We are delighted to announce the very first Fan Studies Network symposium.
It will take place on Saturday 30th November 2013 at the School of Political, Social and International Studies, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK.
The keynote speaker will be Professor Matt Hills.
Please see the event page for full details:
http://www.uea.ac.uk/politics-international-media/events/fan-studies-network-symposium
We are inviting abstracts for papers to be presented at a conference on the Cold War and Entertainment Television, to be held at the University of Paris 8, on June 5-7, 2014.
An essential dimension of the Cold War took place in the realm of ideas and culture. A great deal of work, for example, has been done on cinema, especially with regard to the United States although other nations, both East and West, have received increasing attention. But with certain noteworthy exceptions (primarily in the areas of science fiction and espionage series) relatively little has been done on this subject in relation to television. Yet, television was a technology and popular cultural form that emerged during the Cold War.
This project hopes to rectify that absence by providing a forum for examining the impact of the Cold War on entertainment television. We intend to underline the comparative aspect by studying programs from both blocs – without forgetting, of course, the outsize impact of American television
We would welcome submissions that treat a variety of regions and genres, including (but not limited to) the following topics:
· Analyses of the reflection of the Cold War in particular genres
· A close reading of particular episodes or series
· The presentation of the “other side,” both its elites and the lives of ordinary citizens
· Depictions of social class and ideologies in Cold War entertainment television
· The uses of race and gender in depictions of the “other side” or in celebrations of one’s own side
· Exporting television series to other cultures
· How audiences received and used a variety of Cold War television series
· The space race, the military industrial complex, the national security state, and nuclear weapons in Cold War television
· Cold War discourses in children’s television
· The impact of censorship, whether official or self-imposed
· Commercials, public service announcements, documentaries, and Cold War subtexts
· Changes in Cold War discourses in entertainment television through 1991
The languages of the conference will be English and French, and we anticipate that the conference proceedings will be published in English.
Please email a 250-word proposal, a one-page c.v., and contact information to Prof. Lori Maguire at coldwartv@gmail.com by Sept. 15, 2013. Notification of accepted proposals will be made by Oct. 15, 2013.
Email inquiries are preferred, especially over the summer, to coldwartv@gmail.com
Organizing committee: Prof. Lori MAGUIRE (Département d’Etudes des Pays Anglophones, Université de Paris 8, St. Denis, France); Dr. Janice LIEDL (Dept. of History, Laurentian University, Canada); Dr. Joseph DAROWSKI (Dept. of English, Brigham Young University Idaho); Dr. Nancy REAGIN (Dept. of Women’s and Gender Studies, Pace University, New York); Dr; André FILLER (Département d’Etudes Slaves, Université de Paris 8, St Denis, France) ; Prof. Cécile VAISSIÉ (Département de Russe, Université de Rennes II, France)
The CFP and other details can also be found in English and French here:
Transitions is a one-day symposium promoting new research and multi-disciplinary academic study of comics/ comix/ manga/ bande dessinée and other forms of sequential art, now in its fourth year.
Saturday the 26th of October 2013
School of Arts, Birkbeck, University of London, London WC1E 7HX
Keynote: Dr. Ann Miller (University of Leicester, joint editor of European Comic Art)
Respondent: Dr. Roger Sabin (Central St. Martins, University of the Arts London)
Transitions is currently the only regular academic comics event based in London, and is part of Comica – The London International Comics Festival. The symposium offers a platform where different perspectives and methodologies can be brought together and shared. As an event devoted to promoting new research into comics in all their forms the symposium provides a forum for research from postgraduate students and early career lecturers.
Comics studies occupy a unique multi-disciplinary middle-space, one that encourages cross-disciplinary pollination and a convergence of distinct knowledges: literary and cultural studies, visual arts and media, modern languages, sociology, geography and more. By thinking about comics across different disciplines, we hope to stimulate and provoke debate and to address a wide spectrum of questions, to map new trends and provide a space for dialogue and further collaboration to emerge.
We welcome abstracts for twenty minute papers of 250 – 300 words.
Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
International iterations: manga, bande dessinée , fumetti etc. – children’s comics – superheroes – non-fiction comics – the (im)materiality of comics – formalist approaches – cultural histories –adaptation/ remediation – autographics – early comics – comic strips – small press –alternative comics/ underground commix – comics narratologies – political comics – comics and cultural theory – contexts of production and circulation – audiences – comics and the archive – subjectivity in comics – graphic medicine – fan subcultures – comics as historiography – key creators…
Proposals for papers should be sent as Word documents, with a short biography appended. Abstracts should be submitted by the 30th of July 2013 to Hallvard, Tony and Nina at transitions.symposium@gmail.com.
The singer-songwriter has been a source of creativity and emotion for centuries: from troubadours in the Middle Ages, to John Dowland’s songs of the Renaissance, nineteenth century Lieder, blues singers in the Deep South, to the multitude of figures in the twentieth-century popular music industry. Our intention for the proposed volume is to offer a new perspective on the singer-songwriter, broadly defined, by including chapters that adopt a variety of scholarly angles.
We welcome proposals that focus on a single figure: be it Bob Dylan, Carole King, Randy Newman, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Dolly Parton, Sting, Prince, Tori Amos, Ani DiFranco, or newer artists such as Jason Mraz or Amanda Palmer. In addition, we invite proposals that adopt a lateral perspective to the phenomenon of the singer-songwriter: a discussion of several active songwriters within a single scene (such as the 1960s New York folk scene, open mic nights, the Brill Building, 1970s Los Angeles); auteurs in African-American music (Robert Johnson, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Donna Summer, Isaac Hayes, Kanye West); global perspectives; festivals (such as Lilith Fair) and open mics; figures that developed their songwriting talents as part of a band before going solo (Lennon, McCartney, Phil Collins, Sting, Ben Folds); individuals that emerged from behind the scenes to take centre stage on their own (Neil Sedaka, Paul Simon, Missy Elliott, Jessie J); and wider discourses around such artists and genres (‘authorship’, mythology, the voice, gender, music production, industry and marketing).
We are also interested in approaches that embrace the teaching of songwriting and performance, as well as perspectives from the music industry. If you teach the mechanics of songwriting to budding singer-songwriters, or are an active singer-songwriter yourself, we would like to hear from you. Teaching songwriting in the 21st century involves contemporary concerns: how do you teach the necessary business skills? How do you negotiate the burgeoning online world of social media and internet fandom? How do you include technology in your career as a singer-songwriter, or in your classes? Do you use the internet as a learning and teaching resource? How do DAWs feature in your creative and pedagogical life?
Most importantly, we welcome proposals from authors who think outside a narrow notion of the singer-songwriter, and will help us to make this volume exciting, interesting, and informative. The book will be aimed at undergraduate and MA level popular music programmes as well as fans and general audiences of the genres covered. Our only criterion is that the focus be individuals who write and perform their own material.
250-300 word abstracts/proposals should be sent by 01 Sept. 2013 to CCtoSingerSongwriter@gmail.com
Yours sincerely,
Dr. Justin A. Williams (University of Bristol)
Dr. Katherine A. Williams (Leeds College of Music)
European Fandom and Fan Studies: Localization and Translation
One Day Symposium, 9 November 2013
Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis and
University of Amsterdam Department of Media Studies
Call for Papers
The increasingly global circulation of media often threatens to obscure local contexts of reception, identification, interpretation, and translation. This one day symposium at the University of Amsterdam seeks to explore the state of Fan Studies and the variety of Fandoms focused within the social and geographical boundaries of Europe, particularly with regard to processes of localization and translation, broadly interpreted. Inter-disciplinary papers are invited to explore the nature of the field itself, how different fandoms function within Europe, and how European fan cultures re-interpret, re-imagine, translate, and localize foreign media texts or foreign fan practices. Potential avenues of exploration may include how Fan Studies is represented, studied, and received within European universities, by funding bodies and publishers. Papers on fandoms may explore how European (English and non-English speaking) fans of European and non-European objects of fan appreciation participate in fandom, the differences between internet fandoms and local/national/international fan practices, and objects of fan appreciation that originate within Europe.
Topics of interest include but are not limited to:
-Regional fan histories.
-Negotiation between international and local fan infrastructures.
-Local and national adaptation of fan cultures and identities.
-European fans’ impact on international public policy and industry practice.
-Fans’ relationships to national media industries and public policy.
-National and transnational economies within fandom and/or fan studies.
-Crossing national, cultural, and language boundaries in fandom and fan studies.
-Translation, both linguistic and cultural.
-Fans’ local and international languages and economies of desire.
-Framing local European fan objects and cultures within fan studies.
-Processes of translation, adaptation, and localization in European fans’ interaction with global media.
The symposium is associated with a special issue of the journal of Transformative Works and Cultures tentatively slated for 2015, with full papers due January 1, 2014.
Event Details
The symposium will be held in the center of Amsterdam, easily accessible from Amsterdam international airport.
Submission Process
Please send a 300 word abstract along with a short (100 word) biographical note to Anne Kustritz (A.M.Kustritz@uva.nl) or Emma England (E.E.England@uva.nl) by 10 September.
http://celebritystudiesconference.com
The 2nd Celebrity Studies Journal conference has now been announced!
It will take place at Royal Holloway, London, 19-21 June, 2014.
The conference is organised by James Bennett & Su Holmes and will feature the following Keynote Speakers:
The conference will be themed around questions of methodology: ‘Approaching celebrity’.
Call for Papers:
We invite abstracts for individual 20minute papers or pre-constituted panels of 3 x 20minute papers that speak to this theme or on any topic in celebrity studies.
We also invite submissions for Pecha Kucha style presentations, either individually or as part of a pre-constituted panel of 3-4 speakers. click here for more info.
PhD Competition
A travel bursary and fee waiver will be available to the best two abstract submissions (including abstracts for Pecha Kucha presentations). click here for more info.
Deadline for abstracts: November 4th, 2013 (250 words, +50 word bio)
Successful abstracts notified by: December 6th, 2013
Enquiries/abstracts to: celebritystudies@gmail.com
A special issue of the best papers from the conference will be published in Celebrity Studies Journal in 2015. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
Mark Duffett is editing two special issues on music fandom for Popular Music and Society, and the first of these has just been published. It features the following articles:
Introduction: Directions in Music Fan Research: Undiscovered Territories and Hard Problems
Mark Duffett
A Long Strange Trip: The Continuing World of European Deadheads
Peter Smith & Ian Inglis
“Anyone who Calls Muse a Twilight Band will be Shot on Sight”: Music, Distinction, and the “Interloping Fan” in the Twilight Franchise
Rebecca Williams
Diva Worship and the Sonic Search for Queer Utopia
Craig Jennex
Making Monsters: Lady Gaga, Fan Identification, and Social Media
Melissa A. Click, Hyunji Lee & Holly Willson Holladay
“His Soul Was Wandering and Holy”: Employing and Contesting Religious Terminology in Django Fandom
Siv B. Lie
Forum:
My Music, Not Yours: Ravings of a Rock-and-Roll Fanatic
B. Lee Cooper
You can read the full issue here:
http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rpms20/current#.Ub3wlqXnmTc
The new issue, Volume 13, of Transformative Works and Cultures is now out!
This is a brilliant special issue on Appropriating, Interpreting, and Transforming Comic Books, edited by Matthew J. Costello, Saint Xavier University, Chicago. It features the following articles:
Table of Contents
Editorial
The super politics of comic book fandom
Matthew J. Costello
Theory
Fangirls in refrigerators: The politics of (in)visibility in comic book culture
Suzanne Scott
Praxis
Earth 616, Earth 1610, Earth 3490—Wait, what universe is this again? The creation and evolution of the Avengers and Captain America/Iron Man fandom
Catherine Coker
Pornographic space-time and the potential of fantasy in comics and fan art
Lyndsay Brown
/Co/operation and /co/mmunity in /co/mics: 4chan’s Hypercrisis
Tim Bavlnka
Symposium
Captain America and fans’ political activity
Forrest Phillips
The advocacy of Steve Rogers (aka Captain America), as seen in hetrez’s “Average Avengers Local Chapter 7 of New York”
Babak Zarin
Professionalism: Hyperrealism and play
Amanda Odom
Fandom and male privilege: Seven years later
Rebecca Lucy Busker
Revisioning the smiling villain: Imagetexts and intertextual expression in representations of the filmic Loki on Tumblr
Kayley Thomas
Who is afraid of a black Spider(-Man)?
Ora C. McWilliams
Interview
Interview with comics artist Lee Weeks
Matthew J. Costello
Toward a feminist superhero: An interview with Will Brooker, Sarah Zaidan, and Suze Shore
Kate Roddy, Carlen Lavigne, Suzanne Scott
Review
“Comic books and American cultural history: An anthology,” edited by Matthew Pustz HTML
Daniel Stein
“Of comics and men: A cultural history of American comic books,” by Jean-Paul Gabilliet HTML
Drew Morton
You can find and read it at the TWC website:
Call for Papers
Exploring British Film and Television Stardom Conference
Saturday, 2 November 2013 at Queen Mary, University of London
Supported by Living British Cinema
Keynote speakers: Dr. Melanie Bell (Newcastle University) and
Dr. Andrew Spicer (University of the West of England)
While British cinema and television history are thriving fields of scholarship,the issue of stardom has been insufficiently explored in national terms, and most British star images suggest that the dominant Hollywood model, associated with individualism, glamour, and consumption, sits uneasily in a British cultural context.
A decade after groundbreaking work by Geoffrey Macnab, in Searching for Stars: Stardom and Acting in British Cinema, and Bruce Babington’s British Stars and Stardom: From Alma Taylor to Sean Connery, there are new directions in star studies to consider, including performance, fandom and transnational stardom. Has film stardom now been usurped by celebrity, calling into question Christine Gledhill’s assertion that cinema “still provides the ultimate confirmation of stardom”? Meanwhile, television in this period has been marked by the phenomenon of a wave of British stars, including Hugh Laurie, Dominic West, Idris Elba and Damien Lewis, who have been reimagined in American long-form drama, and by the recent international success of Downton Abbey.
This one-day conference seeks to explore British stardom from historical, cultural, industrial and contemporary perspectives and will be an unprecedented opportunity to study stars in a British context. The conference aims to explore the issues around media stardom and national identity in innovative and challenging ways. We welcome proposals from established academics, postgraduates, and independent scholars in the field.
Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
• Historical perspectives on British stardom (film, television, celebrity)
• Genre and film stardom
• Celebrity and British stardom
• Audiences and fandom
• Race, gender, class and ethnicity and British stardom
• The international appeal of British stars
• Transitions between media for British stars (film, theatre, television, music)
• British stars abroad
• Stardom and regional identity
• Fashion and costume and British stardom
• Auteurs and British film stars
• Stardom and industrial contexts
Please submit proposals of no more than 300 words and a brief biography via email to the conference organisers, Adrian Garvey (a.garvey@qmul.ac.uk) and Julie Lobalzo Wright (julielwright1@gmail.com), by 24 June 2013.
The Fan Studies Network 