Celebrity: An Unauthorised History

‘Celebrity: An Unauthorised History’ points a telephoto lens at one of modernity’s most mesmerising and perplexing cultural phenomena: stardom. The course begins and ends in London. We will open in the eighteenth century, when David Garrick, first superstar of the theatre, is treading the boards. The curtain closes in 1997, when the late Princess Diana is became the focus for a world in mourning. Between those two points, this course will drive a wide arc through the interrelated worlds of politics and entertainment, reflecting on forms of celebrity in diverse cultures and contexts. Drawing from historian Fred Inglis' argument that celebrity is a ‘product of culture and technology’, an ‘adhesive’ that pulls together ‘public politics, civil society, and private domestic life’, this journey through the history of celebrity will track the rise of individualism, consumerism, the arrival of mass media and the emerging impact of digital formats and social media. The course shows that celebrity—and our preoccupation with it—reveals much about our society and even more about ourselves.