Call for chapter proposals – Different Bodies: Disability and the Media
Book edited by Jacob Johanssen and Diana Garrisi (Communication and Media Research Institute, University of Westminster)
Following on from the conference ‘Different Bodies: (Self-) Representation, Disability and the Media’ which was held at the University of Westminster in June, we are preparing a book proposal based on some of the themes arising from the conference. The book proposal will be submitted to Peter Lang, who have already expressed a strong interest in the project.
The collection is intended to offer a comprehensive view of the relationship between disability and the media from a global and multidisciplinary perspective. Building upon existing studies, the book aims to explore if and how the rapidly changing technological means of communication are affecting how the body as strange, shameful, wrong, impaired, wounded, scarred, disabled, lacking, different or ‘other’ is constructed in the media. In particular the book aims to discuss whether the Internet has made it possible to develop new, alternative or more inclusive narratives that challenge long-established mainstream coverage of disability. Some of the questions we would like to address are, for example, whether self-representations of disability on the Internet are contesting or aligning with representations on mainstream media outlets. We would also like to look at issues such as the rise of disability hate crimes online, the relationship between journalism and disability awareness campaigns, online dating and disability, the media coverage of disability rights and employment. One of our aims is to establish the extent to which the media contribute to shape our relation with diversity in the digital era and, ultimately, our relationship with ourselves.
Possible themes include but are not limited to:
· Affective labour of bodies
· Auto-ethnographic accounts of the body in / through digital media
· Celebrity bodies and the spectacles of transformation
· Cinema and disability
· Contemporary coverage of disability in print/online/television/radio
· De-colonizing and de-westernising the mediated body
· Disability and advertising
· Disability and race
· Disability and the media: historical perspectives
· (Dis)Empowerments of the disabled body
· Journalism and practices of othering the body
· Neoliberalism, policy and austerity politics
· Reality television and the body
· Representing wounds and scars
· Researching bodies and the media: frameworks and methodologies
· Stigma and the body
– Posthumanist and non-representational frameworks
· The abject body
· The body and trauma
· The mediated body as spectacle
· The medicalised body in the media
· The objectification of the disabled body in the media
We invite submissions of 200-250 words chapter proposals. Deadline: 30 September 2017.
Submissions should also include:
a) Title of chapter
b) Author name/s, institutional details
c) Corresponding author’s email address
d) Keywords (no more than 5)
e) A short bio
Commissioned chapters will be around 5,000 words. The fact that an abstract is accepted does not guarantee publication of the final manuscript. If the book proposal is approved, all chapters submitted will be judged on the basis of a double-blind reviewing process.
Should you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us at D.Garrisi2@westminster.ac.uk and J.Johanssen@westminster.ac.uk
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