Posted: November 11th, 2014 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | Comments Off on Songs of Social Protest
A two day symposium: Thursday 30th April & Friday 1st May 2015, University of Limerick, Ireland
Following on from successful symposia on The Smiths, Morrissey, Riot Grrrl and David Bowie, the research cluster ‘Popular Music and Popular Culture’, in conjunction with ‘Power, Discourse and Society’ at the University of Limerick, Ireland, now convene a two day symposium to examine songs of social protest from a global perspective. An approach that takes into account the radical contexts of music is central to examining processes of empowerment and disempowerment in the current neoliberal age. Underpinned by a theoretical framework derived from the work of Stuart Hall, Richard Middleton, Ian Peddie, Serge Dennisoff, Philip Tagg, and Johnathan Friedman we take as our starting point that popular culture (in the broadest sense), and music in particular, may reproduce or challenge the cultural / political status quo in contemporary societies across the globe. In this interdisciplinary conference, we therefore particularly welcome papers that address (but are not limited to) the following:
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Posted: November 3rd, 2014 | Filed under: Calls for Papers, IASPM Conferences | Comments Off on “What Will Remain of the Eighties?” Popular Music and Jazz in Italy between 1980 and 2000
Parma, “Arrigo Boito” Conservatory, 13-14 February 2015
The 1980s and 1990s have been overlooked for a long time in music history studies, in spite of the big technological, economic, social, political changes that took place in those decades: Reaganism and Thatcherism, the fall of the Soviet bloc, globalization, and the gradual dismantling of the welfare state. In music, the 1980s and 1990s brought the development of samplers and computer-based instruments, the creation and mass marketing of digital formats, satellite broadcasts, MTV, hard disk and laptop recording, ‘world music’, and stylistic innovations in many music genres.
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Posted: October 23rd, 2014 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | Comments Off on Dark Sound Symposium 2015
Dark Sound: Destructive Pop 2015, Popular Music Symposium
The Academy of Music and Theatre Arts, Falmouth University, 24th and 25th April, 2015
We invite proposals that wish to address and respond to the destructive character of dark sound in popular music.
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Posted: October 23rd, 2014 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | Comments Off on Popular Music Fandom and the Public Sphere: A One Day Symposium
University of Chester, Friday, 10th April 2015
Keynote speaker: Dr Cornel Sandvoss, University of Surrey
In the mainstream media, postwar popular music fandom has traditionally been associated with collective displays of emotion. Yet fandom is actually about a range of things: shared tastes and personal convictions, individual subjectivity and wider community. Fandom does not exist entirely in private nor entirely in public, but is characterized a process of continual mediation between the two. Jürgen Habermas’s concept of the public sphere suggests that shared spaces of discussion have political consequences, making the crossing of the private/public boundary a political act. It is possible for fans to have relatively public experiences in private and private experiences in public. What new forms of public sphere does popular music fandom create? Edward Comentale suggested that Elvis Presley created a “public sphere within the public sphere.” Furthermore, both ‘the public’ and ‘the private’ are transforming in a networked society and neoliberal era. As communities of imagination, fan bases are providing new models for public activism based on shared values. Fandom can therefore help to indicate where conceptions of the private and public might require some reformulation. We invite papers associated with this subject on specific topics such as the following:
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Posted: October 15th, 2014 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | Comments Off on 25th Annual Pacific Northwest (PNW) Graduate Music Conference
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC February 21–22, 2015
The 25th Annual Pacific Northwest Graduate Music Conference will take place at the University of British Columbia (UBC) School of Music, February 21–22, 2015, in Vancouver, BC.
This conference provides an excellent forum for young music scholars in various sub-disciplines to exchange ideas and present original research. Professor Nathan Hesselink (UBC) will deliver the keynote talk, “Bring On the Night: Rhythmic Play, Compositional Intent, and Communication in the Music of The Police.”
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Posted: October 9th, 2014 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | Comments Off on The Electric Guitar in Popular Culture
Friday March 27 and Saturday March 28, 2015
Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio, USA
The Electric Guitar in Popular Culture aims to examine the roles of the electric guitar in cultures throughout the world. It is intended to serve as a space for academics, professionals, hobbyists and fans to engage in dialogue about topics related to the electric guitar and its cultural influence. We seek to explore the answers to many questions, including but not limited to:
- How has the electric guitar altered music and the lives of musicians throughout its history?
- How has the electric guitar impacted local music scenes in northwest Ohio and those throughout the world?
- Have changing representations of the guitar in popular culture impacted aspiring musicians?
- How have advances in technology impacted the production of electric guitars for both producers and consumers?
- How have various cultures and perspectives surrounding the electric guitar shifted over time?
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Posted: October 7th, 2014 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | Comments Off on Embracing the Margins: Counter-Mainstream Sensibilities in Popular Music
University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, March 27–28, 2015
Sponsored by the UNC Music Department and the AMS Popular Music Study Group
Keynote Speakers: Theo Cateforis (Syracuse) and Robin James (UNC–Charlotte)
What does it mean for musicians and fans to identify their own genre of popular music as marginal? What kind of cultural and aesthetic work is accomplished in this act? This type of stance has informed the politics and aesthetics of countless genres—from the more obvious manifestations of punk, indie, and experimental music to less-often affiliated traditions such as country, metal, jazz, blues, hip-hop, world music, R&B, folk, and electronic dance music. A sensibility of self-identified marginality can contribute to deeply ingrained notions of legitimacy, whether regarding musical style, social identification, spiritual conviction, or aesthetic values. Too often, however, studies of marginal musical identity have remained isolated within their respective genres or limited to the politics of social resistance.
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Posted: October 2nd, 2014 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | Comments Off on International Conference on the Multimodal Experience of Music
ICMEM, Sheffield, 23-25 March 2015
In live and virtual situations, music listening and performing are multimodal experiences: Sounds may be experienced tactically, music evokes visual images or is accompanied by visual presentations, and both generate vivid cross-modal associations in terms of force, size, physical location, emotion, fluency and regularity, among others.
ICMEM aims to bring together researchers from various disciplines who investigate the multimodality of musical experiences from different perspectives. Disciplines may include among others audiology, cognition, computer science, ethnomusicology, film studies, music performance and theory, neuroscience, philosophy, and psychology.
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Posted: September 22nd, 2014 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | Comments Off on Christian Congregational Music: Local and Global Perspectives Conference
Deadline for proposals: 12 December 2014
Conference dates: 4-7 August 2015
Conference website: http://congregationalmusic.org
Venue: Ripon College Cuddesdon, Oxford, United Kingdom
Congregational music-making is a vital and vibrant practice within Christian communities worldwide. It reflects, informs, and articulates convictions and concerns that are irreducibly local even as it flows along global networks. Congregational song can unify communities of faith across geographical and cultural boundaries; however, it can also be used to mark divisions between Christians of different denominations, cultural backgrounds, and social classes, and to negotiate or articulate difference in relation to religious outsiders. We therefore cannot understand the meanings, uses, and influences of congregational music within Christianity without exploring both its local contexts and its translocal, transnational, and global circulation.
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Posted: September 19th, 2014 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | Comments Off on Current Trends in Italian Popular Music Studies
Research Networking Colloquium
March 18-19 2015, University of Hull (UK)
Italian Popular Music Studies in the UK and USA has seen increased interest over recent years, with themed issues of prominent journals Modern Italy and Popular Musicin 2008, PhD projects recently completed and ongoing, and colloquia and workshops organised in 2012 and 2014 by Indiana University. This colloquium aims to bring together colleagues from the UK, Italy, the USA, and beyond, to continue the discussions around the place and prominence of popular music studies within the broader discipline of Italian Studies.
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