The Culture of Celebrity 

An Annotated Bibliography of Critical Writings

During the Fall 2001 semester, students at The College of New Jersey built an annotated, on-line bibliography of writings that reflect on the culture of celebrity.  Their work should help promote critical discussion on an important and emergent field of inquiry.  Special thanks to Dina Carmy and Marc Meola of TCNJ's Roscoe L. West Library for their gracious assistance.  

The Culture of Celebrity bibliography will be an on-going project, so check this site for updates.  Please contact David Blake -- blake at tcnj.edu -- to recommend additional sources. 

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Adair, Douglass.  “Fame and the Founding Fathers," Fame and the Founding Fathers, ed. Trevor Colbourn (New York: Norton, 1974).

A classic discussion of the surprising significance of fame (as a reflection of public virtue and moral character) to men such as Jefferson, Hamilton, and Washington.  -- DHB

Adams, Bluford.  E Pluribus Barnum.  (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997).

Availing himself of the latest in cultural studies perspectives, Adams revisits the career of P.T. Barnum, the legendary showman, impresario, and celebrity-maker.  Many scholars have looked to Barnum as an important figure in understanding 19th- (and 20th) century America, but Adams makes a particularly useful contribution to the field.  Looking at Barnum's self-representation across multiple autobiographies, he examines how the making of spectacle was not only central to Barnum's persona, but to the making of American popular culture.  E Pluribus Barnum is a highly readable, well-researched, and contextualized study. -- DHB

Adler, Patricia A. and Adler, Peter "The Glorified Self: The Aggrandizement and the Constriction of Self." Social Psychology Quarterly, 52:4 (Dec. 1989), 299-310.

Armstrong, Nancy. "Modernism's Iconophobia and What it Did to Gender." Modernism/Modernity 5.2 (1998) 47-75.

Baker, Thomas N.  Sentiment and Celebrity:  Nathaniel Parker Willis and the Trials of Literary Fame.  (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).

Although best-known today for being the brother of Fanny Fern and the employer of Harriet Jacobs, Nathaniel Parker Willis was perhaps America's greatest literary celebrity in the 1830s-1850s.  The New York Times described him, in fact, as "the most-talked-about American author" of his age.  Baker's discussion of Willis loosely takes the form of a biography, following Willis from his first emergence into the public spotlight (as the young author of sentimental-religious verse) to his notoriety as a travel author in both London and New York and, finally, to his last secluded days.  The real contribution of Baker's book, however, is that he sees in Willis's career a host of important issues that drive to the heart of antebellum celebrity culture: the commercialization of intimacy, the marketability of exposure, the public's desire for scandal, gossip, and confession.  Other commentators have described this version of celebrity as a twentieth-century phenomenon.  Baker corrects the record, demonstrating that by 1840, celebrity culture was thriving in the trans-Atlantic world.  -- DHB

Barney, Tim. "Celebrity, Spectacle, and the Conspiracy Culture of Election 2000," American Behavioral Scientist, 44.2 (Aug. 2001).

Barnum, Phineas Taylor. The Life of PT Barnum, Written by Himself. Intro by Terence Whalen.  Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000.

Like a number of 19th-century Americans, Barnum was an inveterate autobiographer.  This first edition of The Life captures Barnum in the process of transforming himself into one of his spectacles.  The book's first readers were no doubt amazed at the impresario's discussion of his many hoaxes and humbugs, ranging from his display of Joice Heth as George Washington's 161-year-old nurse to his advertisements for the Feejee mermaid.  Whalen's introduction provides useful background information about the reception of the book, and his discussion of Barnum and capitalist irony suggests a larger theoretical context worth pursuing.  -- DHB   

Basil, Michael D. "Identification as a Mediator of Celebrity Effects." Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 40 (1996): 478-495.

Basil examines the relationship between fan and celebrity as one based on identification. Through examining the influence of celebrity endorsers, specifically Magic Johnson’s endorsement of safe sex, Basil shows that the level of identification a fan has with a celebrity is critical to the development of the self.  The study found that those who identified with Magic Johnson were more likely to shape their behavior in accordance with his views on AIDS awareness.  Basil also cites Horton & Wohl’s notion of a "parasocial relationship" as being relevant to the relations between fans and celebrities. The intimacy between fan and celebrity results from the audience thinking and feeling as if they truly know the celebrity. -- Christine Casale

Baty, S. Paige. American Monroe: The Making of a Body Politic. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.

In American Monroe, S. Paige Baty focuses on the many ways that Marilyn Monroe has been remembered by the American public and media since her death in 1962. Baty argues that the commercialization of Marilyn has caused her to remain a strong force in American culture. Through the many objects that bear her image, the conspiracy theories that surround her death, and the necrophilic fascination of fans and investigators of her death, Marilyn continues to live on. She is, in effect, a body politic.  Baty contends that the making of such figures reveals their representative relationship to socio-political culture.  Marilyn is a representative character who embodies the various capabilities of the human spirit in an age of mass media.  Marilyn does not truly exist. Her life is a fabrication and she survives as an artificial image.  Despite her death, she will always live on in media res, an icon of American culture. -- Amanda Seelig

Blake, David Haven.  Walt Whitman and the Culture of American Celebrity, (New Haven: Yale UP, 2006).

Smart without being dense, clever without being smarmy, this cultural history is an engaging, at times eye-opening read. Blake, an English professor at the College of New Jersey, views Walt Whitman and his work in relation to the rise of celebrity culture in the nineteenth century-the time of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Fanny Fern, and PT Barnum-paying particular attention to the emerging ideas of publicity, promotion, and society's changing conceptions of fame. But this isn't the story of Whitman's personal experience of fame; as Blake points out, that would make for a slim volume. Rather, he writes, "Whitman's relation to American celebrity is a story about how the poet's thinking responded to the culture he observed developing around him." While the book is emphatically not a work of literary criticism, it nonetheless offers new and enjoyable ways of reading Whitman's work, particularly when viewed through the prism of advertising and self-promotion. For example, according to Blake, the most significant antebellum advertisements came from the patent medicine trade, and "'Song of Myself' directly invokes the language of patent medicine advertising in describing the poet's astonishing impact." To the many critics and students who idolize Whitman, this may seem nothing short of blasphemous, but Blake insists this shouldn't be the case: "Whitman's immersion in publicity does not rival or compromise the aspects of his work that readers have praised since the nineteenth century." Indeed, this enlightening study elevates all involved, especially the dubious legacy of that perennial beast, the American idol.  Publishers Weekly, November 6, 2006.

_________.  "Hollywood, Impersonation, and Presidential Celebrity in the 1990s," Hollywood's White House: The American Presidency in Film and History, ed. Peter C. Rollins and John E. O'Connor, (Lexington: UP Kentucky, 2003): 320-332.

Examines the rise of White House comedies during the Clinton presidency and the tendency to depict the president as the nation's democratically-elected star. -- DHB

_________.  "Campbell McGrath and the Spectacle Society," Michigan Quarterly Review, (41:2) Spring 2002: 249-72.

One of the most heralded young poets in our time is Campbell McGrath, the author of five books in the last decade and the recipient of a MacArthur “genius” grant.  Drawing upon a wide range of cultural theorists, Blake considers McGrath’s abiding interest in addressing popular culture in his poems.  At the center of Blake's discussion is McGrath's "The Bob Hope Poem," an epic-length work that regularly returns to Hope as a representation of what many have called "the American century."  While many modern and contemporary poets have addressed stars and stardom in the past 80 years, Blake argues that McGrath offers a particularly thoughtful approach in seeing in the celebrity a figure of cultural hegemony.  -- DHB

__________.  "Public Dreams: Berryman, Celebrity, and the Culture of Confession," American Literary History 13:4 ( Winter 2001): 716-36.

Blake explores fame and celebrity as categories useful to the analysis of the confessional poetry phenomenon of the 1950s and 1960s.  Although it addresses the work of Lowell, Sexton, and Plath, the article primarily focuses on John Berryman whose Dream Songs and Love & Fame regularly attend to the poet's growing reputation and media profile.  Pondering, bragging, and obsessing over his new-found fame, Berryman's character, Henry Pussycat, invites readers to consider the relations between confession and publicity, intimacy and celebrity, and poetry and hype. -- DHB

Blonsky, Marshall. American Mythologies. New York: Oxford UP, 1992.

Boorstin, Daniel. The Image: A Guide to Pseudo Events in America. New York: Vintage, 1962, 1992 reprint. 

Daniel Boorstin’s The Image is one of the first books to deal with the nature of celebrity in twentieth century America. The work addresses society’s shift from reality to illusion, and the effect this shift has had on news, fame, travel, art forms, and the graphic arts. The move away from actual events has produced what Boorstin calls "pseudo-events," contrived happenings meant for public consumption.  Boorstin claims that the American public demands pseudo-events because it expects events of novelty and greatness, even when there are none. He blames these expectations on the Graphic Revolution, what he defines as "Man’s (increasing) ability to make, preserve, transmit and disseminate precise images." Much of the terminology Boorstin coined has been used in books since The Image’s first publication in 1962; his definition of celebrity as "a person who is known for his well-knowness" is often quoted.  Authors such as Neal Gabler and Richard Schickel still use Boorstin's paradigm for understanding celebrity. -- John Lapinski

Braudy, Leo. The Frenzy of Renown: Fame and Its History. New York: Oxford UP, 1986. Vintage reprint, 1997 

Simply put, The Frenzy of Renown is the most in-depth and historically-informed treatment of fame yet published.  In clear but nuanced prose, Braudy discusses the history of renown from the Ancient Greeks to early Christian cultures to our present-day.  Any researcher working on the subject of fame and celebrity should begin their inquiries here. -- DHB

Briggs, Peter M.  "Laurence Sterne and Literary Celebrity in 1760."  The Age of Johnson 4 (1991): 251-73.

In this elegantly-written and fascinating article, Peter Briggs tells the story of how Laurence Sterne achieved celebrity for Tristram Shandy.  Appearing in London to promote his novel, Sterne adopted the persona of his character Parson Yorick, shrewdly capitalizing on the "illusion of presence" that characterized his novel.  Briggs' insights into celebrity as a "collaborative social form and process" make this a vital essay anyone interested in the subject, regardless of their historical focus.  -- DHB

Burns, Sarah. "Performing the Self" in Inventing the Modern Artist: Art and Culture in Gilded Age America.  New Haven: Yale UP, 1999: 221-246. 

"Performing the Self" demonstrates the shift in modern art that connected the artist to the image. In this chapter from her book Inventing the Modern Artist, Sarah Burns discusses the career of James McNeill Whistler, the man with the white lock and the monocle, and his profound influence on self-production. Through not only his artwork, but his public spectacles as well, Whistler introduced himself as a commercial product to be consumed by the public, and in this respect, he was quite successful. Using his personality, originality, and a new concept of visual images, Whistler created himself into a celebrity. From his example, many other artists, such as Andy Warhol, took notes. Burns does an excellent job of describing Whistler's work and linking him with the modern celebrity. Without Whistler's example, the art of advertising oneself would have been radically different. -- Megan Cox

Cary, Benedict.  "The Fame Motive," New York Times, August 22, 2006, Science Times, 1. 

Provides a journalistic survey of the work of Orville Gilbert Brim, Mark Schaller, Jeffrey Greenberg, Tim Kasser, Richard Shweder, and others who have examined the desire for fame and recognition from psychological and anthropological perspectives.  A source that will lead you to multiple academic sources.  -- DHB

Cawelti, John G. "The Writer as a Celebrity: Some Aspects of American Literature as Popular Culture." Studies in American Fiction, vol.5 (1977): 161-174.

In "The Writer as a Celebrity," John Cawelti addresses the American writer’s relation to popular culture. Cawelti begins by examining popular formulaic patterns used by 'major authors' and shows how these formulas have changed through time with the changing attitudes of the audience. He claims that the correct timing and proper use of these formulas determines whether writers will be accepted or rejected by the public. After making his general claims, Cawelti goes on to show how celebrity has existed since the emergence of literature. He gives a rundown of the success or failure of specific authors during different time periods, showing the effect of popular culture on their careers. He acknowledges how technological advances have increased the significance of being a celebrity writer. He concludes that authors’ interpretations of how to be or become celebrities can make or break their careers. – Nicole Tursi 

Chancey, Jill R. "Diana Doubled: The Fairytale Princess and the Photographer" NWSA Journal 11.2 (1999): 163-175

Cherches, Peter.  Star Course: Popular Lectures and the Marketing of Celebrity in Nineteenth-Century America.  NYU Dissertation, May 1997.

A fascinating account of the rise of celebrity lecture series in post-bellum America.  Cherches has compiled a tremendous amount of research in telling the story of how the lyceum lecture series, so prominent in the 1840s and 50s, were transformed into "star courses" featuring such personalities as Mark Twain, Thomas Nast, and the lapsed Mormon Ann Eliza Young.  Cherches pays close attention to the innovations of the promoters James A. Redpath and Major James Burton Pond.  -- DHB 

Coombe, Rosemary J. "The Celebrity Image and Cultural Identity: Publicity Rights and the Subaltern Politics of Gender." Discourse 14 (Spring 1992): 59-88.

Cowen, Tyler. What Price Fame? Cambridge: Harvard, 2000.

As an economist, Tyler Cowen offers a new perspective on fame by examining both its rewards and its hardships. By painting fame in a more realistic light than the typical glitz and glamour, Cowen's book addresses the burdens of fame, as well as the forces controlling it.  The kind of person who possesses fame dictates his or her reflections on society, and thus, as Cowen explains, when celebrities do not use their name for the greater good, their celebrity does not benefit the public.  At the same time, however, there are many costs to fame, and oftentimes, it can be more worthwhile to fans rather than  celebrities because they have no consequences to face. As Cowen points out, the reality of stardom is that many cannot hang onto their status in a world of intense competition.  Those who become names are those who have the best publicity, the drive to achieve greatness at any cost, and the fans on their side. Cowen gives the audience an important role in his book, for they are the most significant players in the culture of celebrity.  The audience always gets the final vote in determining who is who among the famous. Without fans, Cowen concludes, the world of entertainment would crumble. -- Megan Cox 

Curnutt, Kirk. "Inside and Outside: Gertrude Stein on Identity, Celebrity and Authenticity". Journal of Modern Literature. 23:2 (Winter 1999/2000): 291-308.

DeAngelis, Michael.  Gay Fandom and Crossover Stardom:  James    Dean, Mel Gibson, and Keanu Reeves.  Durham: Duke, 2002. 

Why and how does the appeal of certain male Hollywood stars cross over from straight to gay audiences? Do stars lose their cachet with straight audiences when they cross over? In Gay Fandom and Crossover Stardom Michael DeAngelis responds to these questions with a provocative analysis of three famous actors—James Dean, Mel Gibson, and Keanu Reeves. In the process, he traces a fifty-year history of audience reception that moves gay male fandom far beyond the realm of “camp” to places where culturally unauthorized fantasies are nurtured, developed, and shared. DeAngelis examines a variety of cultural documents, including studio publicity and promotional campaigns, star biographies, scandal magazines, and film reviews, as well as gay political and fan literature that ranges from the closeted pages of One and Mattachine Review in the 1950s to the very “out” dish columns, listserv postings, and on-line star fantasy narratives of the past decade. At the heart of this close historical study are treatments of particular film narratives, including East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause, The Road Warrior, Lethal Weapon, My Own Private Idaho,                  and Speed.       -- from the Duke University Press website

Debord, Guy. The Society of the Spectacle.  Trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith, New York: Zone Books, 1967, 1995.

Debord's wide-ranging critique of a media-dominated western society remains both relevant and piercingly insightful today.  "The spectacle," he comments, "is capital accumulated to the point where it becomes image."  The celebrity becomes an image of that image, a figure twice removed from the self.  As Debord later explains, "The individual who in the service of the spectacle is placed in stardom’s spotlight is in fact the opposite of an individual, and as clearly the enemy of the individual in himself as of the individual in others. In entering the spectacle as a mode to be identified with, he renounces all autonomy in order himself to identify with the general law of obedience to the course of things."  A far-reaching, provocative, and highly-prescient analysis.  -- DHB

Derounian-Stodola, Kathryn Zabelle.  “The Captive as Celebrity,” Lives out of Letters: Essays on American Literary Biography and Documentation ed. Robert D. Habich, Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2004: 65-92.

Using film criticism and the growing literature on celebrity studies for its theoretical basis, the essay examines the captivity narratives of four women: Mary Rowlandson, Hannah Dustan, Mary Jemison (Dehgewanus), and Olive Oatman.  Derounian-Stodola explores the ways in which each of these narratives can be explained with the concepts of publicity, media, and audience response. -- DHB

Dixon, Wheeler Winston.  Disaster and Memory: Celebrity Culture and the Rise of Hollywood Cinema, New York: Columbia, 1999.

Dixon examines the cult of celebrity and the hunger for public surveillance in print, television and individuals. The book focuses on the role of the media and the public life of Diana, Princess of Wales. Dixon looks at the pivotal role that Diana played in manipulating public opinion in the press and with the public. He moves on to identify how the lure of publicity can change the image a celebrity wants to portray. Some individuals like Diana and Marilyn Monroe have become icons because they were very successful at manipulating the media, while others have allowed the media to control them. Dixon also looks at the history of the media's relationship with the public. The introduction of the Internet and the age of reproduction have helped to feed the public's desire for the media's reporting of disasters. Here Dixon builds upon Andy Warhol's theory that the public is able to anesthetize itself when it is repeatedly presented with a particularly gruesome image. As the media reproduces such images, the public becomes preconditioned into accepting the images without much disturbance to themselves or their mental well-being. Dixon's theory is that disasters involving celebrities such as Diana seem to catch the public's eye more than other events that are perhaps more traumatic but do not involve celebrities. This hunger for instantaneous information about celebrity disasters will continue to result in the transformation of the cult of celebrity to fit social desires. --- Vanessa Weaver

Dugdale, Timothy. "The Fan and (Auto)Biography: Writing the Self in the Stars." Journal of Mundane Behavior. 1. 2  (June 2000).

Duvall, John N. "Baseball as Aesthetic Ideology: Cold War History, Race, and DeLillo's ‘Pafko at the Wall’" Modern Fiction Studies. 41.2 (1995):

Dyer, Richard.  Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society.  New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987.

__________. Stars. London: British Film Institute, 1998.

Einerson, Martha J. "Fame, Fortune, and Failure: Young Girls’ Moral Language Surrounding Popular Culture." Youth & Society 30 (1998): 241-257.

This article focuses on the relationship between the self and the interpersonal experience of the young female fan and the pop music star.  Focusing specifically on the group New Kids on the Block, Einerson studied a random sample of girls between the ages of 8 and 12 in order to understand the relationship between stardom, "fandom," and moral identity.  She concluded that the young female fan vicariously experiences stardom by closely examining the celebrity’s behavior. This observed behavior frequently influences the development of the fan's own moral identity.  The study suggests a similar correlation between fame and the moral decline of a celebrity’s behavior. Poor behavior on the part of pop music celebrities cause fans to seek out a new model for moral development, thus lessening the celebrity’s fame. -- Christine Casale

Ferris, Kerry O. "Through a Glass, Darkly: The Dynamics of Fan-Celebrity Encounters." Symbolic Interaction. 24 (2001): 25-47.

Fisher, Philip.  "Appearing and Disappearing in Public: Social Space in late Nineteenth Century Literature and Culture."  Reconstructing American Literary History, ed. Sacvan Bercovitch.  Harvard English Studies 13 Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1986: 155-188.

In this clearly-written essay, Fisher explores how the themes of visibility and invisibility appear in a wide variety of late-nineteenth-century texts: among them, Thomas Eakins' "The Gross Clinic," John Wanamaker's department store, the well-publicized images of Theodore Roosevelt and Mark Twain, and Henry James's The Bostonians.  Fisher sees these and other texts either converging towards or reflecting on the "national strategy of celebrity, product promotion, political fame, and [the] high visibility" that marked the period between 1880-1910.  -- DHB

Fiske, John. "Madonna." Reading the Popular. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989: 95-113.

Flanagan, Mary. "Mobile Identities, Digital Stars, and Post Cinematic Selves." Wide Angle. 21.1 (1999). 77-93.

Flanzbaum, Hilene. "Surviving the Marketplace: Robert Lowell and the Sixties." The New England Quarterly. 48.1 (March 1995): 44-57.

Flatley, Jonathan. "Warhol Gives Good Face: Publicity and the Politics of Prosopopoeia." Pop Out: Queer Warhol. Eds. Jennifer Doyle, Jonathan Flatley, and Jose Esteban Munoz. Durham: Duke UP, 1996: 101-131.

Gabler, Neal.  Life The Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality. New York: Vintage, 1998, rept. 2000

In this eye-opening book, Gabler reaffirms the American obsession with novelty and entertainment. Labeling the United States a “Republic of Entertainment," he traces the parallels between the entertainment preferences of its people and its development as a nation. Gabler asserts that the desire for popular entertainment has permanently changed American culture and that American society has readily allowed entertainment to become a driving force behind the thoughts and actions of its members. Gabler illustrates how our desire for a bigger, better, faster and more exciting life has developed new entertainments out of things that were once held in high regard: religion has made its way onto TV, politicians have turned into actors, and average people now see themselves as potential stars.  Although some of Gabler’s arguments rest on the ideas presented in Daniel Boorstin’s The Image, he does a very convincing job of demonstrating that Americans seem to live their daily lives as if they were on the silver screen. Gabler insists that these behaviors are what have spurred Americans to search for the "self" through the movies and for never-ending entertainment in life.  -- Emily Weiss

_________. Winchell: Gossip, Power, and the Culture of Celebrity.  New York: Vintage, 1995.

Writing in The Chicago Tribune, Ed Schwarzschild praised this "stunning biography" and its argument that "the infamous opinion-maker's legacy to us was nothing less than a new belief system."  After Winchell, Gabler explains, "we would believe in our entitlement to know everything about our public figures.  We would believe that fame is an exalted state but suspect that the famous always have something to hide.  Above all, we would believe in a culture of gossip and celebrity where entertainment takes primacy over every other value." -- DHB

Gamson, Joshua.  Claims to Fame: Celebrity in Contemporary America.  Berkeley: University of California, 1994. 

Claims to Fame is an intricate sociological study of the production of fame.  Gamson discusses how the idea of fame became famous, moving from a time when being famous was irrelevant to our contemporary society's fixation on celebrity.  Gamson explores the development of publicity and how the selling of fame became an industory in America.  He argues the idea that we should consider celebrity as kind of an "investment."  Like "raw materials," stars "often require a good deal of processing before they are marketable."  This supports Gamson's overall interest in the celebrity '"industry."  In short, Claims to Fame provides an important sociological understanding of celebrity culture and its production in America. -- David Mimnaugh

__________. "Jessica Hahn, Media Whore: Sex Scandals and Female Publicity." Critical Studies in Media Communication 18:2 (June 2001). 

Giles, David.  Illusions of Immortality: A Psychology of Fame and Celebrity.  New York: St. Martin's, 2000. 

In Illusions of Immortality, David Giles uses extensive research from interviews, surveys, and personal recall to answer questions concerning the rise of stardom, the motivation to become famous, and the psychological impact of sudden popularity. Giles sees the celebrity as arising out of the tradition in Western culture of placing importance on the "individual self."  He argues that fame should be seen as a process, rather than a state of being, because of the variety of changes a celebrity goes through when becoming a star. Giles also explores how the media and technology have greatly increased not only the odds of becoming famous, but also the illusion of its simplicity. Mass communication has actually decreased the significance of fame, he points out, because it is neither as rare nor sacred as it once was.  -- Ricky Klittich

Glass, Loren. "’Nobody’s’ Renown: Plagiarism and Publicity in the Career of Jack London." American Literature. 71.3 (September 1999): 529-549.

__________ .   "Trademark Twain."  American Literary History.  13:4 (Winter 2001): 671-93.

______________.  Authors, Inc.  Literary Celebrity in the Modern United States, 1880-1980.  New York:  New York University Press, 2004.

"A fascinating exploration of the relationship among modern authorial celebrity, the rise of the mass market, and the crisis of masculinity at the turn of the twentieth century. This crisply argued book unites sophisticated theoretical arguments about the changing shape of subjectivity in American culture with attentive literary readings and careful historical scholarship."
—Janice Radway, Duke University (from the dust jacket)

Gledhill, Christine, editor.  Stardom: Industry of Desire.  London: Routledge, 1991.

Goble, Mark.  "Cameo Appearances; or, When Gertrude Stein Checks into Grand Hotel."  MLQ: Modern Language Quarterly 62:2 (June 2001). 117-63.

Goble examines the role cameo appearances play in fame and how stardom is essentially realized when one person stands out among the rest. He claims that true fame comes from not being like every other celebrity; the biggest stars in the film Grand Hotel, he points out, make only cameo appearances, thus neutralizing their fame. Goble argues that Gertrude Stein's The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas and Everybody's Autobiography include so many cameo appearances that they neutralize those who are otherwise considered stars, making only Stein the famous one. Goble explains that celebrities gain more fame through space and time than by their name. The star of a film is only the star because he or she is on screen longest and outlasts all other characters. In fact, the advantage of celebrities is that they can come and go as they please; Stein's works construct her as the celebrity because she determines the space and time with which other major figures make their cameo appearances.  -- Ricky Klittich

Goldman, Jonathan E.  Modernism is the Literature of Celebrity.  Austin: U of Texas P, 2011.

Jonathan Goldman offers a provocative new reading of early twentieth-century culture and the formal experiments that constitute modernist literature's unmistakable legacy.  He argues that the literary innovations of the mdoernists are indeed best understood as a participant in the popular phenomenon of celebrity. 

___________________.  "Extraordinary People: The Superhero Genre and Celebrity Culture in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen."  In The Rise and Reason of Comics and Graphic Literature.  Ed. Joyce Goggin and Dan Hassler-Forrest.  MacFarland P, 2010.

_________________.  "Double Exposure: Charlie Chaplin as Author and Celebrity." M/C Journal.  Special issue on Fame, ed. P. David Marshall.  7.5 (November 2004). M/C Journal 7.5 (2004). <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0411/05-goldman.php>.

Goldman argues that much of what we recognize as modernist style parallels the celebrity production occurring simultaneously in the popular realm.  He shows that Joyce’s distinctive collage of narrative styles in Ulysses produces the author by activating meaning that, unrelated to the diegesis—the world and people of the plot--invokes the author’s virtuosity, much as Hollywood movie would remind audiences of the actor playing the role.  At the same time, style functions as a trademark of Joyce’s originality.  Ulysses thus literalizes post-structuralist notions of the author as a discourse that restricts signification and interpretation but also contravenes these approaches by foregrounding the operations that create the author, renouncing all reference to an author anterior to the novel and located in a physical body.  By establishing the author as both a function of the text and the means of decoding it, Joyce enacts the fantasy of a complete, bounded subjectivity, uncontaminated by culture.

___________________.  "Joyce, the Propheteer."  Novel: A Forum on Fiction, 38.1 Spring 2004.  78-103.

Goldman argues that Chaplin combines modernism’s production of the author with the logic of popular celebrity, idealizing himself as an author and producing the visual trace of his body, the Tramp, as a signifier of history.  He begins by contrasting Chaplin’s celebrity with that of typical Hollywood stars of the period.  Where most films imagine the star image as a sign of subjectivity, Chaplin’s initial slapstick performances construct him as little more than an object.  As Chaplin begins to produce films himself, however, he uses the conventions of slapstick to position the Tramp as the stable center of a chaotic space, dramatizing the author who controls meaning.  Chaplin resists investing the image with subjectivity, but rather than rejecting it altogether, Chaplin transforms it into a signifier of his audience.  Modern Times recoups the image as a sign of Chaplin’s popularity and his historical moment, enlisting recognition of the Tramp to foreground the act of identification that unites Chaplin’s mass audience.  Chaplin stages the modernist desire to situate subjectivity in the ontology of the text instead of in an image of the embodied subject; this impulse to separate the subject from visuality, paradoxically, expands the role of the icon and authorizes celebrity to narrate our culture.  In this way, Chaplin, having rejected the celebrity image but absorbed much of its logic, may be said to usher in a culture in which celebrity images constitute the telling of history.

 Gross, Michael Joseph.  Starstruck: When A Fan Gets Close to Fame.  New York: Bloomsbury, 2005.

Gross explores the culture of Hollywood fans, offering insight into the world of autograph collectors, fan club members, and entertainment journalists.  More a work of journalism than cultural analysis, the book is exceptionally strong on anecdotes and reportage, though at times one wishes that Gross would think more intensively about the material he has collected.  Gross writes from the perspective of an unabashed fan (a perspective shared by many of the Hollywood personalities he profiles in this book) which allows him to see the fandom with both compassion and insight. -- DHB

Harris, Neil.  Humbug: The Art of P.T. Barnum. Boston, MA: Little Brown and Co. 1973.

Humbug examines the construction of celebrity in regard to the life of P.T. Barnum. Neil Harris explores the life and times of Barnum, with special attention placed on Barnum's exhibition of Joice Heth, the supposed nursemaid to George Washington, and Jenny Lind, dubbed the "Swedish Nightingale." Barnum's showcasing of Heth is a perfect example of what Daniel Boorstin called a pseudo-event. Barnum rallied the public, playing on their patriotism and later, their doubt of Heth's validity. P.T. Barnum's intensive marketing campaign proved masterful, making the mythos and curiosity surrounding Heth the real attraction. With Jenny Lind, Barnum meticulously cultivated the singer's celebrity, carefully orchestrating news stories about her rags to riches life, arranging large receptions for her, and strictly controlling the venues at which she performed. By examining these different promotional techniques, Harris suggests that Barnum was doing more than just showcasing a talented performer: he was selling Lind to the American public. Humbug describes Barnum's relationship with his audience as being one of mutual exploitation. As Harris points out, members of Barnum's audience were aware they were going to be humbugged, yet participated anyway, gaining a transcendent thrill at becoming part of the pseudoevent, while Barnum gained at the box office. Humbug serves as a practical example of the art behind celebrity construction, both in Barnum's ventures and his own life.  -- Tim Luthman

Horkheimer, Max and Theodor W. Adorno. "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception." Dialectic of Enlightenment. Trans. John Cumming, New York: Herder and Herder, 1944, 1972.

Horkheimer and Adorno discuss what they label the “culture industry.”  Published in 1944, the article provides an early view of mass entertainment. A product of capitalism, the culture industry creates meaningless forms of entertainment to be consumed by audiences for economic gain. According to the authors, the development of these entertainment forms, such as movies, popular music, and television shows, is the result of a formula that recycles the same themes and ideas. Thus, culture is not original and meaningful but rather mass produced. Horkheimer and Adorno argue that celebrities are forced upon an unwitting audience who are not given the opportunity to choose entertainment for themselves. Rather, the authors explain, the culture industry views the audience as uneducated, easily pleased consumers who, if manipulated correctly, will produce great profits. By criticizing the ways in which the industry preys upon unsuspecting consumers and appeals to the bourgeois desire for a better life, Horkheimer and Adorno attack the modern system of culture and celebrity. -- Kristen Depken

Jaffe, Aaron, and Jonathan Goldman, ed.  Modernist Star Maps: Celebrity, Modernity, Culture.  London: Ashgate, 2010.

Bringing together Canadian, American, and British scholars, this volume explores the relationship between modernism and modern celebrity culture.  As the first book to read modernism and celebrity in the context of the crises of individual agency occasioned by the emergence of mass-mediated culture, Modernist Star Maps argues that the relationship between modernism and the popular is unthinkable without celebrity. 

Jaffe, Aaron.  Modernism and the Culture of Celebrity (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2005).

Jaffe investigates the relationship between two phenomena that arrived on the historical stage in the first decades of the twentieth century: modernist literature and modern celebrity culture. Jaffe systematically traces and theorizes the deeper dependencies between these two influential forms of cultural value. He examines the paradox that modernist authors, while rejecting mass culture in favor of elite cultural forms, reflected the economy of celebrity culture in their strategies for creating a market for their work. Through collaboration, networking, reviewing and editing each other’s works, T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, Ezra Pound and Wyndham Lewis, among others, constructed their literary reputations and publicized the project of modernism. Jaffe uses substantial archival research to show how literary fame was made by exploiting the very market forces that modernists claimed to reject. This innovative study also illuminates the cultural impact and continued relevance of the modernist project. -- Cambridge UP

____________.  "James Bond, The Brand."  Ian Fleming and James Bond: The Cultural Politics of 007. Eds. Comentale, Watt, and Willman (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2005).

____________.  "Adjectives and the Work of Modernism in an Age of Celebrity."  Yale Journal of Criticism 16.1 (Spring 2003): 1-37.

Kaplan, Amy. "Edith Wharton’s Profession of Authorship." ELH. Vol. 53, Issue 2. (Summer, 1986). 433-457.

Amy Kaplan asserts that Edith Wharton was conflicted about the ways in which she should market her celebrity personality as well as her work. Many scholars have argued that Wharton was a staunch feminist and an anti-modernist, but Kaplan questions whether this is an accurate depiction of the writer. Above all, Kaplan believes that Wharton wanted to be a professional writer who would be taken seriously by both men and women. While Wharton seemed somewhat uneasy with the criticism of her work, she was not above causing scandal to sell her material. Kaplan writes that Wharton made a deal with her uncle, an Anglican bishop: "He denounces her book from the pulpit . . . which immediately makes the book a best seller and her a celebrity." Wharton recognized the importance of a writer’s public personality. She presented herself as a "lady of leisure" so that she would be accepted by a female audience, and also added scientific elements to her writing to attract a male audience. Kaplan believes that Wharton’s goal was to avoid being trapped into only one category of writing that would attract only one type of reader. She regarded celebrity as a tool to present many personalities to the public to gain new readers. – Sarah Matthews

Kasson, Joy.  Buffalo Bill's Wild West: Celebrity, Memory, and Popular History.  New York: Hill and Wang, 2000

Joy Kasson provides the public with a glimpse into the world of the "ultimate showman," the long haired, goateed performer, we know as Buffalo Bill.  Throughout this book, Kasson argues that through his Wild West productions, Buffalo Bill created a new form of entertainment, one that blurred the lines between reality and fiction. Buffalo Bill, one of the first modern celebrities, gained his status through a strategic marketing campaign that transformed William Cody into the fictional and celebrated Buffalo Bill.  According to Kasson, America subsequently began to base its memory of historical events on a performance, a theatrical event with its roots in genuine and legitimate history. Kasson explores the intertwining of authentic events with artificial ones, as well as America's willingness to accept fictionalized versions of history as fact. She discusses the idea that Buffalo Bill, a single man, had the power to create truth about American history when it was believed to be the truth by enough people. Popular culture and national identity have become woven together because of audience desire and the undeniable impact that mass media has on our society. Kasson quite credibly presents her case that Buffalo Bill's influence has lasted through the decades, long after the frontier was settled. His productions would later serve to represent a period of history that has come and gone. This is a wonderful read for anyone looking to explore how one man, through mass media and popular culture, had a large enough impact to influence an entire culture's vision of its history.  -- Erin McGee

Landay, Lori, "Millions Love Lucy: Commodification and the Lucy Phenomenon" NWSA Journal 11.2 (Summer 1999). 25-47.

Lang, Gladys and Lang, Karl. "Recognition and Renown: the Survival of Artistic Reputation." American Journal of Sociology. 94. 1 (July 1998): 79-109.

This article reflects on the factors that surround an artist’s standing in history. Gladys and Karl Lang differentiate between recognition and renown, suggesting that recognition is the esteem artists garner within their artistic community, while renown is the broader appeal they achieve in society. Reputation is a combination of recognition and renown, and as the authors state, the timelessness of reputation is attained through four factors: the artist’s promotion of his or her own work, outside promotion, cultural ties during the artist’s time, and "retroactive interest" in the artist’s work or the period in which it was created. Lang and Lang explore the preservation of an artist’s status in the context of etchers, coming to the conclusion that "the name attached to a work of art functions much like a brand label." Once an artist achieves a certain level of celebrity, the authors note, their fame begins to feed off of itself, their work entering into posterity because it bears their name. – Tim Luthman

Leets, Laura, Gavin de Becker, and Howard Giles. "Fans: Exploring Expressed Motivations for Contacting Celebrities." Journal of Language and Social Psychology. 14.1-2 (March 1995): 102-123.

Leff, Leonard J. Hemingway and His Conspirators: Hollywood, Scribners, and the Making of American Celebrity Culture. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1997.

This book examines Ernest Hemingway’s career, depicting the struggle between his desire for great literary success and his need for a large audience. Leff argues that Hemingway’s fame as an author, his celebrity, was much more about how Scribners, his publishing house, marketed him than what he actual wrote. Like many authors of his time, Hemingway lived with a constant inner struggle between his desire for celebrity and the desire to stay to true to his work. His desire for literary prowess often conflicted with his growing celebrity as an author for the masses. Eventually, his celebrity personality overtook him. Leff argues that the real Hemingway was lost to the public persona that had been so skillfully marketed. He even hints that Hemingway’s life-long inner conflict may have been what ultimately cost him his life. Leff’s exploration of authorship and celebrity opens up an important chapter of celebrity culture, one not often considered. By using Hemingway as an example, Leff adeptly shows how celebrity relies heavily on marketing an image that is consistent with what one thinks would appeal to the masses, and how in the process, the actual person is often lost or destroyed. -- Andrea Lawn

Look, Hugh. "The Author as Star." Publishing Research Quarterly 15 (1999): 12-29.

Lowenthal, Leo. "The Triumph of Mass Idols" (1944). Literature, Popular Culture, and Society. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1961.

In "The Triumph of Mass Idols," Leo Lowenthal analyzes the evolution of the popular magazine biography. Published in 1944, and thus one of the first scholarly approaches to the subject of celebrity, the article compares biographies written in the very early part of the century to those written during and after World War I.  He suggests that while biographies of the past were read as guides to success, those of the post-war era were valued only as idle entertainment. The focus had shifted from "idols of production" such as politicians and leaders in industry to "idols of consumption" such as movie stars and athletic heroes. Instead of offering helpful insights about the attainment of success through hard work, the newer biographies detailed the activities of passive celebrities, whose achievements are portrayed as "good luck" or "fate." Lowenthal found that readers were inundated with trivial accounts of popular stars' leisure activities and favorite foods while important social issues in the realms of politics and economics were ignored. As Lowenthal concludes, the biographies prioritize recreation over "any primary interest in how to invent, shape, or apply the tools leading to such purposes of mass satisfaction." - Jessica Roth

Margolis, Stacey. "The Public Life: The Discourse of Privacy in the Age of Celebrity." Arizona Quarterly, 51:2 (Summer 1995): 81-101.

Marshall, P. David.  Celebrity and Power: Fame in Contemporary Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. 

P. David Marshall’s book, Celebrity and Power: Fame in Contemporary Culture, applies theories about the celebrity/audience relationship to several modern cases of celebrity. Marshall examines the levels of intimacy that different types of celebrities achieve with their audiences and how the variation in these levels has allowed them to maximize their success. According to Marshall, film stars obtain success through the creation of a distinct aura and by distancing themselves from their audience, while television personalities must relate to their target audiences on a more personal level. Marshall extends this argument, explaining that popular music performers are best able to appeal to their fans’ emotions, thus creating the closest possible celebrity/audience relationship. He continues by discussing the ways in which, in an increasingly media-controlled society, politicians must learn to combine the aura of film, the closeness of television, and the emotional power of popular music to acquire and maintain the interest and support of the public. Using the examples of Tom Cruise, Oprah Winfrey, and New Kids on the Block as case studies, Marshall presents an effective argument showing how  audiences are vital in determining the meaning of modern stars. -- Kristen Depken and Jessica Roth

________  "The Celebrity Legacy of the Beatles." The Beatles: Popular Music and Society: MacMillan Press Ltd., 2000. 163-175.

__________ .  "Fame's Perpetual Moment," Introduction to "Fame," a special issue, of M/C Journal 7.5 (November 2004).

Marshall edits this fascinating collection of essays featuring work on a wide range of topics including Charlie Chaplin, Harry Potter, Elian Gonzalez, Ronald Reagan, and Ziggy Stardust. Lots of interesting theory here.  -- DHB

Mattick, Paul. "The Andy Warhol of Philosophy and the Philosophy of Andy Warhol." Critical-Inquiry. Chicago, IL. 24.2 (Summer 1998): 965-87.

Moran, Joe.  Star Authors: Literary Celebrity in America.  London: Pluto Press, 2000.

In Star Authors, Joe Moran tackles the subject of literary celebrity in America. His book contains historical information dating back to 1858 when Charles Dickens launched his second book tour. The hysteria that this tour caused was comparable in today's terms to the British Beatles' invasion, and it shifted the primary purpose of the lecture circuit from education to entertainment. According to Moran, the lecture circuit opened the door for authors such as Mark Twain to promote their work through carefully staged performances. This segued into the kinds of promotional events, such as book tours and book-of-the-month clubs, that authors use to generate publicity today. Building on the history of the author as not only a celebrity but also as a marketable commodity, Moran shows how many authors have actively pursued celebrity and what they have done to attain it. Although he mentions Toni Morrison, Moran offers a more in-depth analysis of John Updike and his effort to market his name as much as his work. Moran also discusses how fame can be imposed on an unwanting author. Here, he touches on the celebrity of recluse author J.D. Salinger and examines the career of Don DeLillo, who  feels that artists should resist publicity and purposefully remain anonymous.  Based on his studies in the area, Moran analyzes the impact that celebrity can have on the life and works of authors and shows the difficulty authors have in dealing with their fame. He also demonstrates the cultural influence and positive economic significance authorial fame has in America. -- Nicole Tursi

Newbury, Michael. "Eaten Alive: Slavery and Celebrity in Antebellum America." ELH 61.1 (1994). 159-187.

Norton, Anne. Republic of Signs: Liberal Theory and American Popular Culture. Chicago: U Chicago Press, 1993.

Norton's comments on celebrity are brief, but her interest in semiotics, consumption, and the political functions of popular culture provide a useful, compelling background for more intensive studies of the subject.  -- DHB

O’Donnell, Heather. "Stumbling on Henry James." The Henry James Review 21.3 (2000): 234-241.

Pattanaik, Dipti R. "‘The Holy Refusal’: A Vedantic Interpretation of J.D. Salinger’s Silence." MELUS 23.2 (Summer 1998): 113-27.

Raeburn, John. "Ernest Hemingway: The Public Writer as Popular Culture." Journal of Popular Culture 8.1 (1974): 91-98.

Rein, Irving J., Philip Kotler, and Martin Stoller.  High Visibility: The Making and Marketing of Professionals into Celebrities. Chicago: NTC Business Books, 1997.

High Visibility provides a glimpse beyond the glamour to the business strategies that fuel one of America's most influential industries. The authors outline a detailed marketing strategy for the professional who seeks celebrity status. Celebrities are manufactured and marketed to target audiences, much like products. The authors propose a specific process consisting of market analysis, segmentation and selection. They place great emphasis on strategically using publicity to deliver an image to the public. In turn, the celebrity increases his or her visibility, which is the goal of any marketing strategy. By examining how pervasive these strategies are, we can begin to understand why the industry has such great influence over the public.  This book serves as a great resource to those studying celebrity culture because it provides a different approach to the topic. Instead of analyzing celebrity culture, the authors detail the marketing process and the steps necessary to achieving celebrity status. It is the reader's responsibility to examine the impact such marketing has on the industry and, more importantly, on society at-large.                         -- Christine Casale

Robbins, Bruce W. "Celeb-Reliance: Intellectuals, Celebrity, and Upward Mobility." Post Modern Culture. 9:2 (1999)

Rojek, Chris.  Celebrity (London: Reaktion, 2001)

A review by Georges-Claude Guilbert

Rubey, Dan. "Voguing at the Carnival: Desire and Pleasure on MTV." South Atlantic Quarterly 90.4 (Spring 1997): 871-906.

Schickel, Richard. Intimate Strangers: The Culture of Celebrity. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1985.

Richard Schickel examines the illusions of knowing a celebrity as a personal friend, what he calls an intimate stranger. Looking at celebrities in music, politics, art, movies and especially television, Shickel discusses the impact that TV has had on the celebrity industry and its role in bringing stars into the living rooms of their fans and vice versa. He points out how closely this medium brings average people to their favorite stars, when there isn't a true connection at all. One of the benefits of Schickel's analysis is that it explains the darker, bitter side of the illusion of intimacy. Schickel explores why admirers become angry at their celebrities when the admiration isn't returned. He uses the example of John Hinkley, who shot Ronald Reagan in an attempt to profess his love for Jodie Foster, to show the extremes of feeling neglected by a celebrity. From moderate fans to psychotic fanatics like Hinkley, the reader gets a clearer picture of why the world of celebrity seems so close and intimate, yet so far. -- Eileen Nagle

Schmitt, Raymond L. and Leonard, Wilbert M. "Immortalizing the Self Through Sport." American Journal of Sociology, 91:5 (Mar. 1986): 1088-1111.

Sexton, Anne. "The Freak Show" (1973). No Evil Star: Selected Essays, Interviews, and Prose. Ed. Steven E. Colburn. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1985: 33-38.

In this short, but telling essay, Anne Sexton reflects on the relations between celebrity and the traditional college poetry reading.  Known for her intensely personal poems, Sexton's readings attracted large audiences throughout the United States, audiences that were eager for the poet to become emotionally overwhelmed on the stage. -- DHB 

Silver, Brenda.  Virginia Woolf Icon (Chicago, U of Chicago P, 1999).

This is a book about "Virginia Woolf": the face that sells more postcards than any other at Britain's National Portrait Gallery, the name that Edward Albee's play linked with fear, the cultural icon so rich in meanings that it has been used to market everything from the New York Review of Books to Bass Ale. Brenda Silver analyzes Virginia Woolf's surprising visibility in both high and popular culture, showing how her image and authority have been claimed or challenged in debates about art, politics, anger, sexuality, gender, class, the canon, feminism, race, and fashion. -- U Chicago Press

Smart, Judith. "The Evangelist as Star: The Billy Graham Crusade in Australia, 1959." Journal of Popular Culture. 33.1 (1999): 165-175.

Stacey, Jackie. Star Gazing: Hollywood Cinema and Female Spectatorship.  New York: Routledge, 1994.

Star Gazing by Jackie Stacey offers an insightful ethnographic study of women's experience in Britain during World War II and its aftermath. Focusing on women who frequently attended the movies, Stacey questions the role of female identity in relation to popular films of this time period; she devotes her study to such poignant questions as, "How do women look at their Hollywood ideals on the cinema screen? What pleasures can they gain from the feminine images produced for the male gaze?" Stacey investigates why female star identities have had such a profound impression on the female audience. Ultimately, Stacey finds that women went to the movies for "escapism," "identification," and "consumption." Naturally, women wanted to escape the war, the domestic life, and the British patriarchal society. More importantly, however, women wanted to relate to their favorite star, identify with them, look like them, and allow themselves to enter a utopian world. Female spectators wanted to be desired by men the same way that men desired female stars. Therefore, women flocked to the theatre to see what the latest style was so they could imitate the stars and become desirable by the men in their lives. Star Gazing offers a different perspective of celebrity culture because it focuses on the female spectator, instead of the celebrity. Women in British society felt the need to live up to Hollywood standards just as female stars had in order to feel attractive and powerful. Stacey's study proves that stars need spectators in order to become successful in a consumer world.  Hollywood sells commodities through glamorous women in order for consumption by the audience. If the female stars were not appealing or attractive, women would not have reason to identify with them and thus, commodities would not be sold. -- Melissa Farley

Till, Brian and Shimp, Terrence. "Endorsers in Advertising-The Case of Negative Celebrity Information." Journal of Advertising. 27:1 (1998): 67-83.

Tomc, Sandra. "An Idle Industry: Nathaniel Parker Willis and the Workings of Literary Leisure." American Quarterly 49.4 (1997): 780-805.

Troy, Gil. "JFK: Celebrity-In-Chief or Commander-In-Chief?" Reviews in American History 26.3 (1998): 630-636

For over sixty years, Americans have held a fascination for our own "royal family," the Kennedys. Troy argues that there are two main questions surrounding John F. Kennedy’s life and death: why are Americans so fascinated with the Kennedy family and did JFK accomplish anything during his term as president? Troy examines two books written about Kennedy. One explores Kennedy as a literary character and discusses how important texts in his political life provide insight into his being scripted as a public figure with a produced image. The second, in contrast, examines the president as the "cool statesman" that he has often been portrayed as since his death. Troy argues that one of the functions of the modern president is to entertain, and because of this, historians must rise above the differences between policy and personality and "between the roles of commander-in-chief and celebrity-in-chief." – Amanda Seelig

Turner, Graehm.  Understanding Celebrity (Sage, 2004).

Click here for a review by Joshua Gamson in Popular Communication.

Wall, David S. "Policing Elvis: Legal Action and Shaping of Post--Mortem Celebrity Culture as Contested Space,"  Entertainment Law 2:3 (2003): 35-69.  Full version available here in The Entertainment and Sports Law Journal 2:3.

Celebrity cultures have their own careers during and beyond the lives of their creators. While they are shaped primarily by creativity and sustained by market forces, no sooner is celebrity created than it becomes a contested space and a power struggle ensues. This article explores the use of legal and quasi-legal actions in the shaping of celebrity culture as contested space. It draws upon an analysis of the post-mortem career of Elvis Presley to illustrate how our knowledge of Elvis has been formed by the various legal actions which assisted the passage of his name, image and likeness from the public to the private domains and also the various 'policing' governance strategies that have since been employed to maintain control over the use of his image.  -- from the journal abstract.  For full abstract, click here.

Walsh, Chris. "Stardom Is Born: The Religion and Economy of Publicity in Henry James' The Bostonians." American Literary Realism. Spring 1997: 15-25.

Wicke, Jennifer. "Celebrity Material: Materialist Feminism and the Culture of Celebrity." Feminism, the Public and the Private. Ed. Joan B. Landes. New York: Oxford UP, 1998.

Wicke focuses on materialist feminism, paying special attention to the relations between academic and movement feminism and a new trend she calls "celebrity feminism". She claims that academic feminism is "too white and middle-class" to reach a wide audience, while movement feminism is only present on university campuses in organizations such as "Take Back the Night". Wicke asserts that now that feminisms are being produced and received in the zone of celebrity, these celebrity feminisms are now starting to have a greater influence than academic and movement feminism ever have. As she points out, "Even those who repudiate the public sphere of celebrity for its so-called faulty representations of women are not immune to its allure." Wicke’s main example of how feminism crossed directly from the academic zone into the celebrity zone is Camille Paglia, and how her book Sexual Personae enthralled and empowered non-academics. Wicke also mentions other well-known names such as Oprah Winfrey, Susan Powter, and Lorena Bobbitt as being within the celebrity feminist zone, and how these women have provided a new way in which feminist ideas can be shared outside of academia. – Emily Weiss

Williams, Jeff. Editor "Academostars" a special issue of The Minnesota Review, 2001. 

Williamson, Catherine.  "Swimming Pools, Movie Stars: The Celebrity Body in the Post-War Marketplace."  Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture and Media Studies 38 (1996): 5-30.

This essay focuses on the relations between the swimming pool and the publicized athletic body of the swimmer and actress Esther Williams.  Williamson looks at the swimming pool's significance in the 1950's as a luxury item and status symbol. She examines how the backyard swimming pool became an important part of suburban homes through Williams' body, name, and accomplishments as a swimmer. While Williams' athletic female body was clearly an asset to the pool industry, it risked being seen by many as too masculine or homosexual.  As the author points out, advertisers found a way to lessen the stigma of these stereotypes by comparing female athletes to animals, likening the swimmer Williams, for example, to a "trained seal."  Williamson shows the correlation between the female body as an object of beauty and as a product itself, just as a celebrity is a product to be marketed. She points out that marketing a celebrity is much different for a female, especially one with an athletic body because audiences are partial to the image of bathing beauties. -- Eileen Nagle

Wilson, Cintra.  A Massive Swelling: Celebrity Re-Examined as a Grotesque, Crippling Disease and Other Cultural Revelations.  New York: Viking, 2000. 

Young, S. Mark and Drew Pinsky, "Celebrity and Narcissism," Journal of Research in Personality (October 2006): 463-471

In a widely-followed study, the authors used the Narcissistic Personality Index (NPI) to assesss the degree of narcissism among celebrities.  Results indicate that celebrities are significantly more narcissistic than MBA students and the general population.  Contrary to findings in the population at large, in which men are more narcissistic than women, female celebrities were found to be significantly more narcissistic than their male counterparts.   Reality television personalities had the highest overall score on the NPI, followed by comedians, actors, and musicians.  The analysis further fails to show any relationship between NPI scores and years of experience in the entertainment industry, suggesting that celebrities may have narcissistic tendencies prior to entering the industry.  -- adapted from the journal Abstract.

Zengotita, Thomas de. "Celebrity, Irony, and You." The Nation. 2 December 1996: 15-18.

                                                                  Updated  11 February 2011 by David Blake

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