In recent years, the study of celebrity has developed and cohered into a flourishing field of social and cultural analysis. There is huge interest in topics such as the politics and logic of glamour; the role of the public-relations industry in manipulating television audiences; the relationship between fame and social control; and the economics of the so-called celebrity industry. And as interest in celebrity continues to explode, a variety of forerunners to its studydrawing on materials from a wide range of disciplines including sociology, cultural studies, history, psychology, organization studies, politics, film, and literary studieshave been rediscovered and reformulated. Among the lines of enquiry and critical tools that have been recuperated as pertinent to the study of celebrity are leadership, charisma, role models, heroes, role sets, ideology, manipulation, commodification, interpellation, narcissism, signification and individuality.

The sheer scale of the available research exploring the many implications of the phenomenon of celebrityand the breadth and complexity of the canon on which celebrity studies drawsmakes this new Major Work from Routledge especially timely. It answers the urgent need for a wide-ranging collection which provides easy access to the key items of scholarly literature, material that is often inaccessible or scattered throughout a variety of specialist journals and books. In four volumes, Celebrity brings together the best and most influential foundational and cutting-edge research on: the aetiology and basic concepts of celebrity (including charisma, narcissism, and commodification); theoretical and methodological approel...