Madison, Wisconsin
June 11-12, 2010 
Call for Papers 

From the late 1970s through the 1990s, John Fiske was one of the most influential media scholars in the world.  Books such as Reading Television (co-written with John Hartley in 1978), Television Culture (1987), Understanding Popular Culture (1989), Power Plays, Power Works (1993) and Media Matters (1994) proved seminal to the developing fields of media and cultural studies.  His work prompted generations of scholars to consider how media culture shaped our collective understanding of the operations of power, particularly in relation to issues of raced, classed, and gendered identities.  And his work on reception led to intense debates over how to theorize the activity of media audiences.  As a teacher and advisor, Fiske provided dynamic intellectual critiques of the work his students and colleagues produced, and encouraged an interrogation of the media environment that was remarkable in its accessibility. 

Fiske retired from academic life ten years ago. To honor the tenth anniversary of Fiske's retirement from the field, and to explore both the continuing impact of his ideas and the profundity of the era in which he and his contemporaries operated, we are proud to announce a conference titled "Fiske Matters: John Fiske's Continuing Legacy for Cultural Studies."  The conference will feature Henry Jenkins as a keynote speaker, and Fiske himself is expected to attend. 

Given the dramatic changes that have occurred in our media culture in the decade since his retirement, one might wonder whether Fiske's work remains relevant. We firmly believe it does, but we also believe the field would benefit from a careful assessment of just how his ideas can help us better understand what's going on in our current moment. Thus, the conference seeks to explore the continuing relevance of Fiske's work and to examine the intellectual heritage of and influences upon his work.  We invite individual papers and/or panels that build upon and/or adapt Fiske's scholarship and approach to contemporary ends, consider the reception of Fiske's work, and assess the current and future utility of his work and other related scholarship for media and cultural studies.  Paper and/or panel topics may address the impact and relevance of Fiske's work in the following areas: 

* Feminism
* Audiences and reception studies
* Cultural politics
* Race and culture
* Cultural studies in (inter)national contexts
* Textualities
* Popular pleasures
* Hegemony and resistance
* Cultural studies in the 1980s and 1990s
* Economic and cultural capital

Other topics are also welcome for consideration.   
Conference organizers plan to publish an edited volume of collected papers from the conference. 
The deadline for submissions of a 500-word abstract for either an individual paper, or for each component of a pre-constituted panel, is 19 January 2010.  Please include a one- to two-sentence bio for each contributor to a paper or panel. 
Please submit abstracts to www.fiskematters.com/submissions.  For more information on the conference, please visit the conference website: http://www.fiskematters.com/. 


Elana Levine
Associate Professor
Department of Journalism and Mass Communication
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
2522 E. Hartford Road
Milwaukee, WI 53211
414-229-4718
elana.levine.googlepages.com