[Air-L] Call for chapter proposals - Different Bodies: Disability and the Media

Jacob Johanssen johanssenjacob at gmail.com
Tue Jul 18 03:08:09 PDT 2017


Book edited by Jacob Johanssen and Diana Garrisi (Communication and Media
Research Institute, University of Westminster)


Following on from the conference ‘Different Bodies: (Self-) Representation,
Disability and the Media’ which was held at the University of Westminster
in June, we are preparing a book proposal based on some of the themes
arising from the conference. The book proposal will be submitted to Peter
Lang, who have already expressed a strong interest in the project.

The collection is intended to offer a comprehensive view of the
relationship between disability and the media from a global and
multidisciplinary perspective. Building upon existing studies, the book
aims to explore if and how the rapidly changing technological means of
communication are affecting how the body as strange, shameful, wrong,
impaired, wounded, scarred, disabled, lacking, different or ‘other’ is
constructed in the media. In particular the book aims to discuss whether
the Internet has made it possible to develop new, alternative or more
inclusive narratives that challenge long-established mainstream coverage of
disability. Some of the questions we would like to address are, for
example, whether self-representations of disability on the Internet are
contesting or aligning with representations on mainstream media outlets. We
would also like to look at issues such as the rise of disability hate
crimes online, the relationship between journalism and disability awareness
campaigns, online dating and disability, the media coverage of disability
rights and employment. One of our aims is to establish the extent to which
the media contribute to shape our relation with diversity in the digital
era and, ultimately, our relationship with ourselves.

Possible themes include but are not limited to:
·         Affective labour of bodies
·         Auto-ethnographic accounts of the body in / through digital media
·         Celebrity bodies and the spectacles of transformation
·         Cinema and disability
·         Contemporary coverage of disability in
print/online/television/radio
·         De-colonizing and de-westernising the mediated body
·         Disability and advertising
·         Disability and race
·         Disability and the media: historical perspectives
·         (Dis)Empowerments of the disabled body
·         Journalism and practices of othering the body
·         Neoliberalism, policy and austerity politics
·         Reality television and the body
·         Representing wounds and scars
·         Researching bodies and the media: frameworks and methodologies
·         Stigma and the body
-         Posthumanist and non-representational frameworks
·         The abject body
·         The body and trauma
·         The mediated body as spectacle
·         The medicalised body in the media
·         The objectification of the disabled body in the media

We invite submissions of 200-250 words chapter proposals. Deadline: 30
September 2017.
Submissions should also include:

a)            Title of chapter
b)            Author name/s, institutional details
c)            Corresponding author’s email address
d)            Keywords (no more than 5)
e)            A short bio


Commissioned chapters will be around 5,000 words. The fact that an abstract
is accepted does not guarantee publication of the final manuscript. If the
book proposal is approved, all chapters submitted will be judged on the
basis of a double-blind reviewing process.

Should you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us at
D.Garrisi2 at westminster.ac.uk and J.Johanssen at westminster.ac.uk



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