Exploring the Scandalous
For this seminar as part of the ESSE conference 2024 in Lausanne, 26-30 August 2024, we invite abstracts on the topic/narrative structures/media conditions of the scandalous (in the 19th-21st centuries) through the lens of in_visibilisation. Scandals – in the context of sex, money or power – tend to involve obfuscation, an audience that is in the dark, but willing to see, agents who have an interest either in disclosure or in concealment. These interests are shot through with power that can be gendered, often contains a class-imbalance, is sometimes racialized, and not infrequently centres on non-normative desires. One area in which these dynamics of scandalization become particularly obvious are the cultural practices of fame and celebrity.