[Air-L] 2019 CFP Journal of Applied Journalism and Media Studies (Intellect Books) and CMCS Keynotes - Deadline: March 18

[Dr Samita Nandy]

*The following Call for Papers might be of interest to Internet Studies
scholars and students exploring online fame and fandom. Personal stories
are welcome. **Please share widely.*


We are pleased to announce professors Andrew Zolides, Basuli Deb, and Alex
Symons as the keynote speakers for the 2019 Centre for Media and Celebrity
Studies (CMCS) conference in New York City. Best-presented papers will be
published in the *Journal of Applied Journalism and Media Studies
<https://cmc-centre.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8d968a451671b45aa780b5674&id=0abea35b29&e=9b4b89800a>
*
*@*IntellectBooks
<https://cmc-centre.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8d968a451671b45aa780b5674&id=44878a39b2&e=9b4b89800a>.
Discounted 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 a special
issue of the Journal of Applied Journalism and Media Studies (Intellect
Books)

*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 / book talk proposal
•    Include a title, your name, e-mail address, and affiliation if
applicable
•    Submit abstract at celebrity.mediastudies at 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 at 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*:
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