CFP Special Issue: Meghan Markle and the British Royal Family

From Hannah Yelin

This CfP may be of interest to members:

Call for Papers

Special Issue: Meghan Markle and the British Royal Family
Deadline for submitting abstracts November 30th 2018
Editors: Hannah Yelin and Laura Clancy
The Journal of Gender Studies
JGS supporting Editor: Anita Biressi

This CfP is for a proposed special issue with The Journal of Gender Studies. Authors will be informed in February after the journal’s next board meeting. Please email abstracts of under 400 words and a short author bio to l.clancy2@lancaster.ac.uk.

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On 19th May 2018, Prince Harry married Meghan Markle at Windsor Castle. The event was a watershed moment for representations of the contemporary British monarchy: a self-proclaimed feminist, divorced, bi-racial, American actor marrying into the ancient patriarchal institution.

Just as Princess Diana has piqued the interest of scholars of gender, class, race, media and celebrity (including a Journal of Gender Studies special issue dedicated to her nearly twenty years ago in 1999), Meghan Markle is also a figure ripe for attention in the current sociopolitical landscape. The wedding was a spectacle of contradictions as two historic institutions defined by patriarchal tradition – marriage and the monarchy – met with public accolades of feminist progress and modernisation. As such, it is a rich site to examine the gender, racial and class politics of celebrity, royalty and matrimony surrounding a global, contemporary media event.

The British monarchy is remarkably under-researched in academic scholarship, but the popularity and importance of the wedding calls for sustained analysis of a key cultural moment.

This special issue welcomes interdisciplinary, intersectional, feminist approaches to Meghan Markle, the royal wedding, and its surrounding contexts. We actively seek diverse voices, approaches, and methods.

Topics for consideration include, but are by no means limited to:

· (Post-)feminism and feminist movements
· Representations of race and ethnicity
· The politics of diversity and multiculturalism
· Social class and inequalities
· Contemporary love, marriage and the wedding industry
· The monarchy and the media industries – television, social media, PR
· The royal wedding and the wider creative industries – craft, fashion, design
· Media events and media spectacle
· Royalty in the twenty first century
· The context of the wedding – Brexit, Windrush scandal, Trump, Austerity Britain
· Celebrity cultures – Meghan’s star image, celebrity feminism/activism, the guestlist
· Harry and Meghan as a transatlantic celebrity couple
· Historical parallels with Prince Edward and Wallis Simpson
· How audiences have made meaning around the royal wedding
· Public/media responses to the royal wedding

We greatly look forward to reading your submissions,

Hannah and Laura