[ecrea] CFP: Queer Celebrity Conference

The Celebrity, Citizenship, and Status Project are delighted to share 
the CFP for our 'Queer Celebrity' Conference on 6-7th June 2019, at the 
University of Portsmouth, UK. Abstracts are due 1st February 2019!

*Queer Celebrity Conference*

*University of Portsmouth*

*6^th -7^th June 2019*

**

*Keynote Speakers:*

*Professor Richard Dyer (King’s College, London)*

*Professor Jack Halberstam (Columbia University)*

*Dr Michèle Mendelssohn (University of Oxford)*

The focus of celebrity studies on the cultural mediation and function of 
a diverse range of public personalities has foregrounded an ever-growing 
archive of queer celebrities. This conference aims to explore how the 
entry of queer figures into the public imagination, in different 
historical periods and geographical locations, has had a transnational, 
even global, impact, changing perceptions, attitudes and the way 
individuals live their lives. LGBTQ figures, for example, have risen to 
public prominence and become positive role models, while negotiating 
their fame alongside cultural associations of homosexuality with crime, 
scandal and blackmail. The refusal of closeted celebrities to come out 
underlines the detrimental effects of homophobia on popularity, but also 
celebrity culture’s preoccupation with the open secret. ‘Straight’ 
celebrities have become queer icons by tapping into LGBTQ subcultures, 
codes and identities, bringing that which is hidden into the open to 
become part of everyday life. These cultural and historical trajectories 
point to the queer nature of celebrity itself and how celebrities have 
unsettled cultural norms, binaries and oppositions.

This conference will consider how the cultural visibility of queer 
celebrities has reshaped and expanded norms and expectations relating to 
gender, sexuality and identity. How have, for instance, queer identities 
influenced celebrity culture throughout history and across all media 
forms, society, and politics? How does queer theory complicate our 
understanding of celebrity studies and vice versa? Through what 
mechanisms and to what ends have LGBTQ public figures, including queer 
theorists, become celebrity figures?

*Topics for papers may include, but are not limited to:*

●Queer Celebrities; Queer Icons

●Celebrity, Sex, Gender

●Histories of LGBTIA+ Celebrity

●Queer Celebrity, Race & Ethnicity

●Queer Fame; Queer Infamy & Notoriety; Queer Celebrity Scandal

●Celebrity, Norms & (anti)normativity

●Transnational Queer Communities

●Celebrity Sexologists, ‘Sexperts’, Practitioners

●Celebrity and the ‘closet’; Visibility & Invisibility

●Queer Celebrity, Time & Space

●The Politics of Queer Celebrity

●Queer Celebrity and the Public Domain

●Queer Style, Queer Form

●Queer Celebrity ‘Texts’

●Queer Celebrity Objects

●Queer Celebrity & Masculinity/Femininity

●Celebrity Failure; Failed Celebrity

●Queer Celebrity Children

●Queer Celebrity, Citizenship & Status

Please send paper abstracts (of no more than 300 words) or panel 
proposals (of no more than 600) words, with a brief biographical note 
(50-100 words) to (_ccs /at/ port.ac.uk) <mailto:(ccs /at/ port.ac.uk)>_ by 1st 
February 2019.


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