Symposium: The Kardashian Decade

The Centre for Life-Writing Research at King’s College London was delighted to host ‘Keeping Up with the Kardashian Decade’, a short symposium on life-writing in the age of the Kardashians. Organised by Rob Gallagher (KCL, Postdoctoral Research Associate) and Oline Eaton (KCL, CLWR Visiting Research Fellow) as a part of Ego-Media, the afternoon featured talks followed by a panel discussion among scholars from diverse fields. Hannah Yellin (Oxford-Brookes, Lecturer in Media and Culture) started the session with a discussion of the Kardashian’s Armenianness and beauty regimen, as portrayed in the memoir Kardashian Konfidential (2010). Alexandra Georgakopoulou (KCL, Professor of Discourse Analysis & Sociolinguistics) followed with an analysis of Kim Kardashian’s self-presentation through the ‘Stories’ feature on apps. Rob Gallagher then made the case for the Kardashian smart-phone role-playing apps as forms of procedural biography, while Oline Eaton historically situated the emergent conventions of #MAGA life-writing as visible in responses to and writing about the Kardashians. A recording of the event is available here.