Special Issue of Americas: Sound, Activism, and Social Justice

Recent use of music and sound in social and political activism has recalled attention to their emotive, rhetorical, and infiltrative power. From the 2019 protests in Chile against economic inequality to the protests following the death of George Floyd in 2020, activists have seized upon music and sound–and creative methods to deliver them–not only to deploy urgent political messages, but also as tools to foster, enact, and sustain social change. We are acutely aware that change occurs not only through sonic emission but that it also requires listening. As recent studies have shown, aurality is a process through which people make sense out of the natural, social, and cultural world where they live. As such, aurality is not apolitical, since listening to sound–and to the messages it carries–is sensitive to power relations that mediate the circulation of aural messages in the public sphere. Thus, emission and listening have the potential to be activist strategies to contest politics of exclusion in order to effect objective transformations in the status quo.

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Dancecult Conference 2021

We are delighted to announce the call for proposals for Dancecult’s inaugural conference on the theme of ‘Reconnecting Global Dance Cultures’, to be held online on the 16^th and 17^th September 2021. From dancehall to raving, club cultures to sound systems, disco to techno, breakbeat to psytrance, hip hop to dubstep, IDM to noisecore, nortec to bloghouse, global EDMCs have all been affected by recent events. As we move out of the pandemic into yet another moment of global uncertainty, we seek to capture the experiences of our communities as we now look ahead to a new era for dance culture. What effect has the pandemic had on these formations? What lies ahead for clubs and festivals and how can they prepare for future disruptions? How have producers and clubbers adapted during the enforced digital migration? How can the industry and producers take advantage of these current paradigms and foster new connections with fans and between communities?

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All the Things You Are: Popular Music and Material Culture

31st Annual Conference of the German Society for Popular Music Studies GfPM in cooperation with the Dept. of Art and Material Culture, TU Dortmund University
22 – 24 October, 2021

The material side of culture plays a crucial role for human acting and thinking; culture cannot be con- ceived of without the involvement of things. People permanently materialize their concepts about the world surrounding them, their Lebenswelt, and they (re-)form and (re-)arrange them in a con- stant process. The material and the immaterial, reification and idea mingle and form a constellation which is compatible with both sides. Things, be they prominent or commonplace, are constantly be- ing invented, used and are object to signification; their multi-faceted compatibility is revealed in eve- ryday practice.

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Taylor Swift: Eras, Narrative, Digital Media and Music

Deadline for proposals (250 words): 11:59pm EST  March 31, 2021
Selection notification by April 15, 2021
Proposed date: July 17, 2021

On February 11, 2021, pop star Taylor Swift announced the anticipated re-release of her 2008 album Fearless, a project launched following the contentious and public battle between Swift and her former label Big Machine Records. While specific and noteworthy in its particulars, this release also comprises one in a long series of re-visiting and re-versioning of the star’s life and output by Swift, the media, her fans, and her detractors. Listening to Swift’s releases as artifacts of the current digital age, this study day seeks to position Swift as a prism through which to examine intersecting issues in contemporary music industries and media ecosystems, from copyright and pandemic creation, to multimedia star texts and digital fan practices.

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Historical Traces of European Radio Archives, 1930-1960

Dates: 28-29 October 2021
Location: University of Amsterdam and/or online
Organisers: Carolyn Birdsall, Corinna R. Kaiser and Erica Harrison
Contact: [email protected]
Abstracts: 15 April 2021, no more than 300 words plus short biography
Acceptance: 01 May 2021
Papers: 01 September 2021, position papers (2000-4500 words)

Bringing critical perspectives to bear on radio archives is the main departure point for this international workshop, which explores broadcasting, archives and the historical data they have co-produced. This two-day workshop brings together interdisciplinary perspectives from scholars and practitioners invested in theoretically-informed, connective histories about radio archives. It takes up a historical-geographical focus on radio archival collections in Europe that were affected by war and political transformations between 1930 and 1960, including case studies for Axis, as well as Allied, countries during and after World War II.

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Information Overload? Music Studies in the Age of Abundance

8-10 September 2021, University of Birmingham

Keynote Speakers:

Robin James (University of North Carolina at Charlotte)
Nick Seaver (Tufts University)
More speakers TBA

For those investigating any musical activity after about 1994, the main sources of research data will not be print archives or discrete media—they will be World Wide Web media. The Internet Archive, the web’s library, today holds over 525 billion archived web pages, while API and post-API archiving initiatives make social web platforms accessible as research databases. At first glance, no other archive is more inclusive in terms of whose voices it represents, and none more comprehensive in terms of the insights it provides into the thoughts, desires and musical tastes of ordinary people. To paraphrase the web historian Ian Milligan, whose recent book provides the title and framing for this conference, we might suggest that in its scale, granularity and plurality, the web represents the music historian’s dream.

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Global Hip-Hop Studies

Special Issue: ‘Breaking and the Olympics’ 

To be considered for this Special Issue, please submit the following via this Google Form by 31 May 2021:

• an abstract of 150–250 words (plus references, if necessary)
• author name(s)
• institutional affiliation(s)
• contact details a brief bio of no more than 150 words (which includes the author’s positionalities in relation to their topic).

Global Hip Hop Studies (GHHS) is a peer-reviewed, rigorous and community-responsive academic journal that publishes research on contemporary as well as historical issues and debates surrounding hip hop music and culture around the world.

The recent announcement of breaking in the 2024 Paris Olympics has stirred a substantial response from within and outside of hip hop culture. This special issue of GHHS is positioned to not only explore contemporary debates about breaking in the Olympics, but also to develop critical discourse that can offer insight to practitioners, cultural organizations and the IOC. We are especially interested in research projects that engage in local, regional and national perspectives and can provide useful resources transnationally for those involved in this milestone cultural moment. To this end, the issue will be published a year in advance of the 2024 Olympics in 2023.

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RGS-IBG Annual Conference

31 August – 3 September 2021
*** This session will be hosted online *** 

RGS-IBG Annual Conference

Session title: A ‘cultural catastrophe’? The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the arts and cultural sectors and possible pathways to recovery

Session organisers:  Andrew Leyshon, Nottingham University and Allan Watson, Loughborough University

We have pleasure in inviting proposals for papers to be presented at the following online session at this year’s RGS-IBG Annual Conference.

Abstracts (max. 250 words), along with the title of the session and author contact details (name, affiliation, email address), should please be sent to Andrew Leyshon ([email protected]) and Allan Watson ([email protected]) by Monday 1^st March. We aim to notify accepted presenters by Monday 8^th March.

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Jazz Re:Search in 21st-Century Academia and Beyond

Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Institute for Jazz Research
13th International Jazz Research Conference, Graz (Austria)
18—21 November 2021

Hosted by the Institute for Jazz Research and the International Society for Jazz Research at the University of Music and Performing Arts GrazFounded in 1971, the Institute for Jazz Research at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz (KUG) is a historic cornerstone of academic jazz research. Along with similar institutions, like the Rutgers University Institute of Jazz Studies (founded 1966), the Institute helped to pave the way for and profoundly shape the discipline known as “jazz studies”, bearing witness to its transformation from a decidedly musicological to an inter-, even transdisciplinary investigation into what has been understood as jazz in their respective times.

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Technology and Change in Music Cultures

University of Turku & Åbo Akademi University 5–7 May 2020

The Finnish Society for Ethnomusicology and the departments of musicology at Turku University and Åbo Akademi University in collaboration with the research project ‘The impact of digitalization on minority music’ are pleased to invite researchers interested in music to attend to the 24th Annual Symposium for Music Scholars in Finland.

The event will take place on 5-7 May as an Internet symposium due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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