Fiske Matters: John Fiske's Continuing Legacy for Cultural Studies
Madison, Wisconsin
June 11-12, 2010
Call for Papers
>From the late 1970s through the 1990s, John Fiske was one of the most
influential media scholars in the world. Books such as *Reading
Television* (co-written
with John Hartley in 1978), *Television Culture* (1987), *Understanding
Popular Culture* (1989), *Power Plays, Power Works* (1993) and *Media
Matters* (1994) proved seminal to the developing fields of media and
cultural studies. His work prompted generations of scholars to consider how
media culture shaped our collective understanding of the operations of
power, particularly in relation to issues of raced, classed, and gendered
identities. And his work on reception led to intense debates over how to
theorize the activity of media audiences. As a teacher and advisor, Fiske
provided dynamic intellectual critiques of the work his students and
colleagues produced, and encouraged an interrogation of the media
environment that was remarkable in its accessibility.
Fiske retired from academic life ten years ago. To honor the tenth
anniversary of Fiske's retirement from the field, and to explore both the
continuing impact of his ideas and the profundity of the era in which he and
his contemporaries operated, we are proud to announce a conference titled
"Fiske Matters: John Fiske's Continuing Legacy for Cultural Studies." The
conference will feature Henry Jenkins as a keynote speaker, and Fiske
himself is expected to attend.
Given the dramatic changes that have occurred in our media culture in the
decade since his retirement, one might wonder whether Fiske's work remains
relevant. We firmly believe it does, but we also believe the field would
benefit from a careful assessment of just how his ideas can help us better
understand what's going on in our current moment. Thus, the conference seeks
to explore the continuing relevance of Fiske's work and to examine the
intellectual heritage of and influences upon his work. We invite individual
papers and/or panels that build upon and/or adapt Fiske's scholarship and
approach to contemporary ends, consider the reception of Fiske's work, and
assess the current and future utility of his work and other related
scholarship for media and cultural studies. Paper and/or panel topics may
address the impact and relevance of Fiske's work in the following areas:
- Feminism
- Audiences and reception studies
- Cultural politics
- Race and culture
- Cultural studies in (inter)national contexts
- Textualities
- Popular pleasures
- Hegemony and resistance
- Cultural studies in the 1980s and 1990s
- Economic and cultural capital
Other topics are also welcome for consideration.
Conference organizers plan to publish an edited volume of collected papers
from the conference.
The deadline for submissions of a 500-word abstract for either an individual
paper, or for each component of a pre-constituted panel, is 19 January
2010. Please include a one- to two-sentence bio for each contributor to a
paper or panel.
Please submit abstracts to *www.fiskematters.com/submissions*. For more
information on the conference, please visit the conference website: *
http://www.fiskematters.com/* <http://www.fiskematters.com/>.
---
Jason Mittell, Associate Professor of American Studies and Film & Media
Culture
Chair of Film & Media Culture Department
Middlebury College
208 Axinn Center at Starr Library
Middlebury, Vermont 05753
(802) 443-3435 / fax: (802) 443-2805
Homepage: http://seguecommunity.middlebury.edu/sites/jmittell
Blog: http://justtv.wordpress.com
