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"Ausgangspunkt meines Beitrages ist die wachsende Geschwindigkeit des akademischen Lebens. Wie auch aus den anderen Beiträgen deutlich wird, die diesem Themenschwerpunkt zugehören, gewinnt die Entschleunigungs-Bewegung, die sich der zeitgenössischen Geschwindigkeitsobsession entgegenstellt, auch in der Universität zunehmend an Bedeutung. Mit meinem Artikel schlage ich vor, innezuhalten und genauer anzusehen, welche Lösung Entschleunigung für die aktuelle Krise erbringt. Rückgreifend auf (auto-) biografisches Material und auf Beispiele der Populärkultur versuche ich zu zeigen, dass in der Entschleunigungs-Bewegung Klassen- und Genderdynamiken wirksam bleiben und dass auch ältere Inklusions- und Exklusionsmuster reproduziert werden. Im Besonderen werden spezifische Selbstkonzepte naturalisiert, in deren Zentrum ein individualistisches Selbst steht, das sich für die Zukunft plant und investiert." (Autorenreferat)

In this article, we offer an empirical contribution to complement cultural analyses of social class-making in Reality Television (RTV). We draw on qualitative interviews with young people in England (aged 14–19). Analysing these discursively, we explore how young people take up, resist and rework discourses of 'authenticity' within RTV shows including The Apprentice and The X Factor. We conceptualise young people's talk about RTV as performative, part of their 'identity work' through which they position themselves and others, and as embedded in wider processes of social distinction. We show that young people reject RTV contestants who are seen as too authentic in order to construct themselves as ordinary and thus normalise middle-classness. However, despite inviting audiences to make classed moral judgements, RTV provokes multiple readings. Specifically, some, mainly working-class, young people reject dominant discourses that pathologise working-class RTV contestants and instead value their lack of pretentiousness.

In this article, we explore the ways that contemporary young masculinities are performed and regulated through young people's relationship with celebrity. We address the relative paucity of work on young men's engagements with popular culture. Drawing on qualitative data from group interviews with 148 young people (aged 14-17) in England, we identify 'celebrity talk' as a site in which gender identities are governed, negotiated and resisted. Specifically we argue that celebrity as a space of imagination can bring to the study of masculinities a focus on their affective and collective mobilisation. Unpicking young men's and women's talk about Canadian pop star Justin Bieber and British boyband One Direction, we show how disgust and humour operate as discursive-affective practices which open up and close down certain meanings and identities. We conclude that while there have been shifts in the ways that masculinities are performed and regulated, hierarchies of masculinities anchored through hegemonic masculinity remain significant.

During recent decades, geek culture has become increasingly visible, and the geek has left the cultural margins, becoming more popular than ever. At the same time, nostalgia has emerged as a central component of geek culture. Framed by a post-structural understanding of gender and race and drawing on cultural theorist Svetlana Boym's distinction between reflective and restorative nostalgia, this article explores how and why geeks nostalgically long for a time when they were largely marginalized. We combine readings of Swedish online geek podcasts and YouTube channels with ethnographic visits to geek conferences and pop-cultural "geek fairs," such as Comic Con and SciFiWorld. We argue that geek nostalgia represents a clinging on to a "constitutive wound," allowing the geek figure to mobilize masculine victimhood in ways that simultaneously underpin geek privilege and allow the geek to continue operating as a white male gatekeeper of geek culture.

In this paper, we consider how the cultural politics of austerity within Britain plays out on the celebrity maternal body. We locate austerity as a discursive and disciplinary field and contribute to emerging feminist scholarship exploring how broader political and socio-economic shifts interact with cultural constructions of femininity and motherhood. To analyse the symbolic function of mediated celebrity maternity within austerity, the paper draws on a textual analysis of three celebrity mothers: Kate Middleton, Kim Kardashian, and Beyoncé. This analysis was undertaken as part of a larger qualitative study into celebrity culture and young people's classed and gendered aspirations. We show how these celebrity mothers represent the folk devils and fantasy figures of the maternal under austerity—the thrifty, happy housewife, the benefits mum, and the do-it-all working mum—and attempt to unpick what cultural work they do in the context of austerity within Britain. Through the lens of celebrity motherhood, we offer a feminist critique of austerity as a programme that both consolidates unequal class relations and makes punishing demands on women in general, and mothers in particular.

"Der hier vorgestellte Themenschwerpunkt ist aus zwei Seminaren hervorgegangen, die an der britischen Durham University im November 2013 bzw. im März 2014 stattfanden und sich mit der Frage beschäftigten, welche Konsequenzen sich aus einer wachsenden Entschleunigungsbewegung für die Universität ergeben könnten. Entschleunigung ist in unterschiedlichsten Kontexten zum Thema geworden, Stichworte sind u.a. Slowfood, Cittàslow und neuerdings auch Slow Science. Ziel der Seminare war es herauszufinden, inwieweit diese Bewegung Impulse geben könnte für den Umgang mit der Beschleunigung und Intensivierung der Arbeit bei uns vor Ort und in anderen Universitäten. In unserer Einleitung stellen wir das Konzept der entschleunigen Universität und unsere eigene, kritische Beschäftigung mit diesem Konzept vor. Die Artikel, die dem Themenschwerpunkt zugehören, befassen sich dann mit den Potenzialen, Herausforderungen, Problemen und Fallstricken einer entschleunigten Universität in Zeiten korporativer Kultur und marktförmiger Rationalität." (Autorenreferat)