Journal of Greek Media and Culture (special issue)

Deadline: May 15, 2024

Since the publication of Richard Dyer’s Stars (1979), which initiated the beginning of scholarly enquiry into film stardom, star studies have been constantly evolving and expanding. While most early work on stardom focused on issues of representation and the ideological significance of film stars, or their role in the industrialisation of Hollywood cinema, the field has expanded across film, TV and media studies, adopting new areas of investigation and methodological approaches, including work on the nature of fame and celebrity (Holmes & Redmond 2007; Holmes & Negra 2011), empirical audience research (Herzog & Gaines 1991; Stacey 1994), acting and performance (Naremore 1988; Hollinger 2006; Baron 2018), as well as national and transnational stars and stardoms (Vincendeau 2000; Landy 2010; Meeuf & Raphael 2013; Yu & Austin 2017; Lawrence 2020). 

Meanwhile, Greek film studies have been experiencing an exponential growth in both the Greek- and English-language academe. However, while popular Greek cinema has been reclaimed as a serious object of academic study for some time now, the phenomenon of stardom in Greece has not enjoyed a similar academic reappraisal, despite its acknowledged centrality in Greek cinema and beyond. It is primarily in connection with Old Greek Cinema (Kourelou 2020; Karalis 2015; Potamitis 2013; Kartalou 2011; Kyriacos 2009), genre (Papadimitriou 2009, 2004; Eleftheriotis 1995) and, to a lesser extent, acting (Lykourgioti 2017; Dimitriadis 2008; Kourelou 2008) that Greek film criticism has recognised the role of stardom. Beyond these contexts, there has been a considerable lack of critical engagement with the diachronic manifestation and development not only of stardom but also of celebrity.

This issue aims to lay the groundwork for a wide-ranging debate on the subject that will improve our understanding of stardom in Greece. The issue, however, does not seek to simply celebrate individual stars, unearth their biographies or elaborate on the types they embody. Rather, our concern is with exploring theoretical issues individual or groups of stars raise, the kinds of identities and meanings they personify, as well as the ways in which they negotiate the values and contradictions of their era. At the same time, we are not only interested in revealing the textual significance of stars in specific historical contexts, but also their political economy and discursive construction. Some of the lines of enquiry we would particularly like to pursue revolve around the following questions: how has stardom evolved historically in Greece? Does cinema still provide the ultimate confirmation of stardom, as Christine Gledhill (1991) claimed in relation to Hollywood stars more than three decades ago? How have media technologies (from TV and VHS to social media) impacted not only the way stars emerge, but also the way their fame has been conceptualised and their fans engage with them? How can we understand Greek stardom in nationally and culturally specific terms as well as through the way it intersects with other – dominant or peripheral – transnational contexts? What ideas about personhood do stars articulate, how do these change over time and how do they help audiences make sense of themselves and the (Greek) world?

In order to reveal the multitude of stardoms in Greek film, TV and media, we invite (but do not limit) proposals on the following topics: 

• Histories of stardom and celebrity
  
• Stars and genre
  
• Stars and film style
  
• Stars, gender and sexuality
  
• Stars, ethnicity and race
  
• Stars and the nation
  
• Star labour
  
• Ageing
  
• Acting and performance
  
• The relationship between studios and stars; auteurs and stars
  
• The interconnectivity between theatrical, film and/or TV stardom
  
• Non-film stardom
  
• Cult stardom
  
• Reception and spectatorship: stardom and film criticism; the role of the audience (and different types of audiences) and how they make use of star images 
  

Please send a title, 300 word abstract and a short biography to Dr Olga Kourelou (kourelou.o@unic.ac.cy) and Dr Lydia Papadimitriou (editorJGMC@gmail.com) by 15 May 2024. The final articles should be around 6000-8000 words, and submitted to the editors by 1st November 2024.

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Information about the call can also be found here:

https://www.intellectbooks.com/journal-of-greek-media-culture#call-for-papers