Expressions of Interest & Call for Papers:

Sex and Celebrity PGR Workshop

Thursday 28^th June 2018, University of Portsmouth

Keynote Speaker:

Professor John Mercer, Birmingham City University

This one-day PGR Workshop seeks to interrogate the relationship between sex and celebrity – the role of sex in the construction, negotiation and perpetuation of celebrity identity. As well as academic papers and roundtable discussion, this event will also include PGR professionalization sessions.

This free PGR workshop asks how sex and sexuality form, create and change our relationship to celebrity: how do sex and celebrity intersect? What roles do sex stories, exposés and scandals have in the formation and/or devaluing of celebrity? Is desire an inherent part of celebrity culture? How do attitudes to sex and celebrity change across time, cultures and societies? What role does the media play in forging links between sex and celebrity? How do film and literature interrogate and promote the relationship between sex, fame and celebrity? What are the effects upon celebrity of sexual infidelity, revelations and even sex crimes?

Possible topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Sex and the creation of celebrity
• Desire and celebrity; the sexualisation of celebrity
• Celebrity, sex and gender; LGBTQIA and celebrity
• Celebrity sex experts, advisors and campaigners
• Sex, celebrity and the media
• Sex, infamy and notoriety
• Celebrity affairs, infidelity and indiscretions
• Sex, crimes and trials
• Celebrity sex tapes, sex scandals and confessions
• Celebrity and pornography
• Sex and celebrity in literature, film, art, etc.

The organisers welcome proposals for 15 minute papers that consider ‘celebrity and sex’ in their many forms, and from a variety of historical and disciplinary perspectives.

Please send 200-word abstracts, with a 50-word biography to ccs@port.ac.uk by Friday 18^th May.