Call for papers: Representing Political Figures in Mass Media (XVIIIth – XXIst century)

Culturhisto 2009: International Doctoral Candidates Conference on Cultural History

Wednesday, May 13th 2009
University Library Auditorium,

Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines

Only doctoral and post doctoral candidate’s papers will be considered for this conference. Confirmed researchers will be invited to attend the event and comment on the work of presenting doctoral candidates. The conference will foster collegial relations among young scholars internationally as well as connect them with more established mentors.

Political figures are the source of a complex imaginary that fascinates both media and public. Consider how contemporary electoral campaigns, TV clip, presidential speeches, political biographies, election posters function today. This is not a new phenomenon: political communication and the development of public personalities are familiar political practices. « Peopolisation » -or how political figures have become celebrities- is a new and rapidly developing area of study that has drawn the attentions of cultural historians and political observers. Studies in political representation increasingly consider the significance of longer time-frames, the impact of evolving media practices, and benefit from international and comparative perspectives.

Representing Political Figures in Mass Media conference operates within the field of international cultural history and invites reflection on the images (still and animated) and discourses of power. We invite researchers who work on the representations of individuals in power in European and American countries to investigate how the modalities of the mass media are used to popularize politics and how these in turn inform the construction of political memory and/or national identity. Proposals should address the media representations of political figures (be they a local personality or a prominent national politician) from 1776 to the present. Primary focus will be European and American democracies.
The conference will focus on the conditions involved in the processes of creation, production and reception of the media products. This observation will enable us to get a clearer view on the degree to which politicians are responsible for their image in the media.

The following aspects should be considered:

The politician’s language and non verbal communication, attitude, clothing’s social codes, etc.: the researcher will need to explain the symbols used by the politician and his references (intertextuality)

The situations selected for representation, the actions and ideas at the core of the discourse, the kind of role he projects to the outside world (the role of an actor or an observer, of a leader or a coordinator), and the closeness the politician intends to have with its audience (the degree to which he wants to be a father, a friend, a colleague, a professor and the affective levels implied in each degree).

The reference to functions aside from the political: does he present himself as an athlete, a family man, a seducer, a businessman, an intellectual, a peace, ecology or social activist, etc.

The setting and staging will be considered as important actors in the message too.

No media will be excluded from the conference, as long as they contribute to ex

plaining the cultural meaning behind the representations of figures of power. Fictions and information will be considered equally, and diversity of sources will be appreciated. Studies on television, radio, press (main and specialised, newspapers, magazines, online), photography, books, posters, online material will all be accepted.

An international comparative approach will be greatly appreciated, but is not a requirement. Although the conference will ultimately aim at defining a comparative international field of research, the committee believes this can also be achieved by a cross-comparison of national cases. To make its cultural history approach complete, the conference will take into consideration the circulation of images and cultural transfers. The main purpose of the conference will be to better appreciate how the popular outlook on the politician has transformed during the past two centuries.

These are the main directions of the conference sessions: The relation of the politician to public opinion ; «Peopolisation »: the confusion between private and public life, between the worlds of politics and celebrities ; Biographies and autobiographies ; · Practices and rituals ; · Posterity

Any student enrolled in a Ph.D. or post doctoral program in History, Political Science, Media Studies, Sociology, Anthropology, Literature and Civilisation and related disciplines at the time of the conference is eligible. Students enrolled at universities outside of France are especially encouraged to submit proposals. Representing Political Figures in Mass Media conference aims at providing researchers on the media treatment of politics with a space for discussion.

Presentations can be delivered in English or in French. Participants are asked to turn in a 1500 word abstract (in English or in French, or both) before March 31st, 2009. This conference will result in a publication.

Paper proposals submission: 300 words text (in French or in English) with a clear title should be send before December 31st 2008 to Sophie Kienlen. We kindly request candidates to include the following information: status and current functions, field of study, thesis subject, doctoral/post-doctoral year, the name of your tutor, university (with address), laboratory and doctoral school. Scientific committee’s answer: February 15th 2009

Scientific committee: Christian Delporte, Jean-Yves Mollier, Caroline Moine, Jean-Claude Yon and Jacques Pothier, John Dean (Versailles St Quentin University, FRANCE), Pascal Ory (Paris 1 Sorbonne University, FRANCE), Jean-François Sirinelli (Sciences Po Paris, FRANCE), Jean-Marie Charon, Jacques Revel and François Weil (EHESS, FRANCE), Matthias Steinle (Paris 3 New Sorbonne University, FRANCE), Annie Duprat (CNRS-LCP, FRANCE), Marie Anne Matard-Bonucci (Grenoble 2 University, FRANCE), Hilary Footitt (University of Reading, UK), Marilisa Merolla (University-”La Sapienza”, ITALY), Juan Antonio García Galindo (Malaga University, SPAIN), Jérôme Bourdon (Tel-Aviv University, ISRAEL), Zdravka Konstantinova (Sofia University, BULGARIA), Maria Nesterova (Saint-Petersburg State University for Cinema and Television, RUSSIA), Vanessa R. Schwartz (University of Southern California, USA), Bertram M. Gordon (Mills College, USA), Jeremy D. Popkin (University of Kentucky, USA), Michael Spingler (Clark University, USA), Philip Whalen (Coastal Carolina University, USA), Edward Berenson and Martin Schain (New York University, USA)

Organisation committee: Sophie Kienlen, Klervi Le Collen, Géraldine Poels and Sylvain Lesage (Doctoral Candidate, Versailles Saint Quentin University, FRANCE), Anne-Laure Anizan (Research Fellow, Centre for History, Sciences Po Paris, FRANCE), Dries Vrijders (Doctoral Candidate, Ghent University, BELGIUM), Mark Braude (Doctoral Candidate, University of Southern California, USA), Matthew Watkins (New York University, USA)

For additional information visit the conference website

Call for publications: Special Issue of American Literary Realism: “Realism and Periodicals.”

Submissions are invited on the topic “Realism and Periodicals,” for
inclusion in an upcoming special issue of the journal American Literary
Realism. In recent years the scholarly community has paid an increasing
amount of attention to the ways in which newspapers, magazines, story
papers, and other serial publications not only have functioned as
remunerative outlets for authors’ literary work and effective disseminators
of literary texts but have also played a major role in the careers of many
authors, helped influence the development of certain genres, served as
important sites of reader-text interactions, and performed important
cultural work. This special issue is intended to showcase the latest
scholarship in periodical studies as it relates to American literary
realism from approximately 1860 to 1940. Submissions using a wide range of
approaches are welcomed, as are those on lesser-investigated authors,
editors, texts, and periodicals. Two copies of essays of no more than 25
double-spaced pages (including documentation following Chicago Manual of
Style) should be sent by 15 April 2009 to:

Inquiries: Charles Johanningsmeier
English Department
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Omaha, NE 68182-0175

Call for papers: 1949-2009: presse et photographie. Les mutations du photojournalisme et des magazines illustrés

Les 60 ans de Paris-Match, en 2009, fournissent l’occasion de s’interroger sur les mutations du photojournalisme, auquel il participa, et celles des grands magazines illustrés, dont il fut et reste l’un des grands représentants. La journée d’études pourra même remonter à l’avant-guerre, puisque Paris-Match est l’héritier de Match, magazine sportif que Jean Prouvost racheta en 1938 pour le transformer en un journal illustré d’actualité qui, inspiré de Life, de Vu et de Bild Zeitung, rencontra un véritable succès populaire avant de disparaître avec la défaite de 1940.

Relancé par Jean Prouvost le 25 mars 1949, devenu Paris-Match, le magazine connaît des débuts difficiles avant de faire de la photographie – et singulièrement la photographie à spectacle- sa vitrine et sa marque. Aucun autre, parmi ses concurrents, ne parvient à se hisser, comme lui, au-delà du million d’exemplaires. Les plus grands photographes de l’époque se succèdent dans ses pages : Henri Cartier-Bresson, Capa, Tony Armstrong Jones, Walter Carone, Raymond Depardon, Denise Belon, Philip Halsman, Danièle Isserman, Youssouf Karsh, Willy Rizzo, Goskin Sipahioglu…, etc. Paris-Match, alors, nourrit et accompagne l’ « âge d’or » des agences photos. Modèle de presse à l’échelle nationale et même internationale, il est le magazine qui acquiert le plus d’images en France. Un phénomène qu’il faudra éclairer, tout comme il conviendra de saisir le déclin du magazine à la fin des années 1960, alors même que Paris fait figure de capitale mondiale du photojournalisme, avec l’affirmation d’une nouvelle génération d’agences, portée par une nouvelle vague de photographes, autour de Gamma, de Sygma ou de Sipa. En tout état de cause, la journée d’études devra permettre de comprendre le rôle particulier joué par Paris-Match dans la dynamique mais aussi l’érosion du photoreportage, de l’époque du « poids des mots » et du « choc des photos », slogan qui marque la relance de l’hebdomadaire par Filipacchi-Thérond au milieu des années 1970, jusqu’à nos jours où le photojournalisme, ici et ailleurs, semble submergé par la vague « people ».

Le cas de Paris-Match servira donc de fil rouge pour évaluer et saisir les infléchissements de la photographie de presse, perçue au travers de sa production, de ses supports, de ses techniques et ses usages dans les magazines illustrés d’information, de son rôle stratégique pour atteindre le public, alors qu’en 60 ans d’histoire, l’image d’actualité se fait toujours plus concurrentielle, depuis l’essor de la télévision jusqu’au phénomène internet. La journée s’interrogera donc à la fois sur la photographie et ses contenus, et sur ceux qui travaillent l’image, des photojournalistes aux rédacteurs photos. L’évolution matérielle des magazines illustrés, la place des professionnels de l’image dans le journal, l’histoire des agences de presse et des photoreporters, les mutations techniques, sociales, culturelles du photojournalisme, la signification historique de l’ensemble des transformations de la photographie de presse compteront parmi les thèmes privilégiés par la rencontre qui tentera d’ouvrir une perspective comparative en ne limitant pas sa réflexion au seul cas français.

Les propositions de communication (500 mots, précisant les corpus, méthode et contexte) sont à adresser pour le 23 novembre aux responsables de la journée d’études, Klervi Le Collen, doctorante au Centre d’histoire culturelle des sociétés contemporaines, Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin et Karine Taveaux-Grandpierre, Maître de conférences en sciences de l’Information et de la Communication, IUT Bobigny, Universités Paris 13.

Par courriel : klervi.lecollen@free.fr et karine.grandpierre@univ-paris13.fr

Par courrier : IUT de Bobigny, Département SRC, Klervi Le Collen et Karine Grandpierre,
1 rue de Chablis, 93017 Bobigny Cedex.

Call for papers: Euro-Pop: The Consumption and Production of a European Popular Culture in the 20th Century

Whereas Europe as a political, economic, and social project has received much scholarly attention, the European dimension of popular culture has been neglected. This is somewhat surprising as popular culture is generally perceived as a prime medium of social integration and the construction of identity.

Against this backdrop, the planned conference suggests to scrutinise the consumption and production of a European popular culture and its socialising effects. It wants to assess its historical developments in the 20th century, explore its potential for European social integration and identify factors that have facilitated or impeded its Europeanization.

We invite researchers at post-doc stage or near completion of their doctoral thesis to present studies that deal with the consumption and/or production of popular culture in one area from music, food, tourism, sport, fashion and news/fiction in mass media. We are interested in presentations that compare patterns of consumption in different European countries, follow the transfer of culture or trace networks and constraints of cultural production within the EU, all in the light of the question whether and how this may contribute to Europe’s integration.

Aspects to be covered might be:
- Encounters of consumers (Europeans on vacation, event tourism)
- Similarities and differences in taste (European high street fashion, popular music)
- Non transferable and transferable genres or format in Europe (The German “Heimatfilm”, Big Brother reality television)
- Appropriation and adoption of cultural products (translation and dubbing, the NFL Europe)
- The inscription of local or European meaning into global products (coffee as an “Italian” product, English humour)
- The role of the media in the transfer and adaptation of cultural imports (European news agencies, publishers and broadcasting networks)
- Networks of producers, creative hubs and transfer routes (pop and art fairs, the education and the labour market for cultural workers in Europe)
- Specifics of European cultural industries (the music industry in Europe and the US compared)
- The impact of cultural policy on popular culture (Eurovision, European film awards).

Subject to financing, the conference is going to take place June, 8-11, 2009, at the German-Italian Centre Villa Vigoni (Lake Como). Applicants may send an exposé of their paper of no more than 600 words until November, 30th, to Patrick Merziger (p.merziger@fu-berlin) or Klaus Nathaus (klaus.nathaus@uni-bielefeld.de) who coordinate the conference. Please add a brief CV and a list of publications.

Call for papers: The Cultural Industries in the Late Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: Britain and Germany Compared

Conveners: Christiane Eisenberg (Centre for British Studies at the Humboldt University, Berlin) and Andreas Gestrich (German Historical Institute London)

Place and date: London, 20–21 Nov. 2009
Deadline: 31 Oct. 2008
__________________________________________________________________________ Increasingly during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, patrons, associations, courts and the other public purveyors of culture were joined by private enterprises that approached the organisation of cultural events as a business, using professional methods such as targeted advertising and cooperation with the mass press, and employing professional artists and managers. These methods were applied not only to new cultural forms such as film, cinema and sport, but also to such traditional ones as theatre, concerts, choral performances and variety shows. The growing popularity of commercial culture irritated social reformers and politicians, and stimulated discussion of political interventions and new opportunities for social engineering.

As cultural industries of this sort had a long history in Britain, going back as far as the early modern period, they had become an accepted part of modern society by the late nineteenth century, like industrial production or the consumption of goods, and legal copyright was established early. By contrast, the literature on the cultural industries in Germany gives the impression that the breakthrough came later there, not until the end of the nineteenth century. It suggests that socially and politically, commercial culture was regarded in a highly critical way, some aspects of it being strongly rejected, and that the legal basis of commercialization was established with some delay. On the other hand, from the start political parties, churches and other ideological interests seem to have been readier to intervene politically and to nurture the cultural industries in Germany than in Britain—an aspect that is of interest in relation to the formulation and political instrumentalisation of mass culture during the interwar period.

A conference organized jointly by the German Historical Institute London and the Centre for British Studies at the Humboldt University, Berlin, to be held on 20–21 November 2009 in London, will investigate the context within which the cultural industries were created in Britain and Germany, and ask whether the paths of development and modes of reaction were really as different as the literature suggests. In addition, it will analyse perceptions and mutual cooperation between the actors. Survey papers and case studies devoted to individual cultural industries, comparative and single country studies are equally welcome. Contributors should ideally focus on one of the following core themes:

A) Cultural Industries as Business in Britain and Germany • The scope of markets (including competitors such as the state or the churches).
• Marketing methods and relations with the press.
• Sources of funding (public or private, subscriptions or ticket sales) and modes of organisation (firms, clubs, public events).
• Copyrights and the ‘economics of culture’; comparisons of specific cultural industries.

B) Cultural Industries in British and German Society • The social and economic context and the forces driving development.
• The interplay between the traditional and the modern; problems of periodisation.
• Interference of the state, political parties and private ‘vested interests’ (e.g. social control, security aspects, access for everybody, anti-capitalism).
• Motives, functions and dysfunctions of cultural policies.

The conference will be organised jointly by Christiane Eisenberg (Centre for British Studies at the Humboldt University, Berlin) and Andreas Gestrich (German Historical Institute London). The organisers would like to receive proposals for presentations of no more than one or two pages in length. The participation of scholars working in fields other than history, such as sociologists, economists or cultural scientists is most welcome.
Please send your proposal in Word or pdf format to the e-mail addresses below. Closing date for submission is 31 October 2008.

Prof. Dr. Christiane Eisenberg Grossbritannien-Zentrum / Centre for British Studies Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin Mohrenstr. 60 10117 Berlin christiane.eisenberg@rz.hu-berlin.de

and
Prof. Dr. Andreas Gestrich German Historical Institute 17 Bloomsbury Square London WC1A 2NJ reception@ghil.ac.uk

The planned conference is a follow-up to the annual conference of the German Association for the Study of British History and Politics (Arbeitskreis Deutsche Englandforschung, ADEF) held on 2–4 May 2008. A report of this first conference, which focused specifically British aspects of the cultural industries, is available at: HSozuKult

New book: L’Europe des revues (1880-1920)

L’Europe des revues (1880-1920). Estampes, photographies, illustrations.
(dir.) Evanghélia Stead et Hélène Védrine

This brand new book on the European press has just been published by the Presses universitaires de Paris-Sorbonne. Here is a complete description. I haven’t received my copy yet, but I can’t wait to read and review it.