Beyoncé: Media and Cultural Icon

Black Camera invites submissions for a Close-Up devoted to Beyoncé as a media and cultural icon. With the release of the song and music video “Formation” on the eve of the fiftieth Super Bowl, Beyoncé dramatically shifted national conversations on blackness, politics, and race in our fraught post-Katrina moment. How does this song relate to other post-Ferguson protest songs while also staking out new political ground for a musician with broad crossover appeal? In what ways do Lemonade and its accompanying genre-defying video merge the personal with the political, feminist empowerment with the endemic violence targeting young black men? This Close-Up seeks to explore such questions and more by probing Beyoncé’s changing media persona since her introduction as a member of Destiny’s Child, to the birth of her alter ego, Sasha Fierce, and her evolution as the most important pop star of our time. How does her work advance or disrupt a feminist critique invested in issues of sexuality, performance, and the male gaze? In what ways might we theorize a relationship between Beyoncé’s songs and the arresting images offered in her videos? And how may we understand her as a political figure as evidenced by her performances (at events from Black Lives Matter rallies to Super Bowl shows) as well as her philanthropic work and close relationship to the Obamas?

We welcome submissions exploring Beyoncé’s music, videos, films, and public persona from a variety of disciplinary and analytical perspectives. Essays, interviews, and commentaries will be considered. Essays should be 4,000–6,000 words and commentaries 1,000–2,000 words.

Suggested topics include studies of Beyoncé’s songs, videos, product endorsements, live performances, as well as formal and conceptual analyses of her work in films. Other lines of inquiry may consider

• • Beyoncé’s racial identity and intersectionality

• • marketing and self-promotion

• • black female sexuality

• • feminism

• • beauty, hair, and image

• • marriage, motherhood, and family

• • Beyoncé’s relationship to other pop stars and musicians

• • performance and dance

• • politics, activism, and philanthropy

Please submit completed essays, a 150-word abstract, and a 50–100 word biography by January 1, 2017. Submissions should conform to The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition. Please see journal guidelines for more on submission policy:

http://www.indiana.edu/~blackcam/call/#guidelines

Direct all questions, correspondence, and submissions to guest editor Stephanie Li (stephli@indiana.edu).