Living Life in Public:Exploring the Private Lives of Celebrities The Celebrity Project

Tuesday, July 28, 2015 – 4:00am – Thursday, July 30, 2015 – 10:30am

Living Life in Public:Exploring the Private Lives of Celebrities
The Celebrity Project

Tuesday 28th July – Thursday 30th July 2015
Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom

Call for Presentations:
Celebrities are “well-known” individuals who either by choice or by chance have achieved renown or infamy outside of personal and professional circles. Despite complaints that celebrities routinely make of the inconveniences of fame, many devote considerable resources to retaining and increasing their visibility, and to crafting their public images. Despite the very public nature of the celebrity, what drives much mass interest in these rarefied individuals is very often their private lives. Personal scandals can wreck (or in some cases, even propel) celebrity success, and avoiding, managing and atoning for scandal consists of a large part of maintaining a career in public. Many celebrities are also astute in utilising private life events such as weddings and childbirth and personal struggles with failure, addiction and romantic disappointment to make their public images more compelling.

The sector of media devoted to covering celebrities’ private lives is a gigantic one, with “candid” photographs of Britney Spears, David Beckham or Justin Bieber fetching huge sums. The romantic lives of well-known star couples, like Kanye West and Kim Kardashian (“Kimye”), Ellen DeGeneres and Portia Rossi, and on and off-screen lovers Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson of Twilight fame receive ink rivaling their creative outputs. Sport figures like Lance Armstrong and Oscar Pistorius who reap the benefits of their compelling personal stories must also face the abyss of doping scandals and murder charges. The explosion of reality television has introduced a new wrinkle as participants in internationally syndicated shows like The Bachelor, Real Housewives and Big Brother gain tabloid space not for achievements in sports, politics and the arts but for the ways in which they perform versions of their own romantic, domestic and professional lives. Exposing one’s private life appears to be trumping public achievement as a means for achieving renown. This, of course, is not just a Western phenomenon, and well known figures from Asian and African music and cinema equally utilse performances of their private lives to inform their public persona’s.

Why this obsession with celebrities’ private lives? This question offers a ripe opportunity to investigate the cultural, historical and philosophical categories of public, private, and of celebrity itself. Scholars, artists, fans, writers, lawyers, media professionals, performers, even celebrities are invited to send papers, reports, personal narratives, research studies, works-in-progress, works of art, and workshop proposals on issues related but not limited to the following themes, as they may manifest themselves in multiple historical and geographic locations:

– Paparazzi and the celebrity press, gossip, lifestyle, home shows, articles, and websites
– Celebrity bodies, plastic surgery, weight gain or loss, death and dying
– Celebrity self-commodification of personal lives: romance, tragedy, hardships, addictions, comebacks, pregnancies, etc.
– Scandal, crisis management, public shaming and remorse, redemption and penance campaigns
– Race and gender representation and celebrity, realness, whiteness, celebrities of color and mixed race, masculinity and femininity, affirmative action and tokenism, celebrities and disability
– LGBT celebrities, coming out, outing and closeting, gay rumors and innuendo, gay marriage, gender transitions, homophobia and its career impact
– Personal life and image management, sham or hidden relationships and marriages, synergistic relationships (Brangelina, Bennifer, Kimye)
– Reality stars and reality television, YouTube celebrities, talent competitions, beauty contests, internet memes based on traditional and internet celebrities
– Royalty as celebrity, succession crises, royal scandals, pregnancies, ceremony and ritual, republican critics of royalty.
– Celebrity athletes, personal narratives, inspirational stories, scandals, sportsmanship, club affiliations, on-field and locker room interviews
– Celebrity and the law: celebrity crime, paternity suits, libel suits, invasion of privacy, etc.
– Private life as a source of artistic inspiration and validation for celebrities
– Celebrity autobiographies, self-help books, addiction narratives, and exposees.
– Personal narratives, confessional poetry, lyrics and prose, self-exposure as a creative trope
– Hip Hop personas and personal narratives, boasting and fronting, players vs. haters, realness, hypermasculinity, race, gender and linguistic diversity
– “Method” acting, bodily modification, use of private emotion, spontaneity in performance
– Religion and celebrity, public and private expressions of faith, personal and professional religiosity, celebrities with non-mainstream or New Age faiths
– Celebrities and politics, public endorsements, private support, reaction to social controversies
– Children of celebrities, child celebrities, and celebrity dynasties
– Fandom, collecting autographs and memorabilia, relationships between fans and celebrities real or imagined, erotic fiction featuring celebrities, cosplay, memorials and tributes
– Conventions, tours, personal appearances, award shows, red carpets, acceptance speeches.
– Celebrity biopics, accuracy vs. dramatic license in depictions of private lives, performing celebrity, casting and mimicry, celebrity impersonators, celebrity parodies
– Celebrities and social media, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter followers, posts, and mishaps

The Steering Group welcomes the submission of proposals for short workshops, practitioner-based activities, performances, and pre-formed panels. They particularly welcome short film screenings; photographic essays; installations; interactive talks and alternative presentation styles that encourage engagement.
TO APPLY: 
Proposals will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word proposals should be submitted by Friday 1st May 2015. If a proposal is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper of no more than 3000 words should be submitted by Friday 19th June 2015. Proposals should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation as you would like it to appear in programme, c) email address, d) title of proposal, e) body of proposal, f) up to 10 keywords.
E-mails should be entitled: Celebrity4 Proposal Submission.

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

For further details of the conference, please visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/critical-issues/ethos/celebrity-exploring-critical-issues/call-for-papers/

Building a Digital Portfolio Summer Institute for Art Historians, Applications Accepted through March 15

Building a Digital Portfolio: July 13-24, 2015, at George Mason University.

Building a Digital Portfolio is a digital humanities summer institute for 20 art history graduate students offered by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, at George Mason University with support from the Getty Foundation that will be held July 13-24, 2015. The Getty is generously funding travel, lodging, and a modest per diem for all participants.

The goal of the institute is to introduce digital art history to graduate students in MA and PhD programs by training them in digital humanities methods and tools. See a preview of what we have planned:http://arthistory2015.doingdh.org/curriculum-draft/

To apply, please fill out the online application form by March 15, 2015. Final decisions will be made in mid-April.

UO Libraries Spring Seminar: Data Management for the Social Sciences

“Data Management for the Social Sciences”

Mondays, 4-4:50 p.m. in Knight Library (144 LIB)

Lib 607, CRN:33471

This spring the UO Libraries will be offering “Data Management for the Social Sciences”, a one-credit seminar taught by Victoria Mitchell and Jonathan Cain. This course will also be valuable for students in the Digital Humanities.

 

Data management is an integral part of the research process and has become a requirement for much grant funded research. This course will help students develop an understanding of data management requirements and guide students in the creation of a data management plan for their research project. Elements covered in the course include:

  • File Management
  • Metadata
  • Intellectual Property and Ethical Considerations
  • Digital Preservation & Access

 

Because assignments will be tailored to individual students’ projects, students are strongly encouraged to have a research project in mind when enrolling in the course.

 

For more information, contact Victoria Michell (vmitch@uoregon.edu) or Jonathan Cain (jocain@uoregon.edu)

 

Call for Submissions–Special Edition: The Future of Digital Methods for Complex Datasets

Special Edition:The Future of Digital Methods for Complex Datasets

IJHAC: A Journal of Digital Humanities (Formerly International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing)

 

Abstracts Due: April 15, 2015

Full Essays [or Articles] Due: August 1, 2015

Submit Abstracts electronically via .doc, .txt or .pdf to:

Jennifer Guiliano jenguiliano@gmail.com

 

meth∙od∙ol∙o∙gy

ˌmeTHәˈdälәjē/

noun

noun: methodology; plural noun: methodologies

1.   a system of methods used in a particular area of study or activity.

Forty years on from the advent of digital humanities computing, there is a flood of case­study work that explores specific instances of computational methods (e.g. close and distant reading via textual analysis, visualization methods for social networks, etc) being developed and then utilized within the digital humanities. Yet, despite this cross­pollination of methodology to the humanities, little has been done to discuss methodology outside of the project­based context in either the contemporary or future contexts. We know the specific results of particular methods within a given project, but much less about how those processes and workflows would function outside of that singular dataset or specific area of study.

Several questions arising from current practice remain unanswered: Can digital methods fully realize the promise of humanities and arts­driven inquiry when confronted with complex datasets? Is digital methodology in conflict with efforts to conduct micro or local level analyses as it encourages the use of “Big Data” and other large­scale longue durée­type analyses? Does digital methodology offer its own problematic system of assumptions? What grounds have humanists ceded to scientists?

What impact does this have on the tools created and the future of digital methodology? How should we train the next generation of scholars to deal with complex cultural records, and to interrogate and argue for tools suitable for humanities inquiry? This special edition of IJHAC: A Journal of the Digital Humanities (formerly the International Journal of Arts and Humanities Computing)  seeks submissions from scholars who explore what the future of digital methodology will be ten, fifteen, twenty or even fifty years in the future.
The Future of Digital Methods for Complex Datasets seeks contributions that might address the following:

  • In an environment where resources for humanities education are reduced, how might the decline of humanistic and artistic disciplines challenge the future of digital methods?
  • Is digital methodology for the humanities & arts something distinct from data science or other computational methods? Or alternately, has the underlying reliance on “data” forged a common methodology across previously distinct disciplines?
  • What might critical theoretical perspectives (e.g., feminist, post­colonial, etc) offer to digital methodology?
  • What problems might scholars need to account for in their digital methods if we anticipate a future where copyright, international law, and publishing systems become more restrictive?
  • How might conflicts between or syntheses of analog and digital methodologies lead to a richer system of approaches?
  • What might non­western systems of digital methodology bring to the future of the Digital Humanities?
  • How might digital techniques and approaches from other disciplines impact the future of Digital Humanities?
  • How might digital methodologies, digital assumptions, and modes of thinking destabilize fundamental humanistic and artistic scholarly assumptions?

The Future of Digital Methods for Complex Datasets invites applications from faculty, staff, graduate and undergraduate students, and staff from cultural heritage institutions, as well as the general public with a serious interest in digital humanities and/or arts methodology regardless of rank, position, or affiliation. Collaboratively authored submissions, submissions from minority applicants, and those located outside the US and Canada are especially welcomed.

Questions regarding this CFP may be directed to Jennifer Guiliano at jenguiliano@gmail.com or Mia Ridge at Mia.Ridge@open.ac.uk.

 

Call For Papers (MLA 2016): Grasping at Screens

This panel asks whether the multiplication of screens and the constant traversal of different media demand new ways of thinking about embodied engagement with the moving image.  As our bodies move, our various screens may move with us.  We may be engaged intensely with a given flow of images, or only tangentially connected to a protean cascade.  How do moving images, in these mutable contexts, interact with us “carnally.”  How are the various elements of our sensorium engaged? How do we “feel” our encounters with screens?  Theoretical approaches and/or papers drawn from German contexts welcome (but not required).

This panel is co-sponsored by LLC 20th and 21st-cenutry German and MS Screen Arts and Culture.

To Apply: Please send 250-word abstracts by March 15 to Siobhan Craig (craig026@umn.edu) and Eric Ames (eames@uw.edu).

Mellon Postdoctoral Research Scholar in Digital Humanities and Community Engagement

 

Lehigh University seeks applications for a two-year Mellon Postdoctoral Research Scholar in digital humanities and community engagement beginning August 2015. The annual salary is $50,000 with full benefits.

They seek a postdoctoral scholar well-versed in digital media, methods and technologies, with scholarly interest in one or more of the following areas: documentary studies (film or other), community engagement, urban studies and social justice. The scholar will pursue digital humanities scholarship, teach one undergraduate course each semester, contribute to workshops in partnership with the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning, and work one-on-one to help faculty integrate digital media into their courses.

The goal is to drive expansion of an undergraduate humanities curriculum that engages the local community, equips more faculty with enhanced skill sets in digital humanities forms, amplifies undergraduate humanities research, and leads to the development of an interdisciplinary undergraduate minor in documentary studies.

The position is open to candidates with a Ph.D. received between August 2012 and August 2015. Lehigh University seeks scholars from a wide range of humanities disciplines as well as the humanistic social sciences.

To apply, please submit a cover letter, vita, dissertation abstract, project description, and contact information for three academic references who will be prompted via email to submit letters electronically. The deadline for receipt of all materials is March 15, 2015.

Please apply at: https://academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/5320.

Inquiries should be directed to Professor Ed Whitley: edw204@lehigh.edu.

Oregon Programming Languages Summer School: “Types, Logic, Semantics, & Verification”

“Types, Logic, Semantics, & Verification”
June 15-17

REGISTRATION DEADLINE: MARCH 16, 2015

Everyday life is subject to the quality of computer and system software. The more our society depends on computing systems for critical aspects of economy, defense, and government, the more software correctness and reliability becomes crucial. The focus of this summer school is the mix or interplay of theory and practice in program verification. The main aim is to enable participants to conduct research in the area, thereby contributing to improve software quality.

The goal of this program is to provide a unique opportunity for participants to understand the current landscape in programming language research. We will present a range of material, from foundational work on semantics and type theory to advanced program verification techniques, to experience with applying the theory.

Lectures will include discussions of basic theoretical tools such as proof theory, type theory, category theory and their connection to programming language semantics. The lectures will describe how these ideas can be applied to yield proved-correct software by introducing students and researchers to the ideas of software verification. The lectures will also introduce the participants to the use of the proof assistant Coq in order to provide machine-checked proofs of program correctness.

At all times, material will be presented at a tutorial level that will help graduate students and researchers understand the critical issues and open problems confronting the field. The hope is that students will be able to apply what they learn at the school in their own research. They believe that by doing so the school will have a broad impact on the next generation of software, programming language and software engineering researchers in industry and academia.

The course is open to anyone interested. Prerequisites are knowledge of programming languages at the level provided by an undergraduate survey course. The primary target group is first- or second-year graduate students. Post-doc researchers and faculty members who would like to conduct research on this topic or introduce new courses at their universities are also welcome.

For more details on registration, scheduling, organizers, and speakers for the summer school, please visit the Oregon Programming Languages Summer School website here.

Job Opportunity: Postdoctoral Research Associate/Digital Humanities Princeton

Princeton University seeks candidates for an appointment as a postdoctoral research associate housed jointly in the Council for the Humanities and the Center for Digital Humanities. The successful candidate will spend half of their time developing a website for the Princeton and Slavery Project and the remaining half time will be devoted to the candidate’s own research project and to participating in the intellectual life of the University.

Candidates must have a Ph.D. in History or a closely allied field, with a demonstrated familiarity with 18th and 19th century American history. Appointment is for one year, with expectation of renewal for a second year pending satisfactory performance.

The website development project will require the postdoc to translate existing research into a dynamic visual form, and to collaborate with colleagues in other divisions of the University, including the University Archives, Art Museum and History Department.

Preference will be given to candidates who can create custom themes in Omeka/Neatline, a PHP based content management system, and who have demonstrated skills in PHP, CSS3, and HTML5.

To ensure full consideration, candidates are encouraged to submit complete applications by March 25, 2015.

In addition to their salary, postdoctoral researchers receive reimbursement (up to $2,000 per academic year) for research related expenses. Postdoctoral researchers are responsible for their own travel and moving arrangements and expenses, as well as for finding and paying for their housing at Princeton. Before their departure, they are required to submit a report on their scholarly activities at Princeton.

To Apply:

Applications are accepted online at https://jobs.princeton.edu , requisition #1500127 and should include:

(1) cover letter addressing qualifications for website design, along with title and brief summary of proposed research project;
(2) research proposal (five pages; 2,000 words), including a detailed description of project, timetable, explicit goals, and selected bibliography and supporting materials;
(3) curriculum vitae with list of publications;
(4) sample chapter (in English) of dissertation or other recent work;
(5) links to custom themes designed for Omeka, WordPress, or Drupal along with descriptions of how those themes were built; and
(6) Letters from three referees who are not current members of the Princeton University faculty.

Scholars with Ph.D. degrees from Princeton University are not eligible to apply. Appointments cannot be deferred to a later term.

Candidates must have completed all the requirements for the doctoral degree by September 1, 2015 (including the defense, viva voce, or final public oral examination), and preferably not earlier than June 1, 2012. Postdoctoral Research Associates may not pursue another degree while on this appointment, nor may they hold any other fellowships or visiting positions concurrently with their appointment at Princeton University.

Princeton University is an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

This position is subject to the University’s background check policy.  Princeton University is an equal opportunity employer and complies with applicable EEO and affirmative action regulations. You may apply online for job requisition #1500127 at: https://jobs.princeton.edu or for general application information and how to self-identify, see: http://web.princeton.edu/sites/dof/ApplicantsInfo.htm

Job opportunity: tenure-track assistant professor specializing in Digital Humanities at California State University, Northridge

California State University, Northridge seeks candidates for a tenure-track assistant professor specializing in Digital Humanities skills (e.g. Mapping, Network Analysis, Data Visualization, Data Mining, Data literacy, Digital Scholarly editing).

Secondary interests may include: Social Media Studies, Popular Cultural Studies, Computational Linguistics, Elementary Education, Russian Studies, Modern China Studies, Sustainability Studies.

A PhD awarded prior to August 19, 2015 is required.

The position will be housed in the Liberal Studies Program, and the successful candidate will be required to teach ITEP ((Integrated Teacher Education Program) courses in the candidate’s area of expertise from one of the ITEP disciplines (linguistics, humanities, natural sciences, mathematics, visual/ performing arts, or social sciences), as well as Popular Culture related courses on Social Media.

Evidence of teaching effectiveness required; publication desirable. Standard teaching load is 4/4, although competition-based reassigned time is normally available. Applicants should demonstrate a commitment to working at a Learning-Centered University with a diverse student population drawn largely from the Los Angeles area.

Please review full job announcement on the department website.

To Apply:
Send cover letter,  CV, three letters of recommendation, brief writing sample (15-20 pages) or equivalent sample of scholarly digital work, abstract of a representative work (such as a book project or dissertation), a statement of teaching philosophy, and evidence of teaching excellence to Ranita.Chatterjee@csun.edu or Dr. Ranita Chatterjee, Liberal Studies Program, CSUN, Northridge, CA  91330-8338.

Primary consideration given to applications received by March 30, 2015.

CSUN is an EO/AA employer.

The full position announcement is available at: http://www.csun.edu/sites/default/files/LRS-Faculty-Digital-Hum.pdf.

Boston College: One year Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Digital Humanities

 

 

The Institute for the Liberal Arts at Boston College invites applications for a one-year post-doctoral fellowship in Digital Humanities. They welcome applications from recent PhDs in any humanities fields who have expertise in digital approaches to scholarship, especially data mining, mapping and GIS, and/or visualization.  The DH Fellow will teach one class per semester, will be available to consult with faculty on the use of digital technologies in their research projects, and will organize workshops for faculty and graduate students on DH topics.

Candidates should have received a Ph. D. in an arts or humanities discipline by August, 2015.  They will be affiliated with the appropriate department at Boston College.  Salary is $65,000 with a $5,000 research budget.

To Apply:
Please submit a letter of application, CV, article-length writing sample, statement describing experience with digital technology, syllabus for a digital humanities course at either the undergraduate or graduate level, and three letters of recommendation by March 30, 2015.

Applications should be submitted online at apply.interfolio.com/28956

The search committee is being chaired by Professor Mary Crane.

Boston College is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, or other legally protected status.

To learn more about how BC supports diversity and inclusion throughout the university please visit the Office for Institutional Diversity at http://www.bc.edu/offices/diversity.