[ecrea] CfP - National Populists: Right-wing Celebrity Politicians in Contemporary Europe (Special Issue of Celebrity Studies)

National Populists: Right-wing Celebrity Politicians in Contemporary 
Europe (Special Issue of Celebrity Studies)

Guest Editors:
Neil Ewen, University of Winchester, UK.
David Zeglen, George Mason University, USA.

In recent years, the aura of celebrity has proven attractive to 
neo-nationalist politicians who have become influential, and in some 
cases dominant, players in the construction of their own regional 
hegemonies. This special issue of Celebrity Studies brings together 
articles that focus on the ways that different populist/neo-nationalist 
politicians in Europe – both from the ‘centre’ (the United Kingdom and 
France) and the ‘periphery’ (Russia, Turkey, the former Yugoslavia) – 
have utilized celebrity to convert their mythological narratives into 
forms of legitimacy through the media. While the socio-economic levels, 
cultural contexts, and media ecologies of Europe’s countries vary widely 
between themselves, this special issue will suggest that the common 
democratic dream of Europe – which is, of course, currently under urgent 
threat – provided rich terrain for the growth of celebrity politics. As 
Europe fragments, and as a result of the alienation and anxiety provoked 
by neoliberalism, many European groups have become increasingly 
vulnerable to radical forms of solidarity exploited by populist 
politicians who understand, and show a mastery of, their own affective 
power as celebrities. These case studies, through the interrogation of 
the celebrity politician within the political economy of the particular 
national context, will consider what ways, and to what extent, 
celebrity’s intersection with official political action is changing the 
ways Europe’s nations are imagined and governed in the era of neoliberal 
globalization.

We are seeking one further article to complete a special issue that 
already comprises pieces by a diverse group of established and emerging 
scholars on Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen, Slobodan 
Milošević, Viktor Orbán, and Vladimir Putin. We would be particularly 
interested in proposals for articles on the following figures: Silvio 
Berlusconi, Pim Fortuyn, Jörg Haider, Pia Kjærsgaard, Frauke Petry, and 
Geert Wilders.

Interested authors should send a proposal (approx. 500 words) and a 
short biography to Dr. Neil Ewen ((neil.ewen /at/ winchester.ac.uk)) by 11 
March 2016, and will receive responses by 18 March. The completed 
article (6000-8000 words) will be due 1 July 2016. Only previously 
unpublished work will be considered.

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