubmit.

Food is a key means through which we construct and represent ourselves discursively. Food features as a powerful cultural signifier, often evoking associations with issues of gender, class, race and identity. Food-related activities, such as grocery shopping, meal preparation and eating, along with the public and private spaces in which these activities occur, provide the basis for many of our complex daily communicative practices. Food also is located at the core of many of the most challenging social issues of our time, often manifested in oppressive relations of inequality, and in the placement of food at the center of calls for social justice.

*CFP* "GLOBAL QUEER FANDOMS OF ASIAN MEDIA AND CELEBRITIES", 21.6 ISSUE, COMMENTARY AND CRITICISM SECTION, FEMINIST MEDIA STUDIES JOURNAL

Since the 2010s, K-pop music groups, Chinese, South Korean, and Thai TV dramas, Japanese ACG (anime, cosplay, and gaming) cultures, and Hong Kong, Taiwanese, and Singaporean films have continued to grow in popularity on a trans-geocultural scale. With little doubt, global flows of Asian entertainment media and pop culture have been paving the way for a decentering of the Western-dominated global mediascape. Certainly, due to the increasingly close and frequent collaborations between media industries in diverse geolocales, the too-often essentialized notion of “Asianness” and the problematic theoretical binarisms of East/West, global/local, and center/periphery need urgent contestation. It is also hard to ignore the central role played by androgynous personas, homosocial and homoerotic narratives, and norm-defying performances in the worldwide prominence of Asian media and celebrity cultures, as well as their flourishing queer fan communities in inter-Asian and Anglophone contexts.

This special Commentary and Criticism section aims to re-center Asia within fan studies through a combined global feminist and queer lens. It highlights the multivalent potential of queer in forming disruption and alternation to established meanings, identities, and norms in global media flows and fannish spaces devoted to Asian media and celebrities. It thus invites contributions that bridge global media studies, Asian pop culture studies, LGBTQ media and audience studies, and queer fan studies to identify promises and problems rooted in or emerging from transcultural, cross-linguistic, multi-ethnic, and (de-)globalist settings.

*CFP* "CELEBRITY AND CRISIS, CELEBRITY IN CRISIS", INTERNATIONAL 2021 CONFERENCE

Celebrity and Crisis, Celebrity in Crisis

10-13rd May, 2021

University of Bologna, Italy

 

The emergency and exceptional situations linked to crisis contexts involve a series of urgencies and perspectives that also affect the world of celebrities. Depending on the type of crisis in progress, the media define new celebrities, or place an emphasis on the actions of already known personalities. An example is Greta Thunberg, who has become an icon of the climate crisis, known to the general public above all for the importance that mass media have given to her words and actions. Or the recent "celebrities with white coats", so called to emphasize the social importance and media presence of medical experts in the Covid 19 emergency.

When cases of this type appear in the media, opinion makers and commentators usually rush to define the specificities of the celebrity on duty, also motivating the reasons for its rapid notoriety. Observations on his behavior are activated only randomly, following, in fact, the very trend of the crisis, which appear suddenly, reach the peak and then return to a stabilization logic. In other words, there seems to be a lack of systematic reflection, which instead leads to an analysis of the effects and consequences of the actions of celebrities in crisis situations.

*CFP* "VIVA LAS VEGAS: MUSIC AND MYTH IN AMERICA'S CITY OF SECOND CHANCES", CHAPTER PROPOSALS

Las Vegas has been an important commercial hub for live and recorded music for most of the twentieth century. It is also arguably the most American of America's cities--as art critic Dave Hickey put it, at least in Vegas “the payoffs are posted and the odds easily calculable.” Largely, however, the critical attention toward place and music industry has privileged other American commercial centers, namely Los Angeles and New York City. Despite Las Vegas’s rich musical entanglements, in fact, a full study of the musical and cultural values of the city has not yet emerged. Viva Las Vegas sets out to examine the sonic place-making and musical mythologies surrounding America’s City of Second Chances.

This book will investigate venues of fantasy and myth-making during this critical moment when broader mythos of America have become political and cultural lightning rods. Contributors to this volume will consider collectively the values and perspectives of music-making in, around, and through Las Vegas. This book places itself alongside vibrant studies of popular music and place, including Stacy Wolf’s study of amateur and community musical theater in America; Barry Shank’s investigation of various music “scenes” in Austin, Texas; Fred Bartenstein and Curtis W. Ellison’s illumination of bluegrass networks in southwestern Ohio; and my own work on religious communities in the middle of America employing popular music to slow the creep of modernity. It also joins robust scholarly intrigue in media studies, sound studies, queer studies, and critical geography, situated within and between a number of developing transdisciplinary spaces. Making a book (and making book) on Las Vegas seems a safe bet for a rapidly expanding American music studies: what happens in Vegas should no longer stay in Vegas.

*CFP* "MISINFORMATION AND DISINFORMATION ON DIGITAL PLATFORMS IN THE PANDEMIC", SPECIAL ISSUE, FRONTEIRAS JOURNAL

Fronteiras Journal, an open access journal, invites submissions to our special issue “Misinformation and Disinformation on Digital Platforms in the Pandemic”. The special issue encourages submissions that explore one or more of the following issues:

• Adjustments and innovations in journalism practice; 
• Changes in scientific practices;
• Governance policies on digital platforms; 
• Production and manipulation of data around pandemic; 
• Disinformation, misinformation and social/digital inequalities; 
• Tensions between politics and public health; 
• Empirical studies on disinformation and misinformation on digital platforms; 
• Culture of hate and misinformation; 
• Celebrities, influencers and digital activists in the circulation of disinformation and misinformation; 
• Fear, panic and anxiety in the circulation of narratives about Covid-19; 
• Role of bots, deepfakes and AI in circulation of disinformation and misinformation;
  

*CFP* "MISINFORMATION AND DISINFORMATION ON DIGITAL PLATFORMS IN THE PANDEMIC", SPECIAL ISSUE, FRONTEIRAS JOURNAL

Fronteiras Journal, Brazilian journal of communication, announces call for papers for a special issue on misinformation and disinformation on digital platforms.

Please feel free to circulate this announcement widely.

The emergence of disinformation and misinformation on digital platforms, through the so-called fake news and new forms of circulation, requires efforts from many areas. The presidential elections in Brazil in 2018, as well as the 2016 US elections, revealed the power of affect in circulation of narratives about untrue events. Misinformation and disinformation is especially complicated when it finds circulation on WhatsApp groups. Other problems are orchestrated use of automated accounts, algorithmic biases, practices of content moderation and other forms of governance. In the context of Covid-19 pandemic, disinformation and misinformation is spreading very fast, and the contents are replicated without any confirmation or scientific evidence.  World Health Organization adopted “infodemic” to name not only what is untrue, but also the excess of information. At the same time, deep fake is now dealt with edited images and videos in fictitious situations, enhanced by the action of AI, machine learning and bots.

*CFP* "POPULAR MUSIC AND POPULISM", SPECIAL ISSUE, POPULAR MUSIC JOURNAL

Populism has been researched from a great array of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences over the last decades. In musicology and popular music studies, however, the concept has been relatively neglected so far. This is all the more surprising since populism and music have been intricately connected at least since the nineteenth-century populist movement in the U.S. (Patch 2016; Kazin 2017), and popular music studies have a long tradition of research into music and politics (Street 2017; Garratt 2019), subcultures and counter-cultural movements that challenge the hegemonic ‘power bloc’ (Clarke et. al. 1975; Hebdige 1979; Eyerman and Jamison 1995). This special issue, therefore, seeks to explore the nexus between popular music and populism.

Research on populism is complicated by the concept’s ambivalence. Populism has been defined as a democratic movement (Goodwyn 1976), an emancipatory resource (Laclau 2005), a political strategy (Weyland 2017), an economic policy (Dornbusch and Edwards 1992), a communication style (Block and Negrine 2017), or an ideology (Mudde and Kaltwasser 2017). Due to its wide scope, populism has been subdivided into various classifications, including inclusionary, exclusionary, right-wing, left-wing, nineteenth-century, contemporary, US, South-American, and European varieties. However, although populist movements assume highly diverse shapes across the world, they share a common ideological core based on a dichotomous understanding of a basic conflict between the two antagonistic camps of the essentially ‘good’ people and an inherently corrupt elite. As Michael Kazin (2017) has noted, populism’s power lies precisely in its adaptability.

*CFP* "PLATFORMED BODIES", SPECIAL ISSUE, MEDIEKULTUR: JOURNAL OF MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION RESEARCH

Over the last couple of decades, the global social, political and economic landscape has been marked by rise and dominance of social media. These transnational owned social media and communication services fundamentally alter both the ways economic value is produced, as well as the fundamental ways that social life is lived. To understand this dual impact we have seen a wealth of theoretical innovation, with platform studies proven to be an immensely powerful instance (Gillespie, 2010; Van Dijck, et al., 2018). In an early work, Van Dijck supplies a key intervention when suggesting that techno-cultural constructs and socioeconomic structures should be integrated in an ecological approach to better capture “the mutual shaping of social media and the culture of connectivity” (Van Dijck, 2013, 26). In other words, intertwining cultural and economic analysis is key for understanding the current moment in which digital platforms, services and devices are of increasing importance to more and more aspects of society and everyday life. 

In this analysis however, the question of the body as a somatic reality, a social construct, and a site of experience and contestation, is less clear. It is this intersection that this special issue of MedieKultur takes aim at. We invite submissions that combine analysis of platforms and the body.

*CFP* "CINEMATIC BODIES", 15.1 ISSUE, CINEPHILE JOURNAL

The body on the screen and the body of the screen have always formed a compelling and productive pairing. From apparatus theory to production and exhibition histories, these two conceptualizations of cinematic bodies remain valuable avenues for reflecting on the use of images, their visibility, materiality, and presentation. As cinema continues to fracture and expand across our cell phones and living spaces, the screen is increasingly tangible, mobile, and ubiquitous. Like the mobile toys and popular illusions preceding modern cinema, these forms of new media present particular bodies on particular screens. 

The unifying darkness of the movie theatre is being replaced by a brighter multiplicity of global media objects, at once scattered and reconciled through social media, streaming platforms, and the internet in general. Even as borders and nations are re-entrenched, international connections are being forged. Though research on the body of the screen (in exhibition histories, affect theory, and tactility) and on the body on the screen (in critical theory on the making of race and gender) has proliferated in recent years, bringing the two together will produce a more nuanced consideration of how and who we are watching today.

*CFP* "FASHION AND PHOTOGRAPHY", 2ND INCLUSIVE INTERDISCIPLINARY CONFERENCE

Fashion and Photography: 2nd Inclusive Interdisciplinary Conference

Progressive Connexions

12th-13th March 2021

Lisbon, Portugal

Due to th epostponement of this event in relation to the Covid pandemic, we are delighted to be able to unexpectedly reopen the Call for Submissions for the newly rescheduled dates.

In the early 20th century, fashion and photography were indelibly wedded through the efforts of a number of photographers, fashion designers, and magazine publishers. Once these cultural power shapers created the form, fashion photography took on a life of its own and became—perhaps always was—art. This art form has since been elevated to heights such that being a fashion photographer can be seen as very important chapter in many well-known photographers’ career: designers rely on them; models request them; magazines use their work: celebrities choose them for shoots; and the power they have to represent others is beyond compare in today’s, 21st century image-driven world.

*CFP* "CHILDREN AND CELEBRITIES", SPECIAL EDITION, THE CELEBRITY STUDIES JOURNAL

The entertainment industries create the most widely circulated popular images of children and childhood, and yet the role of children in celebrity studies warrants further study. As John Mercer and Jane O’Connor (2017) point out, the intersection between Childhood Studies and Celebrity Studies has been gaining traction in recent years, highlighting a tension between the dominant discourses of innocence surrounding children, and the highly competitive commercial imperatives of celebrity culture.

New participatory entertainment ecologies have created new opportunities for child performers, leading to the rise of new kinds of child celebrities and surrounding reception cultures. For instance, on YouTube, the world’s most popular user-generated video streaming service, some of the most successful celebrities are children: eight year old Ryan Kaji – a North American child who reviews toys for the channel ‘Ryan’s World’ (formerly ‘Ryan ToysReview’) – was the highest-earning YouTube personality of the year in both 2018 (Statista, 2019) and 2019 (Berg, 2019).