Document Type
Essay
Abstract
[First paragraph]
The essays in this issue make an interesting contribution, from a variety of angles and through a variety of contexts, to the development of a spatial theory of stardom. Such a theory would address the mechanisms of transcendence from whatever location is marked as relevant and formative in the public career and imagery of a particular star or celebrity. At first sight, the space of stardom and celebrity is inextricably circumscribed by a dependence on the physical body of the star. But this body is of a special kind, raised to the level of a supranormal sign before it has the capacity to be noticed. So as the vogue for digitally exhumed stars serves to demonstrate, the most decisive feature of the star or celebrity body is the manner and mode of its location in the realm of the symbolic and the discursive.
Repository Citation
King, Barry. "Afterword." Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture vol. 12, no. 1, 2012, pp. 1–3. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/reconstruction/vol12/iss1/11