Since long before the age of celebrity activism, literary authors have used their public profiles and cultural capital to draw attention to a wide range of socio-political concerns. This book is the first to explore – through history, criticism and creative interventions – the relationship between authorship, political activism and celebrity culture across historical periods, cultures, literatures and media. It brings together scholars, industry stakeholders and prominent writer-activists to engage in a conversation on literary fame and public authority. These scholarly essays, interviews, conversations and opinion pieces interrogate the topos of the artist as prophet and acute critic of the zeitgeist; analyse the ideological dimension of literary celebrity; and highlight the fault lines between public and private authorial selves, 'pure' art, political commitment and marketplace imperatives. In case studies ranging from the 18th century to present-day controversies, authors illuminate the complex relationship between literature, politics, celebrity culture and market activism, bringing together vivid current debates on the function and responsibility of literature in increasingly fractured societies.

Celebritocracy delves into celebrity activism while tearing apart most of the highly publicized charitable and activist efforts of your favorite celebrities. Why did George Clooney back off of Darfur? How did Oprah’s attempt to help Katrina victims go terribly wrong? While Kim Kardashian has done great things for criminal justice reform, did her activism on behalf of Armenian genocide set the cause back decades? And did you know that the famed Dodd-Frank Act has a small bit of pork barrel politics wedged into it—urged on by actress Robin Wright—that put thousands of lives in jeopardy in the DRC? Celebritocracy exposes nonfictional accounts of the many instances when celebrity activism ended up causing more harm than good.

This edited collection brings together scholarly works of both a theoretical and empirical nature to critically analyse the forms and functions of the contemporary celebrity activist and to examine how these intersect with the political economic structures in which celebrity activists operate. Collectively, the volume illuminates some of the inherent tensions between the ethos of solidarity and compassion that the celebrity activist works to generate on the one hand and the processes of corporate sponsorship and discourses of individualism upon which the celebrity often depends, on the other. By offering empirical case studies that situate instances of celebrity activism within specific political contexts, the collection highlights how celebrity activism intersects with some of the underlying structures of gender politics and political discourses such as neoliberalism. In addition, the volume discusses how the tensions between, for example, individualism and solidarity can raise important questions about the authenticity of individual celebrity activists and how individual celebrity activists work, with varying degrees of success, to obfuscate such tensions and obscure the potential contradictions of their work. This book will be of great interest to students and academics within the fields of politics, international development, political communication, social movements, activism studies, and celebrity culture.

In recent years, celebrity philanthropy and activism has attracted much attention from the media, sparking a great deal of public interest. As exponents and endorsers of the marketisation and corporatisation of philanthropy and activism, globally renowned super-celebrities habitually lend their name, time and energy to a range of causes. They help raise awareness, generate funds and endeavour to evoke social and political responses to crucial societal issues. These can range from domestic violence, cancer prevention, climate change and transgender acceptance, to refugee problems and fighting poverty at home and abroad. But in what ways do (mediated communications about) these celebrities have the power to define what is going wrong in the world, who or what is to blame, how this can be solved and how this is to be evaluated morally and ethically? Does celebrity humanitarianism and activism serve to reinforce postcolonial power relations or does it help solve social problems, advancing traditional views on how society is, and should be, organised? Importantly, more than conceptual and empirical exploration of celebrity philanthropy and activism as such, this book analyses the mediated communication, the mediatised narratives that these endeavours provide. Combining insights from philanthropy and welfare regime studies, international politics and diplomacy, postcolonial studies, but also from marketing, from celebrity, star and fan studies, and from media, communication and cultural studies, this book critically analyses the mediated discourses and debates that celebrity philanthropy and activism provokes, and considers wider ethical and theoretical perspectives. It will be of interest to all scholars and students working in sociology, health and social care and social policy.

This study examines literary celebrity in Britain from 1850 to 1914. Through lively analysis of rare cultural materials, Easley demonstrates the crucial role of the celebrity author in the formation of British national identity. As Victorians toured the homes and haunts of famous writers, they developed a sense of shared national heritage. At the same time, by reading sensational accounts of writers' lives, they were able to reconsider conventional gender roles and domestic arrangements. As women were featured in interviews and profiles, they were increasingly associated with the ephemerality of the popular press and were often excluded from emerging narratives of British literary history, which defined great literature as having a timeless appeal. Nevertheless, women writers were able to capitalize on celebrity media as a way of furthering their own careers and retelling history on their own terms. Press attention had a more positive effect on men's literary careers since they were expected to assume public identities; however, in some cases, media exposure had the effect of sensationalizing their lives, bodies, and careers. With the development of proto-feminist criticism and historiography, the life stories of male writers were increasingly used to expose unhealthy domestic relationships and imagine ideal forms of British masculinity. The first section of Literary Celebrity explores the practice of literary tourism in Victorian Britain, focusing specifically on the homes and haunts of Charles Dickens, Christina Rossetti, George Eliot, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Harriet Martineau. This investigation incorporates analysis of fascinating cultural texts, including maps, periodicals, and tourist guidebooks. Easley links the practice of literary tourism to a variety of cultural developments, including nationalism, urbanization, spiritualism, the women's movement, and the expansion of popular print culture. The second section provides fresh insight into the ways that celebrity culture informed thedevelopment of Victorian historiography. Easley demonstrates how women were able to re-tell history from a proto-feminist perspective by writing contemporary history, participating in architectural reform movements, and becoming active in literary societi

Writing Differently is a critical, insightful, poetic and timely collection of essays, poems, plays and auto-ethnographic pieces that showcases the potential of academic writing. The volume will be of interest to those interested in alternative ways of working, researching, thinking, organizing, writing research and research lives.

The enormous success of writers such as Teju Cole and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie demonstrates that African literatures are now an international phenomenon. But the apparent global legibility of a small number of (mostly Anglophone) writers in the diaspora raises the question of how literary producers from the continent, both past and present, have situated their work in relation to the world and the kinds of material networks to which this corresponds. This collection shows how literatures from across the African continent engage with conceptualizations of 'the world' in relation to local social and political issues. Focusing on a wide variety of geographic, historical and linguistic contexts, the essays in this volume seek answers to the following questions: What are the topographies of 'the world' in different literary texts and traditions? What are that world's limits, boundaries and possibilities? How do literary modes and forms such as realism, narrative poetry or the political essay affect the presentation of worldliness? What are the material networks of circulation that allow African literatures to become world literature? African literatures, it emerges, do important theoretical work that speaks to the very core of world literary studies today.