CfP: Back in the Spotlight: Ageing and Female Celebrity

Celebrity Studies

Proposals are invited for a special edition of the journal Celebrity Studies on
the theme of female celebrity and ageing.
It is a long held adage that women ‘of a certain age’ struggle to fi nd work or
interesting roles in youth-obsessed Hollywood and that the lifespan of female
celebrity is fi nite in a way that male celebrity is not.
Has this state of affairs shifted in the changing celebrity culture of recent
years? Have older women become less visible than ever as reality TV formats
and teen fi lm genres dominate the popular media landscape? Or have an
ageing population and new generation of accomplished female actors moving
into their ‘prime’ prompted more opportunities for and representations of
ageing female celebrity?

Papers may consider, but are not limited to, the following topics:

• Representations of ageing as a gendered construct in the celebrity press
• Historical and/or contemporary analyses of ageing and Hollywood women stars
• Comparative analysis of how male v female stars age ‘differently’ within star systems
• Case studies of female stars from different national and/or historical contexts
• The representation of older women celebrities or stars in different media and entertainment industries
• Older female stars and ‘the unruly woman’
• Commodifi cation, ageing women stars and celebrity product endorsement
• Older women stars, sexuality and the rise of the ‘cougar’
• Gender, stardom and plastic/cosmetic surgery

This edition of Celebrity Studies will be edited by Dr Deborah Jermyn.

Abstracts of approx 300 words accompanied by a brief author biog should be
sent to d.jermyn AT roehampton.ac.uk by 30th November 2009.
Please feel free to address any enquiries to this address also.

Completed essays will be required by January 5 2011.
For further information please visit www.tandf.co.uk/journals/rcel

Many thanks,
Natasha King
Routledge Journals