Introduction: The title of the conference indicates its fields of
interest, and while the main points of focus of the papers are popular
music and moving image since the twentieth century, it is not confined to
these areas. Each of the keynotes addresses distinct aspects of stardom
within a general reconsideration of the field. All the presentations
explore the 'starnet', that diverse web within which stardom and celebrity
are constructed. Apart from the star itself, they examine its history and
media apparatus and the inflections generated by such factors as nation,
politics, gender and technology.
We examine the origins and early history of stardom, its
institutionalisation and its problematisation, and while each of the three
days is loosely themed, they are by no means inflexibly so. This is partly
because no forum can be so neatly compartmentalised, but also because the
glance 'off-centre' can often be so revelatory to any focussed enquiry;
sometimes stars are more clearly seen through peripheral vision. Some
presentations have so irresistibly converged that it would have been
perverse to separate them: examples include enquiries into particular
national stardom formations. In general, however, we have tried to
construct eclectic sessions in which one is likely to enter that
unexpected field that so often reconfigures one's research interests.
Download the abstracts.
THURSDAY 9 NOVEMBER 2006
8.30 Registration
10.00-10.15 Welcome
Rector Keijo Virtanen (University of Turku)
Deputy Mayor Kaija Hartiala (City of Turku)
10.15-11.15 Keynote plenary (auditorium: Educarium 1)
Studying Stars - Method and Object
Richard Dyer (King's College, University
of London)
11.15-11.30 Coffee
Break into two parallel sessions
Stream A
Session 1: 11.30-1.00 (auditorium: Educarium 1)
Stardom: the Classic(al) Image
Charting the Firmament: Stardom, Myth and the
Classical Vernacular
Michael Williams
Icons and Iconoclasm: Reconsidering the Celebrity Photograph
Richard Howells
Concentrated Vision: Celebrity Images from the 1930s and 1940s
Linda Marchant
Lunch: 1.00-2.15
Session 2: 2.15-3.45 (auditorium: Educarium 1)
Stardom, Place and Ideology
Stardom and place
Giacomo Bottà
Soviet female stardom - concepts and changes (the 1930s-1960s)
Irina Novikova
Bonding with the Stars: The Emergence of Star Political Authority and
World War
Sue Collins
Stream B
Session 3: 11.30-1.00 (auditorium: Educarium 2)
Changing Mediations, from print to digital
Decent Publicity? 1920s' Finnish Actorship in the Pages of Glossy
Magazines
Outi Nieminen
Hedda Hoppers Hollywood: Stars, Gossip, and Film Performane
Kirsten Pullen
Raising the Dead or Rebooting? The Digital Resurrection of Dead Acts
Lisa Bode
Lunch: 1:00-2.15
Session 4: 2.15-3.45 (auditorium: Educarium 2)
Starring the Ordinary
Consuming celebrity and the new mass ornament
Paul A. Taylor
15 Minutes and Counting: Celebrity Big Brother and Simulated Stardom
Lee Barron
From the Olympians to the Ordinary Heroes : Stars in the French Popular
Press
Jamil Dakhlia
Evening: Reception
FRIDAY 10 NOVEMBER 2006
9.00-10.00 Keynote plenary (auditorium: Educarium 1)
Stardom - Beyond Desire
Susan Hayward (University of Exeter)
Break into two parallel sessions
Stream A
Session 5: 10.15-11.45 (auditorium: Educarium 2)
Subversion of Stardom: ironies and alternatives
"In Finland I am the MAN!"
Gender, Irony and Exoticism in Late Night with Conan O'Brien
Anu Lahtinen
Longevity in the face of evanescence
Frances Bonner
Comedians as stars: the Monty Python troupe
Rami Mähkä
Lunch: 11.45-1.00
Session 6: 1.00-2.30 (auditorium: Educarium 2)
Disappearing Stars
In the spotlight and underground – constructing stardom in popular
music
Laura Ahonen
Kraftwerk: Machines and Stardom
Pertti Grönholm
Stairway to the Stars a.k.a. if Andy Was Black?
Petri Öhman
Coffee: 2.30-2.45
Session 7: 2.45-4.15 (auditorium: Educarium 2)
Stardom and Transgression
Fans, fawns and fauns: Ballet stardom, dancing genius and the queer
afterlife of Vaslav Nijinsky
Hanna Järvinen
Female stars and the tricky question of drinking in the 1960s and
1970s
Laura Saarenmaa
Moral panics and stardom
Jacqueline Springer
Stream B
Session 8 10.15-11.45 (seminar room 244, Educarium)
Stardom and Nation
Writing (and Screening) the National Identity: Italian Film Stars in
the
1930s
Enrico Biasin
'Oh, My Sweet Hero!' Leif Wager as Tsar Alexander I in Tanssi yli hautojen
(1950)
Anneli Lehtisalo
Discursive Stardom in Hong Kong and the Missing Referents
Leung Wing-Fai
Lunch: 11.45-1.00
Session 9: 1.00-2.30 (seminar room 244, Educarium)
Against the national odds
Stardom in a small country - National characteristics of the Hungarian
celebrity culture
Andrea Viniczai
"Play to Me Gypsy!" How Roma Stars' Image Change in Hungarian Media
Veronika Munk
Finnkampen: Finlands envy of Swedish Pop Music Success in the 1990s
Janne Mäkelä
Coffee: 2.30-2.45
Session 10: 2.45-4.15 (seminar room 244, Educarium)
Stepping Out of Role: Star as Producer and Audience
The star as a creation and the star as a creator: Barbra Streisand's
case
Zohar Altman Ravid
The Death of the Subject
Beate Peter
Session 11: 4.15-5.45 (seminar room 244, Educarium)
Changing Masculinities
Love, Hate and Suicidal Tendencies: The Construction of Rudolph
Valentino'’s Stardom in Finland 1921-196
Jaakko Seppälä
English Rock in the 1950s
Martin Cloonan
Postfeminist fatherhood, the stardom of Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg’s
War of the Worlds
Hannah Hamad
Evening: Dinner to Disco
SATURDAY 11 NOVEMBER 2006
10.00-11.00 Keynote Plenary (auditorium: Educarium 1)
Applause, Admiration and Envy?: Crime and the prehistory of
stardom
Bruce Johnson (University of Turku)
Break into two parallel sessions
Stream A
Session 12: 11.15-12.45 (auditorium: Educarium 3)
Performing Stardom: Icons Reconsidered
Understanding Star Appeal: The Power of Elvis
Mark Duffett
Bob Dylan, Stardom, Biography and the meaning of songs
Lee Marshall
Cutting the Moss with Laser Beams: The Uses of History in The Rolling
Stones Bridges To Babylon Stadium Tour
Kimi Kärki
Lunch: 12.45-2.00
Session 13: 2.00-3.30 (auditorium: Educarium 3)
Marketing Stardom: Image Reconsidered
Making an 'Asian Transnational Star': The Case Study of Korean Pop Singer
Rain
Hyunjoon Shin
Legitimating Stardom through Product Families: Four Finnish Examples
Yrjö Heinonen
Changes of Stardom in Finnish Iskelmä Culture
Elias Salminen
Coffee: 3.30-3.45
Session 14: 3.45-4.45 (auditorium: Educarium 3)
Female Stardom Reconsidered
Style Star: Audrey Hepburn in the 1950s
Anna Möttölä
Stardom and Race: EMIs launch of Corinne Bailey Rae
Markus Wyrwich
Stream B
Session 15: 11.15-12.45 (seminar room 244, Educarium)
Public Responses Reconsidered
We're all in this together. The meaning Australian festivalgoers
attribute to their indie music festival participation
Joanne Cummings
What makes the difference? Popmusic stars and TV talent show contestants
in young people’s judgments
Daniel Müllensiefen and Kai Lothwesen
Her Beat Was Sex: The Causes Leading to the Stardom of U.S. College
Newspaper Sex Columnist Natalie Krinsky, 2001-2005
Daniel Reimold
Lunch: 12.45-2.00
Session 16: 2.00-3.30 (seminar room 244, Educarium)
Starring the Past
The 1930s Horror Stars Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff
Outi Hakola
Retro icons, anachronistic artists and unsung heroes/heroines
Sven-Erik Klinkmann
Remembering Laila, forgetting class? Contemporary Finnish media and 1960s
stardom
Mari Pajala
Coffee: 3.30-3.45
5.00-5.30 Closing Plenary (auditorium: Educarium 1)
Richard Dyer (King's College, University
of London)
5.30-6.30 Informal brainstorming on future co-operation and IIPC
Evening: Pub