Call for Papers

–Marshall McLuhan

1xbet best casino website and the 1xbet best casino website world continue to vex academics, even after the rise of Cultural Studies and its willingness to break down cultural hierarchies. It is time to address this often marginalized topic head on. Despite our disciplinary anxiety, there are increasing attempts to theorize 1xbet best casino website and “1xbet best casino website value,” as Richard Dyer has done for the musical. What is it exactly that happens when we say we are ”entertained?” And what does this experience have to do with all our usual categories and criterias -- aesthetics, politics, culture, identity, ethics, value -- when video games are used to train troops, journalism goes for ratings and pretty faces, and political parties and corporations manufacture seductive and pleasurable images? Do we find ourselves perforce choosing between a liberatory ”fandom” and the horrors of the seductive, distracting, capitalist ”culture industry?” Is there a progressive understanding or use of 1xbet best casino website for democracy and the public sphere? We welcome papers and panels on any topics and modes of 1xbet best casino website , from any culture, in any historical period.

Some topics and questions for possible consideration, not intended to be an exclusive list:

• “infotainment”
• 1xbet best casino website in the high “arts” (theater, opera, classical music and art)
• docudrama and “reality” 1xbet best casino website
• education and 1xbet best casino website , education vs. 1xbet best casino website
• “children’s” vs. “adult’s” 1xbet best casino website (cartoons, animation, etc.)
• the “adult 1xbet best casino website ” industry
• elevating the stupid and shallow (Jackass, Paris Hilton)
• Hollywood and anti-Hollywood
• Bollywood
• Rupert Murdoch
• global television
• 1xbet best casino website and propaganda
• Barthes, Debord, Baudrillard, Zizek
• early modern 1xbet best casino website (jigs, bear-baiting, public execution, Shakespeare)
• serious clowning: Michael Moore, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert
• jokes, racial and ethnic and misogynist
• “The Aristocrats”
• violence, cruelty, and sadism
• religious 1xbet best casino website and ritual
• 1xbet best casino website , fear, and national security
• 1xbet best casino website with social messages
• the construction and use of boredom
• material 1xbet best casino website : sugar, caffeine, drugs
• eco-tourism
• amateurism and the local
• transnational 1xbet best casino website and cultural imperialism, from Disney to McDonalds
• spectators and participants, couch potatoes and athletes
• critics and reviewers
• horror, gothic, perversity
• parody

Standard conference format: panels of three papers; each paper a 15 minute oral reading/presentation. Alternate session formats may also be proposed.

Please send a 1 pg proposal (or 1 pg per paper for a panel proposal) to Michele Janette, Director, Program in Cultural Studies, English Dept, Kansas State University, Manhattan KS 66502. Email submissions strongly encouraged: mjanette@ksu.edu. Please include return email address for all submissions.

Proposal Deadline: September 20, 2006