This is Me: Interrogating the Female Pop Star Documentary.
From Lady Gaga’s Five Foot Two (2017) to BlackPink’s Light Up the Sky (2020), Billie Eilish’s The World’s A Little Blurry (2021), Love, Lizzo (2022) and many more, documentaries on female pop stars have been released with increased frequency in the past decade. Many of the world’s most famous female artists both in (and beyond) the pop genre have allowed fragments of their onstage and offstage lives to be filmed and released for public consumption as part of the bolstering of their brand.
This broad, interdisciplinary collection (which will be the first full length study of its kind) to be published by Bloomsbury Academic in early 2025, will address the ways in which women in pop music documentaries have played a significant role in shaping the narrative of popular music history. Such documentaries shed light on the experiences, challenges, and achievements of female artists in the pop music genre and provide a platform to explore the artistry, cultural impact, and personal stories of women who have made an indelible mark on the pop music landscape. The portrayal of women in pop music documentaries occupies a crucial space in the exploration of popular music history. Such documentaries celebrate the achievements of iconic female pop artists, challenge and reaffirm gender stereotypes, highlight artistic prowess, and influence, and share personal journeys of resilience.
The collection will address the complexities of the construction of female celebrity as portrayed through the pop star documentary. The essays in this volume will employ broad cultural theory frameworks to investigate what this often-overlooked genre of documentary has to offer in understanding both popular music and celebrity culture today.
Suggested topics/themes for chapters (without being limited to):
• Constructions of celebrity
• Abuse narratives
• Ageing
• Gender identities
• Materiality
• Narratives of motherhood
• Racial identities
• Social histories
• The music industry
• Mental health narratives
Proposals/abstracts should be 500 words maximum outlining your proposed chapter. Please include up to 5 keywords and a brief biography (150 words) of the author(s) which includes an institutional affiliation and your contact email.
Editor: Kirsty Fairclough (SODA at Manchester Metropolitan University)
Please send your proposal(s) to: womeninpopdocs@gmail.com
Important Dates:
•Abstract Submission Deadline: Friday 30th June 2023
•Notification of Acceptance: Sunday 30th July 2023
•Full Chapter Submission: Tuesday 30th January 2024
•Expected Publication: January 2025
Posts Tagged ‘Edited collection’
CFP: This is Me: Interrogating the Female Pop Star Documentary
May 22, 2023CFP: Fright Nights: Live Halloween Horror Events
May 18, 2023CALL FOR CHAPTERS: EDITED COLLECTION
Fright Nights: Live Halloween Horror Events
Editors: Kieran Foster, University of Nottingham (UK), and Cassie Brummitt, University of Nottingham (UK)
Horror’s origins – with its roots in folklore, mythology and the oral tradition – stretch much further back in time than screen media, and beyond even ‘canonical’ literature such as Frankenstein and Dracula. However, in the 20th century and beyond, horror as a media genre has become big business, especially in the screen industries where horror film and television franchises have become globally-exploited intellectual properties ripe for spin-offs, sequels, remakes, transmedia world-building and merchandising (Fleury and Mamber 2019, Harris 2010, Mee 2022).
What remains less explored in extant scholarly literature, which this edited collection intends to address, is the phenomenon of space and place within horror’s commercial logics. Importantly, the past few decades have seen a rise in immersive, interactive environments that draw on horror imagery as an indelible part of the attraction. Events such as escape rooms, immersive experiences and fan-led celebratory events enable horror intellectual property to escape the confines of the big and small screen to pervade cultural spaces globally (Kennedy 2018, Ndalianis 2010). These physical, participatory, often visceral environments have implications for the ways in which horror properties are materialised, remediated, and engaged with.
These kinds of immersive attractions are no more popular than at Halloween, where it has become increasingly common to see both branded and non-branded horror events take place across the globe. For example, in the UK, pop-up ‘scream parks’ such as York Maze’s ‘HallowScream’, or theme park events such as ‘Fright Nights’ at Thorpe Park, draw on non-branded horror, folklore and supernatural imagery. Meanwhile, internationally, events such as ‘Halloween Horror Nights’ (at Universal Studio sites in Orlando, Hollywood, Singapore and Japan) and ‘Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party’ (at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom in Orlando and Disneyland Paris) exploit branded iconography, IP, and franchises.
Horror’s preoccupation with the abject and the visceral offers arguably unique opportunities to translate cultural fears into a physically inhabitable and interactable experience. Seeking to address this important phenomenon, this edited collection will examine Halloween-focused horror events as an under-explored but sizable part of horror media’s global creative and commercial logics, both historically and contemporarily.
We are seeking abstracts of up to 250 words in response to this theme (plus author biography up to 100 words). The form of contributions can be flexible, whether a standard chapter, an interview (for example, with a practitioner, an industry professional, or fans), an autoethnographic piece, or another creative means of exploring the topic.
Topics may include but are not limited to:
- Issues of labour in Halloween horror events
- Marketing and promotional discourses of Halloween horror events
- Franchising and intellectual property in Halloween horror events
- Immersion and interactivity
- Halloween horror events as film, media or literary tourism
- Notions of play and lusory attitudes to Halloween horror events
- Performance and emotion in Halloween horror events
- Audience engagement and experience
- Fan studies of horror events
- Narratives and storytelling
- Industrial relationships, logics and practices
Please send your abstract and bio to Dr. Kieran Foster (kieran.foster@nottingham.ac.uk) and Dr. Cassie Brummitt (cassie.brummitt@nottingham.ac.uk). The deadline for abstracts is July 24th 2023.
CFP: The 50th Anniversary of The Princess Bride
May 9, 2023Signum University Press is pleased to announce a call for papers in honor of the 50th anniversary of William Goldman’s The Princess Bride, to be released in 2024 and edited by Faith Acker and Maggie Parke. We welcome papers by experienced and renowned or young and emerging scholars, of all nationalities, genders, identities, and colors. Interested contributors may submit a 500-word abstract in English by 26 May 2023 to faith.acker@signumu.org and maggie.parke@signumu.org. Full drafts of 4,000-6,000 words maximumwill be due by 1 October 2023.
While existing academic scholarship on The Princess Bride is sparse, contributions should draw upon secondary criticism in relevant areas to situate their essays within existing critical conversations. The editors are happy to discuss options with prospective and accepted authors. While we are open to all approaches to the text and film, some starting points might include:
● Connections to traditions of folklore and fairy tales
● Connections to Goldman’s larger literary or cinematic canon
● Goldman’s frame narrative
● Critical (feminist, racial, socioeconomic, etc.) readings of the text
● Language and wordplay
● Misogyny and/in satire
● Cinematic adaptation
● Fandom and the role of fandom
● Afterlives of The Princess Bride
● The Princess Bride as a cultural icon
We expect completed chapters to be released in serial form beginning in 2024. When serial release has concluded, the chapters will be published in eBook, audiobook, and printed codex formats. The Signum University Press pays generous royalties: usually around 50% on net, which will be shared among all book authors and editors. Our authors are never asked to pay anything up front to offset publication costs. SUP also welcomes full book manuscripts on this and related topics. Learn more at https://press.signumuniversity.org/submissions/. For any further inquiries, contact us at press@signumu.org.
CFP: Popular Music Autobiographies: Rereading Musicians and their Audiences
April 13, 2023CALL FOR CHAPTERS
“POPULAR MUSIC AUTOBIOGRAPHIES: REREADING MUSICIANS AND THEIR AUDIENCES”
This broad, interdisciplinary collection to be published by Bloomsbury Academic in 2024 will consider why popular music autobiography has recently become such a widely-read genre and a significant factor in mediating popular music for its audience.
Texts such as Viv Albertine’s Clothes, Clothes, Clothes, Music, Music, Music, Boys, Boys, Boys, Miki Berenyi’s Fingers Crossed, Alex James’ Bit of a Blur, Nile Rodgers’ Le Freak, Gucci Mane’s Autobiography of Gucci Mane, and Bob Dylan’s Chronicles have been critically acclaimed and recorded on various best-seller lists whilst delivering for many fans an apparent insider’s understanding of musicians whose work they are invested in.
Yet such narratives have many other functions beyond thrilling fans with a sense of intimacy. Pop music autobiographies have variously attempted to rewrite social history; to redress gender or racial stereotypes; to question received models of fame; to validate new genres and scenes; to explore the renditions of subjectivity in pop music and lyrics; to justify transgressive behaviour; to critique the music industry.
The essays in this volume will address such diverse questions as the above, employing cultural theory frameworks to investigate what this often patronised or stereotyped genre has to offer in understanding popular music and its audiences today. The collection will also consider the forms deployed in pop music autobiographies, which range from familiar narrative arcs to experimental texts and virtual platforms.
We will work from a broad definition of autobiography, including conventional written narratives, via renditions of subjectivity in concerts, interviews, and life-writing, to manifestations of musicians’ lives including social media, museums, and avatars.
Suggested topics/themes for chapters (feel free to propose others that are important to you):
Earlier narratives by musicians before the rock era
Interviews as dialogised autobiography
Experimental forms of autobiography vs conventional narratives
Transgressive autobiographies and rock mythologising
Female and feminist musicians’ life writing
Musicians’ houses and museums as material Autobiographies
Musical subjectivities and musical genres
Lyrics as coded autobiography
Concerts as performed subjectivity
Ghosted autobiographies and promotional narratives
Oral histories and group autobiography
Musicians’ social media personae as real time virtual autobiographies
Avatars: performing virtual subjectivities
Proposals/abstracts should be 500 words maximum. Please include up to 5 keywords and a brief biography of the author(s) which includes an institutional affiliation and your contact email.
Editorial team: Tom Attah (Leeds Arts University), Kirsty Fairclough (SODA at Manchester Metropolitan University), Christian Lloyd (Queens University of Canada)
Send your proposal(s) to: poplifewriting@gmail.com
Deadline for Proposals: 30th April, 2023. Accepted authors will be notified w/c 15th May 2023. Accepted chapters to be delivered no later than 15th January 2024.
Call for Chapters: Transcultural Media Fandom in the Asia Pacific
March 13, 2023Call for Chapters: Transcultural Media Fandom in the Asia Pacific
Editors
Dr Tingting Hu
Assistant Professor, Department of Media and Communication, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University
Dr Fang Wu
Associate Professor, School of Media and Communication, Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Targeted publisher
Hawaii University Press (AsiaPop!)
Routledge (Digital Media and Culture in Asia)
Project Aims
In recent years, the field of fan studies has seen exponential growth in the global academia, with many remarkable books such as the Routledge Companion to Media Fandom (2018), edited by Melissa A. Click and Suzanne Scott, and Aussie Fans: Uniquely Placed in Global Popular Culture (2019), edited by Celia Lam and Jackie Raphael adding to the literature. While the former aims to evaluate the state of the field and comprehensively survey core concerns, the latter focuses on how Australian fandom explores the national popular culture scene through themes of localization and globalization. In the Asian context, Lu Chen’s monograph Chinese Fans of Japanese and Korean Pop Culture (2018) has focused on the reception and interpretation of the Chinese audience involving the content of transnational cultural flows in East Asia.
Previous literature has predominantly focused on media fandom in the U.S. and the U.K., with only sporadic non-Western fandom-related scholarships. Despite popular Asian cultures such as Hallyu and Otaku creating a global impact in recent years, the Asia-pacific continues to receive scant academic attention, largely because the Asia-pacific has long been conceptualized as a geographically vast and culturally heteroglossic ‘other’ to the Euro-American formation (Wilson and Dirlik, 1994). While some scholarships have investigated how stardom and fandom in China, Korea, and Japan influence western countries in terms of culture, economy, and politics, popular cultural exchanges and transcultural practices among Asian Pacific countries still require closer observation.
This project’s goal is to bring together Asian-pacific-focused media fandom research across diverse disciplines and contexts to assess the state of the field, empirically investigate fandom activities, and point to new research directions. Engaging with a wide array of media texts and formats, this project will be organized into three main sections:
Part I
Identities, Activities, and Practices
- the transformative textual practices of fans.
- the transcultural practices and media activities of fans.
- the range of identities that are represented in fandom media practices/activities.
Part II
Technology, Industry, and Economy
- the networked relationship between media technology, industry, and fans.
- the dynamics between media fandom, industry, and economy.
- the evolution of media fans in relation to technology, industry, and economy in different cultural contexts.
Part III
Gender and Sexuality
- the gendered identities of fans as represented by their media activities.
- the gendered and/or sexual-related practices/issues involved in fandom media activities.
- the fandom engagement with sexual minorities and/or the LGBTQ communities.
This anthology will adopt a transcultural perspective to broaden our knowledge of the complex ways that media fandom develops across cultures and national borders. In the Routledge Companion to Media Fandom’s first edition, Click and Scott (2018) have argued that “The absence of a robust dialogue in fan studies scholarship about race and transcultural fandom is one of the field’s most obvious deficiencies” (p. 241). They have also mentioned Chin and Morimoto’s (2013) call for more attention to transcultural fans and assertion: “… non-English (often non-Western) fandoms are not peripheral to ‘mainstream’ fan culture. Rather they are part of the transcultural interplay of fandom as much as any other, separated only by barriers of language, distribution, and availability that have become eminently surmountable as fandoms have migrated online” (p. 105).
In conclusion, we hope to examine diverse forms of media fandom research in the Asian-pacific contexts (within but not limited to the thematic scope listed above), paying attention to Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, and broader Oceania.
Submission
Please send a 500-word abstract and your CV to the editor at tingting.hu_academic@hotmail.com, wufangwf@sjtu.edu.cn.
Abstract submission deadline: May 1, 2023
Submission of full proposal to the publisher: September 1, 2023
If the proposal is accepted, full chapters would be expected by December 2023.
References
Chen, L. (2018). Chinese Fans of Japanese and Korean Pop Culture. Routledge.
Chin, B. and Morimoto, L. H. (2013). “Towards a theory of transcultural fandom,” Participations, 10, pp. 92-108.
Click, M. A. and Scott, S. (2018). “Race and transcultural fandom: introduction,” The Routledge Companion to Media Fandom, pp. 241-243.
Lam, C. and Raphael, J. Eds (2019). Aussie Fans: Uniquely Placed in Global Popular Culture. University of Iowa Press.
Wilson, R., and Dirlik, A. (1994). “Introduction: Asia/Pacific as space of cultural production,” boundary 2, 21(1), 1-14.
CFP: Edited volume for Bloomsbury Series in Asian Celebrity and Fandom Studies
December 16, 2022CFP: ‘Star and Celebrity Branding within Asia: Using Comradery Capital’ edited volume for Bloomsbury Series in Asian Celebrity and Fandom Studies
Editors: Jackie Raphael and Celia Lam
Call for chapters
The centrality of the celebrity commodity to the flow of cultural and economic capital in mediascapes has been explored by scholars such as Driessens and Marshall who note that celebrities are “manufactured by the celebrity industry” (Driessens, 2012, p. 643), and a mechanism to sell products. Marshall notes that the “celebrity as public individual who participates openly as a marketable commodity serves as a powerful type of legitimation of the political economic model of exchange and value – the basis of capitalism – and extends that model to include the individual (2014 [1997], p. xlviii).
In a recent publication, Celebrity Bromances (Routledge, 2022), we engage with the notion of the celebrity commodity, expanding Driessens’ celebrity capital to the dynamics of celebrity relationships. Driessens outlines how celebrities become part of the currency in a commodity culture, amassing capital that can be traded for profit to the benefit of the celebrity or affiliated products. Celebrities are therefore seen as cultural commodities (Marshall, 2014; Driessens, 2012, 2013); products of culture that contain value which can be traded for economic capital.
The commodification of celebrity interactions is a lens through which celebrity bromances are explored. We suggest that a “bromance capital” operates in contemporary celebrity culture, wherein the bromance is not only used as a tool to draw attention to individual celebrity figures. It also becomes a cultural “product” which gains value as a consequence of the affective attachments it provokes. Expanding the discussion beyond male homosocial intimacy, we also propose the concept of comradery capital, which is inclusive of group dynamics and functions across genders. Comradery capital refers to inherent value of the presentation of celebrity friendships and how these are utilised for the promotion of movies, television shows, charities, and products. The capital can fluctuate depending on levels of authenticity and how the relationship is performed.
While Celebrity Bromances explored some examples of comradery capital, these examples originated mostly from Hollywood celebrity culture. In our efforts to explore the operation of comradery capital, we wish to examine the various readings of comradery capital across countries in Asia. For example, The Avengers cast promotes their dynamic and films in interviews across Asian countries. Similarly, the way Gal Gadot and Chris Pine perform their friendship in the promotion of the Wonder Woman films or Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson for Men In Black International.
We would like to capture cultures from around Asia including Japan, Korea, Dubai, Lebanon, India, China, Iran, Singapore, Pakistan, Malaysia, Israel and Indonesia. In examining the way comradery capital is performed and perceived in these various regions, the book would be able to capture the way in which celebrities vary their performances of friendship to take into account cultural differences of acceptable physical contact, understanding of language and slang, and the reading of sexuality and gender. It will also examine how comradery capital is a global promotional tool, breaking the barriers of communication.
We welcome contributions that focus on the political economy of comradery capital, as well as the affective/empowering dimensions of comradery capital, including fan and consumer relations.
We encourage interested authors to review definitions of bromance and comradery capital in Celebrity Bromances by accessing the open access chapters at the below links. We encourage an engagement with these concepts in abstracts submitted.
Chapter 4 – ‘Utilising’ Bromances<https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.taylorfrancis.com%2Fchapters%2Foa-mono%2F10.4324%2F9781003093329-4%2Futilising-bromances-celia-lam-jackie-raphael%3Fcontext%3Dubx&data=05%7C01%7C%7C5c7a858a51014954e98008dadf4891f8%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C638067800052913989%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=xqIIXx%2FP%2FRm4LqPSE6fIeuLBGsklVF8RXUdDVzVfubQ%3D&reserved=0>
Chapter 5 – Beyond Bromances<https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.taylorfrancis.com%2Fchapters%2Foa-mono%2F10.4324%2F9781003093329-5%2Fbeyond-bromances-celia-lam-jackie-raphael%3Fcontext%3Dubx&data=05%7C01%7C%7C5c7a858a51014954e98008dadf4891f8%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C638067800052913989%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=SsEeWFN%2B%2FwF6gSd7JZAo05FlKavhV%2BPziTUVDKSFFUY%3D&reserved=0>
Topics could include, but are not limited to:
· Promotion of Hollywood films in Asian contexts
· Reception of Hollywood cast dynamics in Asian contexts
· The creation and presentation of cast dynamics in Asian contexts, including same and mixed gender (binary and non-binary) casts
· The reception of regional cast dynamics in Asian contexts
· Creation and reception of joint or group celebrity persona
Submission
Please send the following to the editors at: cjcelebrityresearch@gmail.com<mailto:cjcelebrityresearch@gmail.com> by April 1, 2023:
– 300-word abstract
– 100-word bio
– 5-6 key words
Contact: cjcelebrityresearch@gmail.com<mailto:cjcelebrityresearch@gmail.com>.
Anticipated timeline:
Abstract submission deadline: April 1, 2023
Submission of full proposal to Bloomsbury: July 1, 2023
If the proposal is accepted, full chapters would be expected by November 2023.
References
Driessen, O. (2012). The celebritization of society and culture: Understanding the structural dynamics of celebrity culture. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 16(6), 641–657. https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdoi.org%2F10.1177%2F1367877912459140&data=05%7C01%7C%7C5c7a858a51014954e98008dadf4891f8%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C638067800052913989%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=sTi07KNaNTZixgWHlQmmTfwBZBQFVRXKUDN5ETjVKhU%3D&reserved=0.
Driessens, O. (2013). Celebrity capital: Redefining celebrity using field theory. Theory
and Society, 42(5), 543–560.
Marshall, P. D. (1997, 2014). Celebrity and power: Fame in contemporary culture. University of Minnesota Press.
Explaining Isekai – Call for Contributions
December 7, 2022This book anthology will provide a compilation of various themes that are within the broad scope of the Isekai genre. Starting with an introduction and a historic overview of the recently very popular anime and manga genre, the different chapters will deal with specific aspects in the field of film and visual culture, religious studies as well as possible effects on the militarization of societies. Authors can cover the thematic issues of gender representations, violence, the representation of state and religion, the military, and the societal aspect of transgressing to another world. Hence the aim of this book is to be a valuable source for all those who are willing to look behind the scenes of Isekai and other worlds, unraveling the mysteries, impacts, and social functions of this popular genre.
Topics may include but are not limited to:
- History of Japanese Isekai novels, manga and anime
- The evolution of Isekai and it’s rise in popularity
- Gender aspects, Gender Swap, Gender Based Violence, Gender Role Models, Isekai Harem
- Religious aspects , The image of religion in Isekai
- Violence and the military in Isekai
- Unique features in Isekai
- Societal aspects of Isekai
- Case studies of a specific Isekai series/novels
Final submissions should be between 5000 and 7000 words (including bibliography and reference). If you have additional suggestions or topics that you would like to contribute, please feel free to email them. As this anthology understands itself as interdisciplinary, proposals from Japanese Studies, Cultural and Film Studies as well as from Popular Culture and the Social Sciences including Humanities are welcomed.
Submission details
Please send your proposal, approximately 200 to 400 words, covering the topic and methodology used before 20th January 2023 to the editor. Please also provide a short academic bio of around 100 words.
Your work should be original and currently not submitted to another publisher or Journal.
Decisions will be communicated in February 2023. Chapter manuscripts are expected to be submitted in August 2023. A detailed guideline (citation, spelling, chapter structure of the book) will be communicated together with the decisions.
Contact Info:
Proposals and any inquiries should be sent to the editor’s email:
Dr. Cserkits Michael (independent post-doc scholar; University of Vienna/Austria)
a1049671@unet.univie.ac.at (Academic email); and please cc to explainingisekai@gmx.at (Project email)
Routledge Companion to Media Fandom, 2nd edition Call for Chapters on Transcultural Fandom
November 1, 2022Routledge Companion to Media Fandom, 2nd edition Call for Chapters on Transcultural Fandom
Work has begun on a second edition of The Routledge Companion to Media Fandom, a 40+ chapter collection that provides reflection on and direction for the evolving field of Fan Studies edited by Suzanne Scott and Melissa Click. The project’s goal is to bring together an internationally and interdisciplinarily diverse group of established and emerging media fandom scholars to survey core concerns, evaluate the state of the field, and point to new directions of inquiry. The project will be organized into five main sections: Methods & Ethics, Fan Practices & Platforms, Identities, Transcultural Fandom, and Industry & Labor.
We are looking for new chapters for the collection’s section on Transcultural Fandom. In the Routledge Companion to Media Fandom’s first edition, the co-editors argued that “The absence of a robust dialogue in fan studies scholarship about race and transcultural fandom is one of the field’s most obvious deficiencies” (p. 241). Thus, we agree with Chin and Morimoto’s (2013) call for more work on transcultural fans and assertion that “… non-English (often non-Western) fandoms are not peripheral to ‘mainstream’ fan culture. Rather they are part of the transcultural interplay of fandom as much as any other, separated only by barriers of language, distribution and availability that have become eminently surmountable as fandoms have migrated online” (p. 105).
To continue to broaden our knowledge of the complex ways media fandom develops across cultures and national borders, we are seeking abstracts for the collection’s second edition section on Transcultural Fandom. We are particularly interested in media and fandoms that develop in or evolve from the Global South.
Submission Instructions:
Please submit a 500-word abstract and a CV by December 15, 2022 to the co-editors at click@gonzaga.edu and suzanne.scott@texas.edu. Please include both co-editors on your email submission.
Authors whose abstracts are selected will be notified by January 15, 2023 and asked to submit the first draft of their full (5000-word) chapter by August 1, 2023. Final chapter drafts will be due May 1, 2024.
References:
Chin, B. and Morimoto, L. H. (2013). “Towards a theory of transcultural fandom,” Participations, 10, pp. 92-108.
Click, M. A. and Scott, S. (2018). “Race and transcultural fandom: introduction,” The Routledge Companion to Media Fandom, pp. 241-243.
CFP: Participatory Culture Wars: Controversy, Conflict and Complicity in Fandom
May 7, 2021***Call for papers and contributions for an edited collection***
Participatory Culture Wars: Controversy, Conflict and Complicity in Fandom
Edited by Dr Simone Driessen, Bethan Jones, Dr Benjamin Litherland.
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.
Scholars of participatory culture can play a key role in assessing many and more of these issues, but they will also have significant and ongoing impact on the way we conceptualize fans, fandoms, and participatory culture. This work builds on developing themes in the field. Ongoing scholarship about racism, sexism, and homophobia in prominent fan spaces is vital (Massanari, 2017; Pande, 2020; Scott, 2019), and Jonathan Gray’s conception of anti-fandom (2003; 2005; 2007) is an important moment in indicating the darker underbelly of fan cultures. Yet scholarship on QAnon and Trump fandom (Reinhardt, forthcoming; Miller, 2020), cancel and commenting culture (Clark, 2020; Ng, 2020; Barnes, 2018), reactionary fandom (Stanfill, 2020), ethical consumption (Wood, Litherland & Reed, 2020; Tyler, 2021) and serial killer fandom (Nacos, 2015; Rico, 2015) pose important questions which cannot be answered simply by reference to anti- or toxic fandom.
This collection brings together some of these authors and perspectives while developing and extending these debates. We are keen to broaden the scope of the issue so that studies of fans of film and television are included alongside studies of music, literary, theatre, sports and politics. And we are especially eager to include case studies beyond the anglophone and global north. We are also interested in the practices of organizations in fan-adjacent areas such as marketing, production, branding and influencer culture. We welcome traditional essays and research papers and non-traditional formats, such as roundtables, interviews, and think-pieces, from people inside and outside of the academy. Topics might include but are not limited to:
· Conspiracy theories and/as fandom.
· ‘Culture wars’, intra- and inter-fan conflicts, and other broader disagreements or discontent about the meaning and values of popular cultural texts.
· The consequences of anti-fandom and toxic fandom.
· Expressions and practices of ethical consumption, whether via “cancel culture”, commodity activism or similar.
· The moral economies of fandom, and their consequences for the media and cultural industries.
· The ethical implications of participation, whether through fan activism, dark fandom or other.
· The environmental impact of fandom, from NFTs to fan tourism.
Please send an abstract of 300 words, along with a short author biography of 150 words to participatoryculturewars@gmail.com by 31 July 2021. Please also address any queries to this email address.
Call for Papers: Edited Collection on Glee, Gender, and Sexuality
March 16, 2012The Fox television series Glee is nothing short of a phenomenon—hit show, sell-out concerts, extensive merchandising, chart-topping hits (eighth in digital sales), and a very passionate fandom. Glee is also simultaneously celebrated and disparaged for its tackling of timely cultural topics, such as bullying, coming out as gay or lesbian, and teen pregnancy. Much of this blurring of praise and derision centers on the program’s representations of gender and sexuality issues, like those previously mentioned.
This collection aims to illustrate how multiple fields of study inform, shape, challenge, and/or complicate gender and sexuality representations on Glee.
The varying types of diversity represented by the characters featured on Glee, as well as the ensemble cast portraying them, provides the opportunity to examine representations of gender and sexuality from multiple perspectives.
Possible disciplinary approaches include but are not limited to:
• Pedagogy
• Teacher education
• Music/music education
• LGBT/queer studies
• Feminist studies
• Fan studies
• Race/ethnicity
• New media fandoms
• Theater studies
• Disability studies
Submissions should include a proposed title, an abstract of no more than 500 words, and a short author biography. Please email the above to Michelle Parke at mparke@carrollcc.edu by May 15, 2012. Complete chapters manuscripts of 3,000-5,000 words will be due by August 15, 2012.
The Fan Studies Network 