We are pleased to announce professors Andrew Zolides, Basuli Deb, and Alex Symons as the keynote speakers for the 2019 CMCS conference in New York City. Best presented papers will be published in the Journal of Applied Journalism and Media Studies@IntellectBooks. University library/individual subscription options are below.
Extended abstract deadline: March 18. 2019
NYC 2019 CMCS 8th International Conference
Bridging Gaps: Re-Fashioning Stories for Celebrity Counterpublics
Terrace Club at Club Quarters
New York City, USA
Friday, August 30 – Sunday, September 1
Keynote Speakers:
Dr Andrew Zolides
Communication and Media, Xavier University, USA
Dr Basuli Deb
English and Gender Studies, Rutgers University and CUNY, USA
Dr Alex Symons
Fashion Media, LIMS College, USA
Call for Papers:
In the recent past, there has been an increased interest in exploring intersections of life writing and studies of celebrity culture. Storytelling is central to effective branding in fame. Furthermore, the use of biographical elements has been recognized as a rhetorical device in writing op-eds, personal essays, and public speaking that often raise awareness on critical issues in popular media. Biography, as Lola Romanucci-Ross points out, is mainly a useful symbolic tool for reflecting, rotating and reversing real-life situations. Like biography, autobiography, memoirs, and testimonials play crucial roles in mapping social facts.
The impacts of glamorous forms of storytelling in scandals, gossip, and rumor become so crucial that they are often studied as sociological data, regardless of whether they enable actual social change. For pop culture enthusiasts and social observers, celebrities may or may not be actual role models in telling meaningful stories and constructing subjectivity. Yet, fans and students often invest affective and intellectual labor when it comes to accepting, negotiating or contesting what appears to be significant in understandings of popular figures. Celebrity scholars are equally familiar with the complexities of engaging with and researching “glossy topics”. As Sean Redmond (2014) has shown, acknowledging one’s own celebrity attachments can produce innovative ways of (re)writing fame. Conversely, these first-person accounts may also contribute to the celebritisation of individual academics. What is the critical and pedagogical potential of personal takes on fame within the field of celebrity studies?
Celebrity narratives are perceived to have real power whether or not celebrities are “important” people in the academic or moral sense. Drawing on current affairs, celebrity politicians have used personal claims and outrageous stories to push political agendas in divisive ways. Many other famous personas use extravagant fashion as expressions of their luxurious lives and build persona brands at the cost of ethics. For Elizabeth Wissinger, the “glamour labor” involved in self-fashioning, surveillance, and branding is often an inevitable and unfortunate outcome in the production of consumer values and desirable bodies in fashion industries. Public personas still self-fashion themselves and promote their brand by extending text(ures) of language that sells to consumer tastes. However, the challenge remains to sell the values of social justice. Can public intellectuals learn narrative strategies from celebrity storytelling and fill this gap
What appears to be a shared reason behind the success of most popular narratives, verbal (including oral) and non-verbal, is a persuasive ‘strategy’ to effectively tell life stories. If studying celebrity biographies / autobiographies, best-selling memoirs, and other popular forms of life-writings and self-expressions carry cultural worth, then biographical elements of rising and celebrated public intellectuals, academics, critics, and activists are equally important to consider in disciplinary and interdisciplinary practices and understanding of fame. For instance, real-life first-hand accounts, such as testimonies and visual evidence, together with literary/artistic representations of gendered oppression provide meaning for progressive thinking and practice. Anecdotal accounts of famous sports personalities, actors, best-selling authors, and top models among other public figures are often useful rhetorical tools that help us to understand popular culture better. With this in mind, we need to extend popular storytelling beyond celebrity culture andpersona branding, and use it to empower social change in academia, politics, and other spheres.
The Centre for Media and Celebrity Studies (CMCS) Bridging Gaps conference series, with the support of Intellect Books, uses a reflective practice paradigm and asks an urgent question: Can we learn popular strategies and re-fashion celebrity stories into tools for public intellectualism and social transformation, in addition to studying them? What enables or disables the public to tell personal stories in studies and practices of celebrity culture? Can different forms of storytelling from the lives of rising and celebrated academics, public intellectuals, critics, and activists enable urgent social change? The conference problematizes what it means to be a popular “storyteller” and invites all academics, journalists, publicists, activists and models and guests to attend, collaborate and publish valuable and purposeful work around this key question and related topics in our conference.
The format of the conference aims at being open and inclusive of interdisciplinary academic scholars and practitioners involved in all areas of celebrity culture, fandom, fashion, and journalism. The conference combines paper presentations, workshop panels, roundtables, slideshows, and interviews that aim to bridge gaps in celebrity activism, persona branding, and fashion education. Working papers, media productions, and personal stories will be considered for the conference.
Extended versions of selected best papers will be published in an edited collection.
Registration includes: Your printed package for the complete conference, professional development workshop, access to reception, all-day coffee, complimentary evening drink, consideration for publication, and the CMCS $100 best paper and $100 best screen awards.
Abstract Submission Guidelines:
• 250-word abstract or workshop / roundtable proposal
• Include a title, your name, e-mail address, and affiliation if applicable
• Submit abstract at celebrity.mediastudies@gmail.com
Extended deadline March 18, 2019
• Notification of acceptance: March 31, 2019
• Early bird deadline for hotel & conference registration: April 30, 2019
• Conference reception & presentations: Friday, August 30 – Sunday, September 1, 2019
Celebrity Chat video Submissions Guidelines:
• Video length should be 10-20 minutes
• Include a title, your name, e-mail address, and affiliation if applicable
• Submit to Celebrity Chat producer Jackie Raphael at the email
address: media.celebstudies@gmail.com
• Conference reception and presentations: August 30 –September 1, 2019
Topics include but are not limited to:
- Celebrity
- Fandom
- Audience
- Persona
- Life Writings
- Oral storytelling
- Fiction
- Fashion
- Photography
- Performance
- Publicity
- News
- Interviews
- Social Media
- Film and video
- Theory and Methods
- Research Agenda
- Business Models
- Ethics and Morality
- Human, Animal and Environmental Ethics
- Media Literacy
- Education and Advocacy
- International Relations
- Community Building and Partnerships
Conference Chair: Dr Samita Nandy
Conference Committee: Dr Jackie Raphael, Kiera Obbard, Sabrina Moro, and Diana Miller
Conference URL: http://cmc-centre.com/conferences/nyc2019/
Conference Twitter @celeb_studies #CMCS19
Special Acknowledgements:
Intellect Books @IntellectBooks
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Print only*: £22 / $39 USD
(Full price: £44 / $78 USD)
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Conference Sponsors:
Centre for Media and Celebrity Studies
Centre for Ecological, Social & Informatics Cognitive Research
