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CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS - CELEBRITY GOSSIP: INDUSTRY AND IDENTITY (SCMS 2011; SUBMISSIONS DUE 08/10/2010) Plainly put: without gossip, there would be no celebrities. Indeed, what we say and read about stars and celebrities constitutes their images just as much, if not more, than any film role, television appearance, or commercial endorsement. Long dismissed as the shrill, smutty stepchild of Hollywood, the phenomenal success of Perez Hilton and TMZ reminds us that gossip remains as profitable and pertinent as during its ‘golden age’ spanning the 1930s-40s. This panel thus aims to explore celebrity gossip in its myriad forms: as an industry, a form of media, and a means of identity formation. It will thus pay specific attention to the ways in which gossip not only forms a crucial node in the production of popular entities, but influences and organizes the ways in which those figures are received in both the domestic and international sphere. Read more.