[Commlist] New Book: Performing Identity: Actor Training, Self Commodification and Celebrity

Barry King's book Performing Identity: Actor Training, Self 
Commodification and Celebrity (Palgrave) has just been published.

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-15798-1
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15798-1
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

This book examines how the persistent and deepening casualization and 
precarity of acting work, coupled with market pressures, has affected 
the ways in which actors are trained in the US and UK. It reviews the 
existing state of training, looking at various theories of what the 
actor does, debates about casting, and the impact of reality television 
and social media. In the increasing effort to find ways to overcome the 
precarious labour market for actors and other performers, the 
traditional emphasis on theatrical character has been replaced by the 
celebration of the persona – a public image of the performer as a 
personal brand. As a result, a physiocratic elite, that literally 
incorporates the collective labour of cultural workers into the star or 
celebrity body, has formed. This book explores how the star or 
celebrity’s appearance and comportment are positioned as the rule of 
nature, formed and abiding outside capitalism as a mode of production. 
This book will be of interest to those studying theatre studies and 
performance, contemporary stardom and celebrity and the impact of 
technology on the formation of identity.

Barry King is Professor of Communications at Auckland University of 
Technology, New Zealand. He is the author (with Sean Cubitt, Harriet 
Margolies and Thierry Jutel) of Studying the Event Film: The Lord of the 
Rings (Manchester University Press, 2008) and Taking Fame to market: 
Essays on the prehistory and post-history of Hollywood stardom ( 
Palgrave, 2014). He is on the editorial board of Celebrity Studies and 
Palgrave Communications and is a project reviewer for the Australian 
Research Council. King has published a substantial number of articles 
that explore the relationships been popular culture, celebrity and 
stardom and digital media. His other publications focus on creative 
labour, semiotic determinism, the sociology of acting and performance 
and the New Zealand Cultural industries.


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