cfp.english.upenn.edu

1st Global Conference
Teenagers and Contemporary Visual Culture

Tuesday 25th September 2012 – Thursday 27th September 2012
Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom

The Call for Papers:
This conference looks to examine, explore and discuss the prevalence of representations of teenagers within contemporary visual culture. Whether as a focus for consumption, entertainment or individual and social expression the teenager, as seen in its myriad manifestations within popular culture and the media would seem to express something about the world in the 21st Century and beyond but does it allow for teenagers themselves to address the nature of their own identity and individual agency within an increasingly implicated and convergent world?

Chris: “Sidney, are you gonna tell me what’s going on? It’s like a f**king episode of the OC in here”
(Joe Dempsie as Chris Miles in Skins)

Examples: The Hunger Games, Glee, Gossip Girl, The Twilight Saga, Skins, Misfits, Teenwolf, Bluewater High, The OC, The Vampire Diaries, The Inbetweeners, Beverley Hills 90210, Degrassi: The Next Generation,El barco, Malhação, Dil Dosti Dance, Majisuka Gakuen, Battle Royale, Hannah Montana, Justin Bieber, High School Musical, Jennifers Body.

Possible Topics for Discussion:

Representation:

* Portrayals of teenage life and teen cultures (mainstream as well as counter-cultures)
* Gender
* Race
* Sexualities (hetero-, homo-, bi-, trans-, fluid, queer)
* Nationality
* Impact of “big” events (death and mortality, pregnancy, addiction, marriage, mental illness, disability, etc.) on teens

Aesthetics and Stories:

* Responding to/setting trends in teen fashion, music and pop culture
* Location
* Narrative and Storytelling
* Inter-textuality/pop culture allusions
* Adapting stories between media
* Making and breaking generic conventions
* Impact of star persona/celebrity

Production:

* Teen patterns of consumption
* Teens as producers (e.g teens in writers’ rooms and creative teams; teens as producers of fan fiction, videos and art; teens as campaigners/correspondents seeking to influence storylines, etc.)
* Creator/showrunner as author
* Adapting and remaking teen entertainment in different countries
* Production process case studies
* Technologies of production, distribution and marketing (e.g. the impact of multiplatform experiences and social media)
* Uses and Impacts of Teen Entertainment

Reception and Impact:

* Teens and Tweens as Niche Audience?
* The impact and value of membership in fan communities that develop around visual culture
* Fandom and anti-fandom
* Celebrity and teen actors
* Transnational reception of teen entertainment
* Controversies and moral panics
* Regulation and censorship
* The appeal of teen visual culture for adults, and its implications
* Pedagogical value of teen entertainment
* Clinical studies of the impact of teen programming on teens
* Assessments of the meaning and cultural significance of specific storylines and characters
* Factors in the phenomenon: why some teen programming goes viral and others fail

THE WHAT: For 2012, the Skins and Contemporary Culture project will meet alongside our project on Gender and Love It is our intention to create cross-over sessions between the two groups – and we welcome proposals which deal with the relationship between gender and love and Skins and contemporary culture. Papers will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 27th April 2012.

WHO SHOULD APPLY: All scholars, researchers or practitioners that work or have an interest in the area of popular culture and media or who work with teenagers and have positive , negative or ambivalent feelings towards the visual representation of youth, adolescence and even the hierarchical reification of age and social expectation.

HOW? Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to all Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 keywords. E-mails should be entitled: SKINS Abstract Submission.

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). Please note that a Book of Abstracts is planned for the end of the year. All accepted abstracts will be included in this publication. We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Organising Chairs

Ann-Marie Cook: annmariecook75@gmail.com
Dr Rob Fisher: skins@inter-disciplinary.net

The conference is part of the Critical Issues series of research projects. The aim of the conference is to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting. All papers accepted for and presented at this conference are eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go forward for development into a themed ISBN hard copy volume.

For further details of the conference, please visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/critical-issues/ethos/skins/call-for-p...

Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.