Brian Eno

Call for contributors: 

On the back of his published diary (A Year with Swollen Appendices, Faber 1996) Brian Eno describes himself variously as: a mammal, a father, an artist, a celebrity, a pragmatist, a computer- user, an interviewee, and a ‘drifting clarifier’. To this list we might add rock star (on the first two Roxy Music albums); the creator of lastingly influential music (Another Green World; Music for Airports); a trusted producer (for Talking Heads, U2, Coldplay and a host of other artists); the maker of large-scale video and installation artworks; a maker of apps and interactive software; and so on, and so on. All in all, he is one of the most feted and most influential musical figures of the past forty years (even though he himself has consistently downplayed his musical abilities, describing himself as an anti-musician on more than one occasion).

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Perspectives on Musical Improvisation

10th-13th September 2012
Faculty of Music, University of Oxford

Conference theme

Improvisation is arguably the most widely distributed form of musical practice – and yet remains the least studied or understood. Indeed, even the boundaries of what is or is not regarded as improvisation remain unclear. This conference will address the many faces of improvisation from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives – historical, psychological, ethnomusicological, analytical, technological, sociological, organological, and pedagogical. Over the course of four days, the conference will include papers, practical sessions, and poster presentations.

The conference is affiliated to the AHRC-funded Centre for Musical Performance as Creative Practice (CMPCP) and enjoys the support of SEMPRE, IMR, BFE, and SMA.

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Music and Queer Theory

Call for contributions – Transposition. Musique et sciences sociales nº 3

(http://transposition-revue.org)

Queer theory is likely one of the most well-known and controversial recent schools of thought, and its impact has been felt in the academic world and beyond. It appeared in the early 1990s in the United States, as a direct offshoot of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered) collectives, the work of Foucault (in particular, his History of Sexuality and ideas such as “biopolitics”), and Derrida’s deconstructionism. This school of thought, while in no way a homogenous trend, is characterized by the questioning of the notion of gender and the idea that sexual identity and behaviour would be genetically determined. In this context, queer theory formulates the hypothesis that sexuality is actually a social construction. This presumes that sexuality is not biologically stamped on human nature, but rather takes on ever-changing social forms, wherein a given individual can live out one or many sexual identities. This hypothesis leads us to call into question social classifications from the fields of traditional psychology, philosophy, anthropology, and sociology, which tend to look at one measure at a time for classifying individuals (class, gender, etc.).

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The Home of Metal: Heavy Metal and Place

1 – 4 September 2011.
University of Wolverhampton and Light House, Wolverhampton

The conference is part of the Home of Metal project, which celebrates Birmingham and the Black Country as the birthplace of Heavy Metal. A series of exhibitions, live events, and film screenings will also take place across the region all exploring various themes of Heavy Metal. Please visit homeofmetalconference.com for further information and to book a place. All delegates must book in advance.

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Popular Music and Society

Guest editor: Mark Duffett

Popular Music and Society invites article proposals for a new special issue. Fandom is both a personal expression of emotional conviction and a complex, changing, multi-faceted social phenomenon that now encompasses both online and offline activity. The study of fandom is a scholarly niche that exists at the intersection of a wide range of interests and connections. It can be contextualized by wider media research (theory by scholars such as Henry Jenkins and Matt Hills; reception analysis; celebrity studies; ethnography; subcultural theory) and by direct research into popular music culture (ethnomusicology; research on listening; live music audiences; studies of music in everyday life).

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IASPM postgrad conference programme and registration form

Here are two documents for download that will prove useful for those intending to take part in the IASPM postgrad conference June 9-10, 2011:

IASPM postgrad conference registration form

IASPM postgrad conference programme

Participations Special Issue: Music and Audiences

Proposals are sought for a special issue of Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies on music and audiences. The theme of this issue will be an examination of the music audience from a range of perspectives, with both theoretical and empirical research welcomed on all aspects of music and reception. The issue would also particularly be interested in proposals that consider music audiences in the context of debates over technology and the Internet, and in articles which focus on issues of genre, different music fan cultures, or the specifics and particularities of music audiences, due to contexts such as sexuality, generation or nationality.

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Hip Hop Samples Jazz

IMR Seminars: ‘Directions in Musical Research’. Thursday 2 June 2011, 5-6.30pm.
Senate House, Malet Street, London
South Block, Ground Floor, room G35
(Nearest tubes: Euston Square, Russell Square, Goodge Street)
http://music.sas.ac.uk/imr-events/imr-seminars.html#c1213

Tom Perchard (Goldsmiths): ‘Hip Hop Samples Jazz: Dynamics of Cultural Memory and Musical Tradition in the African American 1990s’

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Sites of Popular Music Heritage – Symposium

Institute of Popular Music, University of Liverpool
8–9 September 2011

We invite proposals from a broad range of academic disciplines for a 2 day symposium examining sites of popular music heritage: from institutions such as museums, to geographic locations, websites and online archives. Papers are welcomed that explore popular music within narratives of heritage and identity, real and imagined geographies, cultural memory and contested histories. The event will focus on three thematic areas:

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Inaugural IASPM postgraduate conference

The inaugural IASPM postgraduate conference at the University of Liverpool invites papers on the stories we tell about popular music. We are interested particularly in illuminating how the intersection of story with study produces a contested space filled with a multitude of views. It is precisely this multitude we find fruitful for investigation.

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