[Commlist] Cfp: Re/Presenting Europe and Europeans in Twentieth Century Media – A critical examination.

TMG - Journal for Media History. Special Issue - Re/Presenting Europe 
Project

Guest Editorial Collective: Dr. Rachel Gillett, Dr. Gijs van Campenhout, 
Dr. Jacco van Sterkenburg, Isabella Hall Allen, Dastan Abdali, Jan Bant, 
Lis Camelia,

  Re/Presenting Europe and Europeans in Twentieth Century Media - A 
critical examination.

This special issue of TMG - Journal for Media History examines how 
historical practices of racialisation structure representations of 
Europe, Europeanness and belonging in the domain of popular culture. 
Mainstream media, by which we mean state-sponsored and dominant 
commercial and publicly accessible radio and television, and widespread 
print media genres such as newspapers and magazines, have produced and 
circulated dominant representations of who is European and has a 
rightful place in Europe. Although the domain of popular culture 
promises egalitarian and democratic representation, in practice, 
mainstream coverage of major sporting fixtures and popular music has 
historically offered simplistic or stereotyping portrayals of the 
complex and differentiated “othered” groups that contribute to European 
culture. We, therefore, invite submissions that re-examine media 
representations of popular culture through a critical lens.

Our point of departure is that media is a dominant site of 
representation but can also host counter-narratives and perspectives. 
Because sports media, popular music, and popular culture are sites of 
powerful representational impact they are, thus, vital scholarly sites 
of engagement (van Sterkenburg 2013; Elling 2005.) While European 
popular culture has received ample academic attention since the late 
1970s, our editorial collective invites contributors to examine how it 
structures racialised representations of Europe and Europeans. 
Contributions to this special issue will collectively address and 
redress how twentieth-century media has represented individuals and 
communities in ways that have undergirded societal structures of 
racialisation and exclusion. We suggest contributors identify how 
representational practices (rhetoric, image, narrative, selective 
visibility, association with perceived virtues and vices or innate 
characteristics) have historically worked in processes of othering, 
conclusion and belonging. This may involve investigating how ‘belonging’ 
has been represented as only available to certain groups and how 
racialised communities have responded or created counter-narratives and 
representational practices.

We therefore invite contributions that analyze how media documentation 
of popular culture - principally television, radio, and print 
journalism/cultural reportage - feed into exclusionary representation of 
Europe. We also invite contributions investigating how such media 
representations of European popular culture have been disrupted and 
challenged in mainstream media or, conversely, through the production of 
subversive media content and formats. We encourage submissions of work 
that uses approaches from media history, Black European Studies, sports 
history, and the history of popular culture, representation, and belonging.
We welcome submissions that consider (but are not limited to) the 
following themes.
* Case studies examining resistance to and/or subversion of a default 
‘white’ European-ness within mainstream media;
* Practices of stereotyping and racialisation in media production and 
the circulation of racial stereotypes and assumed norms in media 
production, with a focus on the twentieth-century;
* The remediation of narratives and representation across different 
media sites; the contestation of dominant representations through 
vernacular and community-created intergenerational transmission of 
alternate representations, narratives, and counter-narratives;
* Resistant reading of mainstream representations of popular culture, 
following the work of Stuart Hall (2002) on audience and reception. How 
is this relevant to a continental European context?;
* Democratising practices of (self)representation - how have ‘Zines, 
podcasts, content-driven social media, born digital and self-funded 
representative media worked to subvert dominant representations of 
European-ness in popular culture?;
* How communities of Black and othered peoples have generated media 
representations of liberatory joy that perpetually disrupt the work of 
‘race’, racism, and racialisation (Fields & Fields, 2012; Gilroy, 1993; 
Hall, 2017; Moten & Harney, 2013; Rodney, 1969).

On the basis of a 300-word abstract to be submitted by 30 April 2024, 
selected authors shall be invited to submit an article of 6,000-8,000 
words (including notes) by 15 September 2024. Revised drafts are 
expected by 15 October 2024.

The issue will be published in Spring 2025. Please send an abstract and 
a short bio to Isabella Hall Allen at Utrecht University: 
(i.w.a.hallallen /at/ uu.nl).

Deviations of the 6,000-8,000 words (including notes) are possible, 
subject to the agreement of the editors. Authors are to submit original 
papers that are not under consideration for publication elsewhere. No 
payment from the authors will be required.Final acceptance depends on a 
double-blind peer review process of the manuscripts.

The expected publishing date of this special issue of TMG—Journal for 
Media History is in Spring 2025 Contributions that receive positive 
reviews but are not accepted for the special issue may be considered for 
publication in another issue of TMG—Journal for Media History.
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