*CFP* "ESTUDIOS DE FANS EN IBEROAMÉRICA", Nº38 (2022-2), REVISTA CONTRATEXTO

Estudios de fans en Latinoamérica

Revista Contratexto

Sección Dosier

Fecha límite: 15 de mayo de 2022

El número 38 de Contratexto se centrará en los estudios del fenómeno fan en Iberoamérica.

Editoras invitadas: María José Establés (Universidad de Nebrija, España), María del Mar Guerrero Pico (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, España), Johanna Montauban Bryce (Universidad de Lima, Perú). Se recibirán artículos originales o ensayos que aborden de modo preferente alguno(s) de lossiguientes ejes temáticos:

● Media fandom (series de televisión, cine, videojuegos, novelas, cómics y manga…)
● Otros objetos de fandom: música, deportes…
● Fandoms del ámbito hispanohablante y de la lusofonía (telenovelas, influencers, youtubers…)

*CFP* "CINEMATIC BOND AT 60: NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES", A HISTORY RESEARCH GROUP SYMPOSIUM

Cinematic Bond at 60: National and International Perspectives

A History Research Group Symposium

Bournemouth University (Online), 4 March 2022

 

In 1962 the first James Bond film, Dr No (Terence Young) was released. The film was a huge financial success for EON productions, catapulted Sean Connery to lifelong stardom and started a period of Bondmania that lasted for most of the 1960s. As a cultural icon and cultural phenomenon, James Bond and the Bond film have become a globally recognised brand. 

The films have been widely analysed for their spectacle, their often problematic engagement with masculinity, gender relations and cultural appropriation as well as the ideological implications of how they engage with their backdrop of social and geopolitical change across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. With 2022 marking 60 years of the cinematic Bond and the latest instalment, No Time to Die (Cary Fukunaga), due (allegedly) for release in October 2021, critical reflections on this ongoing franchise are relevant and timely.

*CFP* "EMERGING MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE TOURIST ENCOUNTER", SPECIAL ISSUE, TOURISM GEOGRAPHIES JOURNAL

This special issue examines practices, meanings and impacts of emerging media technologies: digital, mobile, geo/locative and augmented reality technologies within tourism geographies. The special issue aims to situate emerging media technologies within processes of the production and transformation of space, spatial knowledge and social relations within the tourist encounter. We ask contributors to the special issue to consider: What are the configurations of different technologies involved with tourist experiences? In what ways do emerging media technologies shape tourism imaginaries and experiences? What are the particular cultural inflections in the relationship between digital and tourist practices? How do broader infrastructural and economic conditions shape the relationships between digital and tourist practices?

Papers in this special issue will explore the unfolding contexts of media, digital and emerging technologies in tourism geographies across breadth and depth and may include the following topics:

• Culturally and geographically situated explorations of digital practices in tourist sites (including empirical investigations into travel photography, virtual reality headsets, online travel writing, and travel vlogs) 

*CFP* "ESPORTS IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC", PALGRAVE SERIES IN ASIA AND PACIFIC STUDIES VOLUME

Over the last two decades, the Asia-Pacific region has been central to the growth and development of esports. The establishment in 2000 of the Korean Esports Association placed competitive gaming within a government ministry at a time when it was still a niche hobby in other parts of the world (Jin, 2010). Three years later, the Chinese government also recognized esports, making it the country's 99th official sport, and broadcasting esports documentaries and tournaments on state-owned television stations (Lu, 2016).

Today, the region remains a major esports site, with Jakarta hosting an exhibition esports tournament as part of the 2018 Asian games (Etchells, 2018), and Hangzhou set to host the first medalling esports Olympic event as part of the 2022 Asian games (The 19th Asian Games, 2021).

Asia is also a huge esports market. It is the fastest growing esports sector in the world and in 2019 it “generated nearly half of total global esports revenue at $519 million” (Niko Partners, 2020). The size of the Asian population plays a key role in both the number of spectators and the number of esports athletes from the region: “According to Juniper, 50% of the over 1 billion esports and games viewers in 2025 will be from the Asia Pacific region” (Campe, 2021).

*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* "LGBTQIA+ FANTASTIKA GRAPHICS", A DIGITAL SYMPOSIUM

“Fantastika” – a term appropriated from a range of Slavonic languages by John Clute – embraces the genres of Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Horror, but can also include Alternate History, Gothic, Steampunk, Young Adult Dystopic Fiction, or any other radically imaginative narrative space. Our goal is to bring together academics, independent researchers, creators, and audiences who share an interest in this diverse range of fields with the aim of opening up new dialogues, productive controversies, and critical collaborations.

Following the 2020-pandemic hiatus, we are pleased to re-launch our annual conferences this year as a digital symposium. LGBTQIA+ Fantastika Graphics focuses on graphics and illustrations in its widest possible remit (comic books, manga, animes, cartoons, picture books, video games, and other such productions.) [This is an updated remit from ‘graphic novels’; please disregard previous CFPs.] We are interested in works that contain representations of the LGBTQIA+ community, relationships, and full spectrum of identities. We welcome abstracts for 15-minute papers or panels of 2-4 people on LGBTQIA+ Fantastika as they occur in the graphic form. Some suggested topics are:

*CFP* "PIKACHU'S TRANSMEDIA ADVENTURES: THE CONTINUING ADAPTABILITY OF THE POKEMON FRANCHISE", EDITED COLLECTION

In 2021, the Pokemon franchise celebrates the 25th anniversary of its debut in Japan and the fifth anniversary of its popular worldwide AR cellphone game Pokemon Go. In fact, Pokemon is arguably experiencing something of a resurgence and renaissance within the current cultural moment. When a pop-up Pokemon Centre store was opened in London in 2018 to mark the release of Sword and Shield, queues for entering the retail space frequently had to be closed due to demand whilst product lines regularly sold out on a daily basis. In 2019, when the long-running cartoon’s main character Ash Ketchum finally won a Pokemon tournament, major news sites humorously deemed this victory a newsworthy event (Bissett 2019). 

More recently, a revival in Pokemon card collecting has left retail shelves bare and scalpers running rampant whilst mint-condition ‘graded’ cards have sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars at auction (Koebler 2021). Meanwhile, the games themselves continue to be adapted to Nintendo’s console platforms, with the Nintendo Switch releasing both remakes of previously popular titles (Pokemon Let’s Go! Pikachu and Let’s Go! Eevee, Pokemon Snap) as well as new titles exploring hitherto unknown regions (Pokemon Sword and Shield). Much more than a franchise intended to commercially target and exploit children, the Pokemon franchise represents an enduringly popular intellectual property that continues to attract interest across generations.

*CFP* "EPISTEMIC CONTESTATIONS IN THE HYBRID MEDIA ENVIRONMENT", SPECIAL ISSUE, POPULAR COMMUNICATION: THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MEDIA AND CULTURE

The aim of this special issue is to explore how a multiplicity of competing epistemologies interact and compete in the “post-Truth” marketplace of ideas in online popular communication. We invite contributions to a special issue on the intersections of popular communication, disinformation, and misinformation. We are especially interested in how popular communication can challenge and even upend traditional and inherited belief systems and knowledge regimes in religion, politics, fandom, and other institutions.

As traditional ideologies and other thought regimes collapse and new ones arise, recent scholarship has examined the contributions of digitalization and datafication of popular communication that contest older communitarian worldviews (e.g. Fuller, 2020). The internet has augmented collective understandings of the world but also undermined a broader sense of belonging, while enabling a new scope of contestation over “epistemic capital” (Robertson, 2016, 2021). In popular communication, especially, the social construction of meaning and worldviews is more manipulable than ever through disinformation, misinformation, and propaganda.

*CFP* "VFX AND FANS: PARTICIPATORY CULTURE AND THE INDUSTRY", SPECIAL ISSUE, KINEPHANOS JOURNAL

Interactions between creators from the entertainment industry and the fan community have been around for a long time. In 1891, Holmes fans reacted very strongly to the famous detective death. It resulted in a flood of angry letters sent to author Conan Doyle, who resurrected him in a subsequent episode. Even the Hollywood star system was first motivated by the fans’ desire to know their favorite actors appearing as anonymous shadows on the screen. Later on, communities gathered around sci-fi magazines such as Hugo Gernsbach's Amazing Stories in 1926. It was a decisive moment that saw the birth of "fandom" as we know it today, and it certainly contributed to the emergence of audiences known as "cultists", a term coined by Matt Hills (2002), which is a type of public that is increasingly knowledgeable, who feels a certain "empowerment" towards fetishized works. 

The end of the 20th century, with the development and democratization of digital technologies, has witnessed the rise of this new consumer-producer paradigm that thumbs its nose at the ideology of the Frankfurt School's passive consumer. Without forgetting that the modern fan is the product of a long line of popular works and "B-movies", from Flash Gordon (1936) to the science fiction films of the 1940s and 1950s in the United States (with the rise of communism and its alien invasion films), from Star Trek in the 60s to Star Wars in 70s - a wave on which the franchise is still "surfing". Special effects films, a cinema of attraction that traditionally places "the effect" at the center (Gunning), have always fascinated the public, but always from a distance without being able to really interact with them or create or propose their alternative versions. The only interventions possible were, until now, centered on "a posteriori" actions, via journal sections of readers' letters, for example, or web forums, without much impact on the result.

*CFP* "LGBTQIA+ FANTASTIKA GRAPHICS", A DIGITAL SYMPOSIUM

“Fantastika” – a term appropriated from a range of Slavonic languages by John Clute – embraces the genres of Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Horror, but can also include Alternate History, Gothic, Steampunk, Young Adult Dystopic Fiction, or any other radically imaginative narrative space. Our goal is to bring together academics, independent researchers, creators, and audiences who share an interest in this diverse range of fields with the aim of opening up new dialogues, productive controversies, and critical collaborations.

Following the 2020-pandemic hiatus, we are pleased to re-launch our annual conferences this year as a digital symposium. LGBTQIA+ Fantastika Graphics focuses on the graphic novel medium in its widest possible remit (comic books, manga, and other such productions). We are interested in works that contain representations of the LGBTQIA+ community, relationships, and full spectrum of identities.

We welcome abstracts for 15-minute papers or panels of 2-4 people on LGBTQIA+ Fantastika as they occur in the graphic form.

Some suggested topics are:

*CFP* "ANIMATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY. RETHINKING IMAGES AND TECHNOLOGY", 27TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF FILM STUDIES

Animation in the 21^st Century. Rethinking Images and Technology

Roma Tre University

Rome, 25-26 November 2021

The conference aims to propose a reflection that examines the dynamics and mechanisms behind the creation of some of the most interesting national and international contemporary animation trends. The topics will place them in close connection with the current media scenario (cinema, advertising, videogames, the web, animated documentaries, TV series, contemporary art, digital culture) and with transmedia aesthetic and narrative forms originating from different cultural paradigms.

The conference will pay particular attention to the conjunction between theories and practices and between mainstream and experimental forms. Hence, it intends to investigate animated films as an industrial, narrative, aesthetic and ideological “system” promoting imaginaries, aesthetics, and values. It also delves into the production of artists who move on the borders, free from conditioning and devoted to the more advanced technological research. Therefore, the conference’s overall aim is to revitalize and address the concept of animation in contemporary visual culture, investigating its theoretical, historical, political, and cultural nature in relation to the new moving images.

*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* "HAMILTON AND THE POETICS OF AMERICA", SPECIAL ISSUE, EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES

For those following the course of its reception since its premiere in 2015, there is little doubt that Hamilton: An American Musical is not just theatre. Rather, it is a cultural phenomenon embedded in America’s efforts to make sense of a national selfhood in crisis and an increasingly beleaguered image. The way Hamilton has reflected, fed into and off these efforts does not have to do only with the musical as “self-contained” work of art. Perhaps most importantly, it correlates with how the work has been negotiated in the realm of popular culture and beyond. Hence the main premise of this issue of the European Journal of American Studies: how Hamilton has been talked and written about, the remarkable range of response it has attracted within America, and throughout America’s geocultural ambit, signposts processes of fathoming America’s shifting poetics; that is, the intricate ensemble of meaning-making tools and concepts by which the functioning of contemporary American culture can be accessed and assessed.

Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creative genius behind the musical, approached Hamilton as a liminal mythic figure, and thus as a cultural text of distributed authorship. Hamilton the work can be construed as an instantiation of Hamilton the myth, a thread woven in the mythic matrix of America’s beginnings. As an instance of reception that has itself been generatively received to the point of becoming a cultural phenomenon, Hamilton arguably betrays more about the context from which it sprang than about the primary mythical material itself. Although it gestures back to the past, it also resonantly speaks to its (our) own present.

*CFP* "PARTICIPATORY CULTURE WARS: CONTROVERSY, CONFLICT AND COMPLICITY IN FANDOM", EDITED COLLECTION

It has become increasingly clear that fandoms and participatory culture are sites of controversy, conflict and even complicity, complicating earlier assessments that sought to celebrate creativity, collegiality, and community. As we continue to make sense of the consequences of web 2.0, the study of fans – the affective bonds, identities, and productive cultures of a highly mediated and networked society – is vital in understanding our current moment, whether expressed in debates about “cancel culture” or ongoing “culture wars”. Fans have had to rethink and reassess their relationships to fan objects, consider their role in reproducing global systems of inequality, and reflect on the meaning of participation in an era that is marked by both moral ambivalence and political earnestness. 

Implicitly and explicitly, fannish practices are involved in a variety of key social, political, and cultural issues across the globe. They can be seen in politics, ranging from QAnon’s role in the storming of the US Capitol building, conspiracy theories relating to the covid pandemic, and the continued expansion of the global reactionary and populist right, from Britain to India to Brazil. They can be seen in new cultural terrains produced by networked movements like #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, #OscarsSoWhite, and the accompanying activism and responses as fans come to terms with the crimes, misdemeanors, and disagreements of former faves, like Xiao Zhan, Joss Whedon, or JK Rowling. They are expressed in the strategies and tactics of inter- and intra-fandom conflicts, whether Meghan Markle and the Royal Family or some Chinese fan responses to BTS talking about the Korean war. And, pressingly, fan tourism, collector culture, and the energy use of digital culture all contribute to the ongoing climate crisis. 

*CFP* "ORIGINAL Y COPIA, DEL REMAKE AL MEME: ADAPTACIONES, RÉPLICAS Y RECREACIONES EN LA COMUNICACIÓN", NÚMERO 17, RAEIC: REVISTA DE LA ASOCIACIÓN ESPAÑOLA DE INVESTIGACIÓN DE LA COMUNICACIÓN

La presente propuesta tiene como objetivo abordar algunas tendencias de especial incidencia en la creación y distribución de contenidos: las narrativas contemporáneas basadas en la repetición, versión o reelaboración de mensajes preexistentes. La reutilización de material narrativo no es un fenómeno nuevo y ha sido objeto de interés desde diversos enfoques: desde las reflexiones sobre el original y la copia (Benjamin) y la recreación de mitos, hasta la intertextualidad (Kristeva, Bajtin) o la aportación de Genette, que nos remite a la acertada noción de palimpsesto, o hasta el más reciente interés por los remakes cinematográficos (Gray & Johnson) u otras adaptaciones del audiovisual, sin olvidar la actual vigencia de los relatos transmedia (Jenkins). Las posibilidades tecnológicas del universo digital están provocando, eso sí, una renovación de las lógicas de producción basadas en estas repeticiones o reelaboraciones, que favorecen incluso la participación de los receptores, quienes se reconfiguran como emisores de renovados mensajes partiendo del original (fanfics, memes, etcétera).

Asimismo, el intercambio de estos mensajes desde lugares y culturas remotas, pero con gran inmediatez, o la revisión histórica a través de contenidos del pasado, nos proporcionan un escenario privilegiado para estudiar el panorama de la Comunicación en nuestros días con una gran amplitud. Estos fenómenos de apropiación o reutilización afectan a todo tipo de medios, contenidos, canales y formatos que ofrecen producciones basadas, en todo o en parte, en otras preexistentes. Se da además la circunstancia de que este fenómeno es común a la comunicación informativa, de ficción, comercial, paródica, etcétera.

*CFP* "SCIENCE FICTION: ACTIVISM AND RESISTANCE", VIRTUAL CONFERENCE

Science Fiction: Activism and Resistance

Virtual Conference

9-11 September 2021

London Science Fiction Research Community (LSFRC)

 

In an age when Me Too, Black Lives Matter, Decolonise the Curriculum, Refugees Welcome, and movements for global solidarity with oppressed populations have become part of mainstream discourse, it is vital to re-examine the relationship between activism, resistance and the mass imagination vis-a-vis science fiction. As a genre dedicated to imagining alternatives, science fiction is an inherently radical space which allows for diverse explorations of dissent. It is, also, a space that has been rightfully critiqued for its historic inequities favouring white cishet men (as recently addressed by Jeanette Ng during the 2019 Hugo Awards among others). There needs to be reckoning with how precarious bodies engage in activism and resistance in the context of their material realities and restrictions. Therefore, we must deny universalising a single experience as “radical enough” and instead acknowledge how communities in the margins – queer, trans, disabled, neurodivergent, BIPOC, immigrants and refugees, religious minorities, indigenous populations, casualised workers, the homeless and unemployed – have specific ways of subverting and undermining the system, as well as specific stakes and reasons to do so. It is imperative to not only revisit how science fiction has been a space for activism and resistance, but also resist and challenge the genre’s shortcomings.

*CFP* "ESPORTS IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC", PALGRAVE SERIES IN ASIA AND PACIFIC STUDIES VOLUME

Over the last two decades, the Asia-Pacific region has been central to the growth and development of esports. The establishment in 2000 of the Korean Esports Association placed competitive gaming within a government ministry at a time when it was still a niche hobby in other parts of the world (Jin, 2010). Three years later, the Chinese government also recognized esports, making it the country's 99th official sport, and broadcasting esports documentaries and tournaments on state-owned television stations (Lu, 2016).

Today, the region remains a major esports site, with Jakarta hosting an exhibition esports tournament as part of the 2018 Asian games (Etchells, 2018), and Hangzhou set to host the first medalling esports Olympic event as part of the 2022 Asian games (The 19th Asian Games, 2021).

Asia is also a huge esports market. It is the fastest growing esports sector in the world and in 2019 it “generated nearly half of total global esports revenue at $519 million” (Niko Partners, 2020). The size of the Asian population plays a key role in both the number of spectators and the number of esports athletes from the region: “According to Juniper, 50% of the over 1 billion esports and games viewers in 2025 will be from the Asia Pacific region” (Campe, 2021).

*CFP* "MEDIA, SPORT, AND DIVERSITY", ECREA TEMPORARY WORKING GROUP COMMUNICATION AND SPORT VIRTUAL SEMINAR

"Media, Sport, and Diversity"

Virtual Seminar 

ECREA Temporary Working Group Communication and Sport

Aarhus University, Denmark (the seminar will take place online via Zoom)

November 5-6, 2021

 

Sport is an essential element of the culture around the world. As a growing social and economic phenomenon, it plays a key role in contemporary societies. This significance has become particularly obvious during the COVID-19 pandemic as measures prohibiting the performance of sports and on-site spectatorship have affected (and continue to affect) individual well-being as well as the function of sport in society including its health-related, educational, social, cultural, and recreational dimension.

*CFP* "POLÍTICA POP ONLINE: NUEVAS ESTRATEGIAS Y LIDERAZGOS PARA NUEVOS PÚBLICOS", NUEVO MONOGRÁFICO, INDEX.COMUNICACIÓN: REVISTA CIENTÍFICA DE COMUNICACION APLICADA

En la era de lo que Mazzoleni y Sfardini denominan “política pop” (2009), el espectáculo ha invadido un territorio reservado durante décadas al ámbito puramente informativo, convirtiendo los detalles sobre la privacidad y personalidad de los gobernantes en objeto de las pretensiones de conocimiento que imperan en la sección, a menudo veleidosa, alimentada por las celebridades. Ya en 1997, David Marshall reflexionaba en una de sus más reconocidas obras sobre el peculiar nexo de unión entre el concepto de “celebridad” y los rasgos característicos del poder, con el fin de profundizar en el innato deseo del ser humano por descubrir en los personajes públicos un reflejo de sus propias inquietudes, rutinas y anhelos. En este contexto, la enciclopedia internacional de la Comunicación Política recoge el término “celebrity politics” (Richardson, 2015) para aludir al recodo de la investigación en ciencias sociales que atiende a la manera en que rostros conocidos del panorama internacional (políticos o no), combaten la apatía del elector con acciones que permiten humanizar a las figuras gubernamentales y contribuir a la propagación de un mensaje digerible y ameno. La proliferación de contenidos sobre información política espectacularizada o politainment se ha incrementado con el creciente uso de redes sociales como Facebook, Twitter o Instagram, donde los públicos menos interesados en la actualidad parlamentaria pueden encontrar imitaciones hilarantes, memes y vídeos de talk shows relacionados con la esfera gubernamental. A este respecto y siguiendo la vía que marcan los recientes estudios sobre “política pop online” (Bracciale y Mazzoleni, 2019), el presente monográfico invita a remitir propuestas que ahonden en estrategias de captación del voto enfocadas a públicos diversos, nuevos tipos de liderazgo y celebritización del poder en redes sociales, entre otros fenómenos que evolucionan al calor de la cultura popular.

*CFP* "NORDIC SPECULATIVE FICTION", EDITED ANTHOLOGY

The Nordic Countries, including Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, are independent and unique communities, yet at the same time rooted in similar values, culture and history. This anthology aims to bring together scholars, researchers, theories and practises on Nordic speculative fiction, e.g. science fiction, fantasy, horror, the supernatural, and the futuristic, showing the diversity of the Norden (the North) in fiction, fandom and research.

Submissions, written in English, are welcome from all subject areas of Nordic speculative fiction that either:

1. Discuss the history and current status of speculative fiction research and fandom studies in or within the Nordic region, 
2. Offer analyses of Nordic fictions, fandom or users, 
3. Showcase the research (not necessarily dealing with Nordic fiction) of Nordic-based scholars, i.e. scholars currently affiliated with a Nordic university, or independent scholars who live or work within the Nordic region.