In line with a long literary tradition of the artist as propagandist, who strives to appeal to the political, moral, and social conscience of his/her readership, writers have persistently crossed the divide between art and politics both in their works and in their roles as public intellectuals, cultural critics, and political activists. Moreover, established authors have, with striking regularity, taken advantage of their celebrity status in order to draw attention to specific socio-political agendas, thus demonstrating the convertibility of ‘celebrity capital’. The talks in this symposium...
Matthew Lecznar assesses the fashion politics of Adichie's fiction and public discourse Matthew Lecznar (University of Sussex) identifies the politics of fashion as central to the rise of Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to international prominence as a literary celebrity and public...
Published 04/03/16
Kate McLoughlin offers an intriguing case study of the gendering of writerly fame. Kate McLoughlin (University of Oxford) talks about the textual war between Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn in the pages of Collier's Magazine in July 1944. The story of the magazine's editorial interventions...
Published 04/03/16
Simon Morgan discusses the tensions within the transatlantic anti-slavery movement between literary celebrity and moral responsibility. Simon Morgan (Leeds Beckett University) examines these tensions through the contrasting cases of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Beecher Stowe: the former trying...
Published 04/03/16