This issue of Academic Quarter on the topic of Icon brings together scholars from film and media history, art history, literary history, imagology, cultural semiotics, star studies, fashion studies and cultural studies, initiating a further exploration of the phenomenon of ‘cultural iconicity’. For the purpose of this issue we propose the following definition of a cultural icon: A commercialized, yet sacralized visual, aural or textual representation anchored in a specific temporal/historical and spatial/geographical context, broadly recognized by its recipients as having iconic status for a group of human agents within one or several discursive fields/communities.

Within are contributions analyzing the phenomenon of cultural iconicity in the following areas of study: literature, music, art, fashion, film and other visual media, including photography. The reader will find papers that contribute further to the theorization of the field and its concepts, as well as papers that offer analyses of specific cases of cultural iconicity.