*CFP* "THE VITALITY OF ANCIENT RECEPTION STUDIES, NOW", INTERNATIONAL VIRTUAL CONFERENCE

The Vitality of Ancient Reception Studies, Now

An international virtual conference presented by Antiquity in Media Studies (AIMS)

15-18 December 2021

 

The officers of Antiquity in Media Studies invite proposals for presentations that illuminate the ongoing vitality of antiquity in recent discourses. Despite decades of institutional disinvestment in the study of antiquity, a venerated deep past figured as a powerful shared imaginary remains a perennial, emotionally evocative, even highly lucrative concept in myriad contemporary media, around the world and across all manner of identity lines. Among antiquities, of particularly widespread interest has been the millennia of history centered on the Mediterranean and dubbed “classical” among successor societies, both self-appointed and colonized. From Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Odyssey to Luis Alfaro’s Mojada, from Hideki Takeuchi’s Thermae Romae to Pat Barker’s Silence of the Girls, to politicians' and pundits' invocations of the Persian Wars and the fall of Rome, each year produces more receptions of this antiquity. Beyond the Greco-Roman-centered past, all antiquities mobilized for such cultural work today are welcome at this ancient reception studies conference.

*CFP* LLAMADA A PARTICIPACIÓN, II CONGRESO INTERNACIONAL COMUNICACIÓN ESPECIALIZADA

II Congreso Internacional Comunicación Especializada

18 y 19 de Noviembre de 2021 (híbrido)

Facultad de Ciencias de la Comunicación, Universidad de Málaga

 

 

El periodista especializado se halla entre las fuentes expertas, protagonistas de la noticia, por un lado, y las audiencias interesadas en determinados contenidos, por otra. Para informar a los ciudadanos sobre los mecanismos del mercado o de la administración de Justicia; para contarles los descubrimientos de las ciencias o los fichajes de los clubes deportivos siempre ha sido necesario, en efecto, un profesional que entienda lo que hacen y declaran las fuentes, por un lado; y capaz, al mismo tiempo, de divulgarlo entre personas que, no teniendo una particular formación en esas materias, las siguen con particular interés y tratan de conocerlas y comprenderlas para estar a la altura del tiempo en el que viven.

*CFP* "ENTERTAINMENT AND AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE SINCE 1950", COLLECTION OF ESSAYS

Popular Culture has been an integral factor in the fabric of America since its inception. Indeed, the clothes we wear, the music we listen to, the film and television we watch, literature we consume and other facets of our daily being is heavily, if not entirely influenced by the culture that we reside in. Exploring this culture can reveal some of our most deeply held beliefs and assumptions, ideas that we may otherwise take for granted. This is particularly the case since the mid 20th century. 

We are soliciting proposals for a collection of essays on Entertainment and American Popular Culture Since 1950. Submitted proposals should discuss any of the following topics, celebrities, events, awards, music, pageants, film, television, race, gender, religion, literature, sexuality, family. technology etc… Essays must focus on the topic of entertainment or the entertainment industry in some fashion.

While we will consider submissions from ABD’S and individuals from varied academic backgrounds, STRONG PREFERENCE will be given to Ph.D.’s, Ed.D’s, MFA’s, MBA’s , Juris Doctorate’s , Journalists, MD’s and others with terminal degrees. 

*CFP* "BEYOND THE WHITE HOUSE: THE FIRST LADY IN FILM, FICTION, AND CULTURE", EDITED COLLECTION

This edited collection seeks to explore the representation of the First Lady in a range of different texts and media. The collection aims to examine the President’s wife in a purely cultural context by investigating the ways in which she has been represented, embodied, characterised and commemorated in film, fiction, memoir, photography and portraiture, television, theatre, education, museum studies, fashion, and social media. Beyond the White House is an original work that makes use of cultural interpretation to reconfigure the figure of the First Lady as a culturally authoritative individual possessing the ability to sway, change, inspire, and manipulate public attention and opinion. Moving away from biographies and histories, this is the first volume of its kind to consider the representation of the First Lady figure through the prism of popular culture - and therefore consider her impact upon ‘cultural politics’ - and the first to regard her as a strategically important socio-cultural figure.

Removed from the patriarchal hierarchy of White House politics and expectations, the First Lady emerges as a force of her own; she subtly carves out cultural agency and gender identity despite her (in)visibility in the public eye. Simply by being the ‘First Lady of the United States’ she possesses what MaryAnne Borrelli has labelled the “performance of descriptive representation” (Women and the White House: 229). The relationship between the woman and the office is paramount; the existence of the title ‘First Lady’ permits popular culture to tolerate or reject not only political and cultural manoeuvring, but also issues of gender, race, self, location, fashion, identity, satire, memory, authority, and even pedagogy. The office of the First Lady is what the woman makes it, and Beyond the White House she has become a commanding cultural icon.

*CFP* "MEDIATING ITALY IN GLOBAL CULTURE", IV EDITION SUMMER SCHOOL

“Mediating Italy in Global Culture” Summer School, IV edition

June 28th-July 2nd 2021

Blended format (DAMSLab Bologna, Italy and live streamed)

 

The Department of the Arts of the University of Bologna, in collaboration with Brown University, Dickinson College, The University of Michigan, The Ohio State University, and Wesleyan University, invites applications for the 2021 “Mediating Italy in Global Culture” summer school, which will be held from Monday, June 28th to Friday, July 2nd, 2021. Given the ongoing uncertainty of the current situation, the intention for this year is to hold the course, if it will be possible, in a hybrid format, allowing students to attend either in person in Bologna or online. Otherwise, the summer school will be fully online. Updates will be given in due course to selected participants.

*CFP* "THE UNDEAD CHILD: REPRESENTATIONS OF CHILDHOODS PAST, PRESENT, AND PRESERVED", BOOK CHAPTER

In a new study on representations of children and childhood, we are seeking essays that explore the theme of undeadness as it applies to cultural constructions of the child. The undead in popular culture commonly refers to the living dead monsters of horror and mad science that transgress the borders between life and death, rejuvenation and decay. For our purposes, undeadness is a broad concept that explores how people, objects, customs and ideas deemed lost or consigned to the past might endure in the present. When undeadness is applied to the child, an array of interpretive possibilities emerge. These might include nostalgic texts exploring past incarnations of childhood, mementos of childhood (hair, teeth, clothes, art and craft, games, photographs, audio and video recordings), images and artefacts of deceased children, as well as states of arrested development and an inability or refusal to embrace adulthood.

In our application of undeadness, we seek essays that explore attempts at countering the transitory nature of childhood. We believe that such an approach will enable deeper exploration of the parameters of childhood, including the theoretical viability of the child as a key social construct, as well as the ways innocence is itself a redundant concept that nevertheless maintains cultural currency. While the focus of this collection will not be horror, submissions from contributors writing in the field are welcome, with the understanding that our purpose is to expand undeadness beyond the realm of horror while acknowledging its roots in the genre.

*CFP* "REFLECTIONS ON FASHION DESIGN AND MEDIA. SYNERGIES BETWEEN FASHION AND THE MEDIA ARTS", BOOK CHAPTER

CICANT is a Research Centre where both solid theoretical work and rigorous applied research at the cross-section of media, society, literacies, arts, culture and technologies is developed. Critical to its research mission are knowledge creation activities that are oriented towards expanded research on two main subject areas. In CICANT those areas are organised in Research and Learning Communities (ReLeCo).

The research group on Media Arts, Creative Industries and Technologies (MACIT) is focused on the socio-cultural and artistic uses of media technologies (visual, performative, photographic, cinematographic and sonic) at the intersection with the creative industries, both from a historical and contemporary perspective. The group has a robust research in the field and fosters a media practice-based artistic research in several areas and with a long and solid track on them.

In this sense, we open a call for Chapters for the 1st volume of the series Reflections on Fashion Design and Media with the subtitle “Synergies between Fashion and the Media Arts”.

*CFP* "COMUNICACIÓN Y MODA: TENDENCIA, ESTILOS DE VIDA Y DISEÑO", VOL. 12, Nº 1, COMHUMANITAS: REVISTA DE COMUNICACIÓN CIENTÍFICA

La moda es arte, cultura, es una forma de expresión. Como fenómeno social, ha sido estudiada desde diversos enfoques: la filosofía, la estética, la sociología, su relación con la sociedad de consumo, los bienes de lujo, los sistemas de clases, el arte y los cánones de belleza, etc. La moda funciona como generadora simbólica y creadora de cultura, rige las relaciones personales y colectivas, crea historias, funciona como manifestación de modo de reacción ante determinadas circunstancias sociales y da un impulso significativo a la economía mundial. En su desarrollo como industria y en el impulso de su importante papel en la sociedad actual, la comunicación ha tenido un papel esencial.

En este contexto de evolución, desde el inicio de los medios tradicionales hasta la actualidad, destaca la necesidad de entender las estrategias comunicativas que se implementan en el campo de la moda y que distinguen a esta industria de las demás. Resulta importante preguntarnos sobre cómo las labores de comunicación contribuyan al desarrollo social y económico del sector de la moda, cómo apoyan su profesionalización e impulsan la gestión de la creatividad con sentido de responsabilidad social e inteligencia crítica. Nos interesa indagar sobre el papel de las redes sociales y los medios de comunicación en estos procesos, así como observar los cambios sufridos en los últimos años en el mundo de la moda y las tendencias, y las proyecciones o necesidades que debe cubrir la comunicación para subsanar sus crisis.

*CFP* "A CLOUD IN A BOX: POLITICS, HISTORY, AND THE PET SHOP BOYS", BOOK CHAPTER

“Politicians are a bit pathetic. There’s no two ways about that.”

Neil Tennant.

 

The relationship between the Pet Shop Boys and the political has always been one of contention. In their four decades (and counting) of pop music, the duo—Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe—have amassed a large discography, not to mention film scores, movie productions, and their own stage shows. In the process, they have often thrown a critical light on what they see as the great hypocrisies of music and stardom. ‘I don’t really like the idea of people projecting themselves as being important humanitarian figures, which is the tendency for rock personalities nowadays’, Tennant once told journalists, in reference to Bono and U2—a reference further explored in the song How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously? on the 1990 album Behaviour. In an interview with Reuters, Tennant elaborated: ‘I don’t want to talk about it. We are musicians, not politicians.’

That being said, there is no doubt that the Pet Shop Boys have shaped their music, their careers, and their very presence through politics, the presentation of memory, and history. Tennant’s background in political history aside, the oeuvre of the group is littered with allusions to historical figures, events, and circumstances, from King Zog of Albania and T.E. Lawrence to Che Guevara, from the October Revolution of 1917 to the collapse of the Soviet Union and its consequences, from the Special Relationship to Brexit and the ubiquitously stricter migration controls that have become de jure in the Global West in the last two decades. 

*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* "GRACE JONES: POST-COLONIAL. COSMOPOLITAN. ICON", ANTHOLOGY CHAPTERS

Iconic Grace Jones - supermodel, songwriter, singer, record producer, actress and author - theatrically embodies intersectional identity politics. Long before Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the word intersectionality in 1989, Jones was performing a disruptive post-colonial politics that still engenders controversy around gender, sonicity sexuality, race and class. Coming of age in the early years of Jamaican Independence, Jones contested the limiting definitions of working-class black female identity in an essentially neo-colonial society. 

 

Raised in a Fundamentalist Christian home, Jones also broke the repressive religious bonds that constrained her. Assuming the persona of androgynous sex symbol, Jones epitomises liberation from multiple oppressions. 

 

This anthology aims to explore Grace Jones’s stellar, multimodal performance of identity in fashion, music and film, with particular focus on the transgressive and the post-colonial.

 

Grace Jones’s avant-garde work has been wide-ranging and distinctive, and we welcome a variety of approaches.

*CFP* "FASHION, BODY AND CULTURE", INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

"Fashion, Body and Culture" International Conference

30-31 January 2021

London Centre for Interdisciplinary Research

 

Applying diverse methods from across subject disciplines the conference will explore fashion and style in wide-ranging contexts. It will examine connections between fashion, body and culture and will focus on dress, cosmetics, coiffure and body alterations (piercing, tattooing, circumcision, aesthetic surgery, etc).

How does our dress or hair style create our identity and status? How is it concerned with sexual and body politics? Is the desire to be "in fashion" universal or unique to Western culture? These and other questions we set out to discuss at the conference.

*CFP* "ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT", GOTHIC ENCOUNTERS WITH ENCHANTMENT AND THE FAERIE REALM IN LITERATURE AND CULTURE

‘Ill met by moonlight’

Gothic encounters with enchantment and the Faerie realm in literature and culture

University of Hertfordshire

8‒10 April 2021

The Open Graves, Open Minds (OGOM) Project was launched in 2010 with the Vampires and the Undead in Modern Culture conference. We have subsequently hosted symposia on Bram Stoker and John William Polidori, unearthing depictions of the vampire in literature, art, and other media, before embracing shapeshifting creatures and other supernatural beings and their worlds. The Company of Wolves, our ground-breaking werewolf and feral humans conference, took place in 2015. This was followed by The Urban Weird, a folkloric collaboration with Supernatural Cities in 2017. The OGOM Project now extends to all narratives of the fantastic, the folkloric, the fabulous, and the magical. 

*CFP* "BLACK MASCULINITIES, DRESS AND STYLE", SPECIAL ISSUE, CRITICAL STUDIES IN MEN'S FASHION JOURNAL

Like other colonized or otherwise marginalized communities, self-identified Black people employ their bodies as their primary vehicle of cultural expression. For men of African ancestry in particular, how they fashion themselves has literal life or death consequences. Framed by current anti-Black racism protests the world over, the goal of this special issue is to assemble a body of scholarship on the intersections of Blackness, masculinity and appearance.

Authors engaged in studies about blackness and masculinity in relation to dressing and styling practices are encouraged to submit articles, independent of the type of research, methodologies or theoretical frameworks implemented.

Potential themes might include but aren’t limited to:

*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* "COMUNICACIÓN ESPECIALIZADA EN LA SOCIEDAD DE LA INFORMACIÓN", I CONGRESO INTERNACIONAL

I Congreso Internacional

Comunicación Especializada en la Sociedad de la Información

25 y 26 de Noviembre de 2020

Facultad Ciencias de la Información

Universidad Complutense de Madrid

El periodista especializado se halla entre las fuentes expertas, protagonistas de la noticia, por un lado, y las audiencias interesadas en determinados contenidos, por otra. Para informar a los ciudadanos sobre los mecanismos del mercado o de la administración de Justicia; para contarles los descubrimientos de las ciencias o los fichajes de los clubes deportivos siempre ha sido necesario, en efecto, un profesional que entienda lo que hacen y declaran las fuentes, por un lado; y capaz, al mismo tiempo, de divulgarlo entre personas que, no teniendo una particular formación en esas materias, las siguen con particular interés y tratan de conocerlas y comprenderlas para estar a la altura del tiempo en el que viven.

*CFP* LLAMADA A PARTICIPACIÓN, I CONGRESO INTERNACIONAL DE COMUNICACIÓN ESPECIALIZADA EN LA SOCIEDAD DE LA INFORMACIÓN

I Congreso Internacional de Comunicación Especializada en la Sociedad de la Información

Facultad de Ciencias de la Información

Universidad Complutense de Madrid

25 y 26 de Noviembre de 2020

El periodista especializado se halla entre las fuentes expertas, protagonistas de la noticia, por un lado, y las audiencias interesadas en determinados contenidos, por otra. Para informar a los ciudadanos sobre los mecanismos del mercado o de la administración de Justicia; para contarles los descubrimientos de las ciencias o los fichajes de los clubes deportivos siempre ha sido necesario, en efecto, un profesional que entienda lo que hacen y declaran las fuentes, por un lado; y capaz, al mismo tiempo, de divulgarlo entre personas que, no teniendo una particular formación en esas materias, las siguen con particular interés y tratan de conocerlas y comprenderlas para estar a la altura del tiempo en el que viven.

*CFP* "IDOLS: POP CULTURE ICONS AS BRAND AMBASSADORS FOR FASHION AND COSMETICS IN CHINA", EDITED COLLECTION

Call for Papers for a proposed edited collection tentatively titled “Idols: Pop Culture Icons as Brand Ambassadors for Fashion and Cosmetics in China” to be edited by Amanda Sikarskie, Ph.D., University of Michigan.

In China, popular culture idols are vital to the luxury fashion and cosmetics industry as brand ambassadors. This volume hopes to fill a critical gap in the English-language literature on this subject, bringing together authors from China, the United States, and around the world.

Essays for this volume can focus on any pop idols in China that serve as brand ambassadors in fashion, jewelry, or cosmetics. A few questions that the essays might pose include: Why are idols so important as brand ambassadors in China? What is the role of male idols in marketing cosmetics and skincare? What is the relationship of Chinese idols to fans and consumers in other Asian countries? What is the future for virtual reality idols as brand ambassadors, especially in the era of COVID-19?

*CFP* "PERIODICALS AND SILENT CINEMA", SPECIAL EDITION, JOURNAL OF MODERN PERIODICAL STUDIES

Submissions are solicited for a special edition of the Journal of Modern Periodical Studies on the relationship between periodicals and silent cinema. Work is encouraged which treats the topic in its global, as well as Anglophone, context. 

The rise of silent cinema in the early twentieth century changed the business of writing and publishing forever. Editors, journalists, essayists and authors found themselves catering for readers whose cultural expectations had been transformed by their interactions with cinema. Debates raged over which periodical form would first be rendered obsolete: the daily newspaper? The illustrated magazine? The serialised novel? The weekly comic? The compendium of short fiction?

In fact cinema would effectively devour, not destroy, them all and reconstitute a new, globalised culture industry by breaking the established power of nineteenth-century publishing models, by fragmenting readerships and establishing new modes of celebrity and fandom. The scope of these transformations was dramatic and have been as yet underexplored in existing periodicals scholarship.

*CFP* "SEXUAL IDENTITIES AND ASSAULT IN CHILDREN'S AND ADOLESCENT LITERATURE AND CULTURE", VOICES FROM THE WRECKAGRE: YA VOICES IN THE #METOO MOVEMENT, EDITED COLLECTION

Vernon Press invites chapter proposals on the theme: Sexual Identities and Assault in Children’s and Adolescent Literature and Culture for an edited collection Voices From the Wreckage: YA Voices in the #MeToo Movement edited by Kimberly Greenfield Karshner (Lorain County Community College).

This collection will focus on situating young adult voices in the #MeToo movement, and into American culture and identity. Children’s and young adult literature is an area of study that has rapidly evolved in the past ten years bringing previously silenced voices have to light. This is especially true for YA LGBTQ voices, and also young narrators who are not only discovering, celebrating, and coming to terms with their identities, but also dealing with the assault of their identities.