CFP:  The Star and Celebrity Confessional

	 Special Themed Issue: Social Semiotics

	 Guest Editor: Sean Redmond





Social Semiotics (http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/10350330.asp) is soliciting papers for a 

special themed issue on the star and celebrity confessional. The confessional, taken to be any 

moment in which a star, celebrity, or fan engages in revelatory acts, has become one of the 

dominant ways in which fame is circulated and consumed.



The celebrity confessional involves ‘the combination of reflexivity about the business of being a 

celebrity, emotional interiority and self criticism’: and it is where the fan is ‘invited to feel with 

their feelings’ (Littler, 2004: 13/18). Through the confessional text (played out in the biopic, 

documentary, talk-show interview, self-reflexive song lyric, star blog, and celebrity magazine 

interview), the celebrity seemingly attempts to speak openly and honestly about where they have 

come from. Such a confession(s) would include their humble beginnings; the troubles, hardships 

and corruption they may have faced along their journey to fame; who they really are underneath 

the fame gown; and how alike they are to the everyday people who watch their films, buy their 

records, go to their concerts, and watch their soccer or tennis matches. Similarly, the fan/

consumer who confesses their desire for, and identification with, the star or celebrity, on line, in 

diaries, reveal a para-social relationship that is in part devotional, obsessional, but also potentially 

intimate and fully lived. It is one of the mechanisms ‘through which relationships, identity, and 

social and cultural norms are debated, evaluated, modified and shared’ (Turner, 2004:24).



In this Special Edition of the journal Social Semiotics, the different manifestations, meanings, and 

processes of the star and celebrity confessional will be explored. Potential themes/texts/contexts/

case studies could include:



The confessional interview

The confessional song

Authenticity and artifice as modes of confessional expression

Confession as myth

The race/sex/sexuality/class of the confession

Confession as intimacy

Fan confessionals

Confession as transgression and empowerment

Confession as a form of group belonging

Religious deification and the confession

Confession as therapy

The commodity confessional text

The confessional star or celebrity

Confession as damage

Confession as obsession 

The confessional talk of fame



Social Semiotics is committed to inter and cross-disciplinary approaches that are politically and 

historically engaged, and on publishing papers that reveal something profound about the nature 

of everyday life.



Please send your abstract (500-750 words in length), or completed essay (5,000-7,000 words, 

Harvard style of referencing), plus a brief biographic statement, as e-mail attachments (in Word ) 

to the editor:



Sean Redmond

[log in to unmask]

Senior Lecturer in Film Studies,

Victoria University of Wellington,

Wellington,

New Zealand



Deadline for abstract submission:  February 1st 2007



If your abstract is chosen for final consideration, you will have until October 31st (2007) to 

complete the first draft. Completed Essays submitted by the February deadline will have a similar 

period of time for any re-drafting that needs to be done.



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