[Commlist] Meghan Markle Symposium

The Cultural Politics of Meghan Markle

*Symposium*

9.30am-5pm, Friday 15^th  November, Brockway Room, Conway Hall, 25 Red 
Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL

£20 unsalaried, £30 salaried including all catering. 
https://shop.brookes.ac.uk/conferences-and-events/faculty-of-humanities-social-sciences/conferences/symposium-on-meghan-markle-and-the-british-royal-family

We are proud to announce 14 scholars from different disciplines and 
countries around the globe, coming together to examine the cultural 
politics of Meghan Markle. They will share their forthcoming work from 
two special issues on Markle edited by Dr Hannah Yelin and Dr Laura 
Clancy: ‘Disciplining the M/Other: examining contemporary mediated 
motherhood through the case of Meghan Markle’, for /Women’s Studies in 
Communication/ and* ‘*Race, Royalty and the Cultural Politics of Meghan 
Markle: Elites, Inequalities and a Woman in the Public Eye’ for /Women’s 
Studies International Forum./ Their work takes a range of approaches to 
the topic including cultural history, black studies, critical race 
studies, Maori studies, sociological, Americanist, women’s and gender 
studies, film and media, education, digital media, and marketing and 
advertising.

Papers will respond to Markle's construction in the media and the 
popular imagination in relation to conceptions of pregnancy and 
motherhood, intersections of gender, race, age, and class, public 
performances of femininity and the scrutiny these receive, the 
discussions she has provoked around gender and race, her position as an 
American actor who has married into the British Royal Family, and the 
questions these raise around nationality identity, (cultural) capital, 
celebrity, (post)colonialism, politics and power. Each paper takes a 
different perspective to the cultural and representational politics that 
surround these public media events and the neoliberal, commodified, 
sexist, racist, ageist rhetorics that circulate within them. Markle as a 
public figure is a rich site through which to examine the gender, racial 
and class politics of structures such as celebrity, royalty and matrimony.

Schedule (may be subject to change)

  * *09:30 Editor’s welcome, coffee, pastries and paper* ‘Monarchy is a
    Feminist Issue’, Dr Laura Clancy, Lancaster University
  * ‘An “Unsuitable Mother” and “Colourful Princess”? The Use of
    Motherhood to Discipline Meghan Markle’, Dr Jon Ward, University of
    East Anglia
  * ‘The neoliberal politics of Meghan’s ‘baby bump’’, Prof. Liza
    Tsaliki, University of Athens
  * *Coffee break*
  * ‘“How any woman does what they do is beyond comprehension”: Meghan
    Markle and the masking of maternal labours’, Prof. Shani Orgad,
    London School of Economics, Prof. Kathryn Baldwin, Tulane University
  * ‘A Question of Contrast: Unpacking the Mail Online’s Depiction of
    Meghan Markle’s Motherhood’, Mary McGill, University of Ireland, Galway
  * ‘Pregnancy Age Shaming: Fertility and the Royal Pregnancy’, Dr
    Rebecca Feasey, Bath Spa University
  * *Lunch*
  * ‘’A New Wrinkle’: Age, Race and Writing Meghan Markle’, Dr Rachael
    McLennan, University of East Anglia
  * ‘Meghan, the Monarchy and Multiculturalism (Re)Mixed’, Dr Francesca
    Sobande, Cardiff University
  * ‘Meghan Markle’s Courtship of a Colonised Commonwealth. Connecting
    with Aotearoa/ New Zealand’, Dr Helene Connor, University of Auckland
  * ‘I like my baby heir with baby hair and afros": Meghan Markle,
    Beyoncé, Tiana and the womanist poetics of Black majesty’, Dr Nicole
    Willson, University of Central Lancashire
  * *Coffee break*
  * ‘‘It’s All About the Poise’: Meghan Markle, Doria Raglan, and Black
    Motherhoods’. Prof. Fiona Handyside, Exeter University
  * ‘Curvy, Fit, Skinny or Pregnant: Meghan Markle’s Body in the Media’,
    Tessa Nunn, Duke University
  * Editor’s closing remarks and paper ‘‘The best thing about Meghan
    Markle is she’s got a bit of black in her’: Girls making meaning
    around Meghan Markle’, Dr Hannah Yelin, Oxford Brookes University
  * *17:00 Close*


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