Call for Submissions: Edited Collection on Celebrity in Canada
Proposals due July 1st 2012 (1000-1500 words)
Final Submission due March 1st, 2013 (5,000-8,500 words)
Wayne Gretzky. Celine Dion. Rick Mercer. David Suzuki. Pierre Trudeau.
The list goes on and goes way back. Celebrity culture in Canada, although vastly under-estimated, continues to be a massive cultural and economic force to be reckoned with and such a reckoning is long overdue. This proposed edited collection seeks to uncover how celebrity operates in Canada when Canadian subjects, institutions, media, audiences and/or industries are involved.
We take as our starting point that Canada has a vexed and viable celebrity culture – one that shares much in common with others in this transnational global economy, but one where markers and signals of "Canadianness" are circulated as having some kind of significance. What do such markers mean and what is their cultural and economic value? Do such claims constitute an autonomous or distinct celebrity culture or have Canadian celebrity industries and institutions been too long tied to non-Canadian cultural economies? What trends might be traced in how celebrity in Canada is produced, disseminated and consumed? And, what can be learned from one-time phenomena like Trudeaumania? How might existing critical theory benefit from the consideration of Canadian case studies?
Submissions might address (but are certainly not limited to):
CBC and other Canadian Mass Media
Hockey Culture
Film, TV, and Music industries in Canada
Quebecois and French-Canadian Celebrity
Politics in/of Celebrity and Celebrity Politicians
Celebrity Agents and Advertisers
Pre-Mass Media Forms of Fame and Celebrity
The state of Celebrity Studies in Canada
Awards & Prize Culture: eg. Honourary Degrees, Halls/Walks of Fame, Order of Canada
Commemoration Culture: eg. Statues, Plaques, Landmarks, Festivals
Please submit proposals with a brief biographical statement or one page CV to Lorraine York (yorkl@cogeco.ca) and Katja Lee (leek66@mcmaster.ca). Proposals are due July 1st, 2012. Notification of acceptance will follow by August 15th, 2012. Final submissions will be due March 1st, 2013.