Call for Papers
IASPM 2011 17th Biennial International Conference ‘Situating Popular Musics’
Grahamstown South Africa, Monday 27 June until Friday 1 July, 2011
For its 17th biennial conference, the International Association for the
Study of Popular Music (IASPM) invites papers which explore the many ways of
situating popular music in the light of IASPM celebrating its 30th year.
The opening plenary will be given by Philip Tagg, IASPM founder.
The week of the conference leads up to the Grahamstown National Arts
Festival which is the biggest arts festival in Africa and the southern
hemisphere. This will be a stimulating context for members of IASPM to
explore arguments about different popular music practices, spaces and
places.
The deadline for abstracts is 1st July 2010 conference email:
iaspm11@gmail.com
Abstracts should be no longer than 250 words and must be sent in special
format (please see end of this notice)
STREAMS
1. IASPM 30 Years On
When IASPM began back circa 1981, it pulled together a passionate,
fragmented group of people working at the fringe or outside the academy in
many different parts of the world, their work often looked down on by
mainstream musicologists and many music departments. Thirty years later
Popular Music is very much part of the academy (music, musicology, cultural
studies, sociology, history, media, women’s studies departments etc), with
an increasing number of large, research projects, publications, journals
and students. Its inter-disciplinarity has seen it draw on many theoretical
positions and have impact in many areas. What kind of benefits have come
with the institutionalisation of Popular Music? What has been achieved and
where are we heading? Have gender and disciplinary boundaries been breached
positively or only notionally? Has there been mutual influence between
disciplines? Why have popular music studies achieved a higher profile and
gained more ground in some countries rather than others? Does Anglo-US work
still dominate eclipsing revealing work from other cultural sources and if
so why? How does IASPM interface with professionals working outside the
academy? Have popular music studies had any impact on popular culture and
on society as a whole?
Convenors: Jan Fairley, Helmi Järviluoma
emails: iaspm11@gmail.com, jan.fairley@blueyonder.co.uk,
hjarvil@joyx.joensuu.fi
2. Multisited Popular Music
How have the development of theories and methodologies for multisited and
transcultural approaches to popular music impacted on research? This is
IASPM’s 2nd conference in Africa, the first being Ghana 1987 (Africa in the
World of Popular Music) an event which produced lively debates which some
feel got lost in subsequent years. With the conference in South Africa
comes an opportunity to map post colonial music scenes in the world on all
continents. It offers an opportunity to explore what is meant by African
music; to critique historical binaries; to consider the intricacies of
'diaspora'; to discuss the impact of Africa in the world, and the way
different African musics which are seen to underpin so many musics in the
world, regionally and generically, have interacted with and absorbed ‘other’
musics.
Convenors: Michael Drewett, Violeta Mayer
email: iaspm11@gmail.com, M.Drewett@ru.ac.za, violeuk@gmail.com
3. Popular Music and the Culturalization of the Economy
In many parts of the world music is now an integral part of the
‘culturalization of the economy’ with an increasing emphasis placed on
culture as part of local/ national/ international governing bodies, as part
of city regional and national economic re-generation, an integral part of
city festivals, music festivals and modern tourism. The opposite may be
true in countries which have strong, even burgeoning manufacturing
economies. What are the implications of these shifts for popular music and
for popular music studies?
Convenors: Héctor Fouce, Helmi Järviluoma
email: iaspm11@gmail.com, hector@fouce.net, hjarvil@joyx.joensuu.fi
4. Popular Music Challenges
How can a musician earn a living in the age of digital music? How and why
has the live scene reconfigured from stadium rock to living room concerts?
In what ways do pirate sites, legal downloads and streaming system coexist?
Who owns what in terms of authorship and technology? What kind of struggles
are going on? How has swiftly changing technology and media affected
creativity and performance practices in music and dance?
Convenors: Carlo Nardi, Héctor Fouce
email: iaspm11@gmail.com, josephbearboy@yahoo.com, hector@fouce.net
5. The Power and Politics of Sound and Body
Has it ever been valid to talk about ‘music’ per se and is it valid
anymore? How is musical creativity and composition responding to the
increasing demands and complexity of the technological world and its
so-called democratization’? What kind of musical analysis lends itself to
examining popular music texts created for different musical contexts today?
How ethnocentric and class-centric are musical metadiscourses? How is music
and dance being approached? Are old arguments concerning emotion and
meaning valid anymore? What methods are being used to explore the
relationship between music and religion; the ‘spiritual’; well-being;
health; political beliefs, and many kinds of human struggle?
Convenors, Jan Fairley, Violeta Mayer
email: iaspm11@gmail.com, jan.fairley@blueyonder.co.uk, violeuk@gmail.com
Abstracts should be no longer than 250 words and should be sent in the
following format
Title
Name
Mailing address
Telephone number
Email address
Abstract
Keywords (five keywords that best describe your topic)
PLEASE follow the following abstract email etiquette:
(i) send a copy of your abstract to both the conference
address and the convenors of your chosen streamas a word document
(ii) label your abstract file with your last name and stream
(i.e. smith popular music challenges.rtf, or smith popular music challenges.
doc), not the title of your proposal
(iii) write your surname and stream as the email subject line
of your email. i.e. Smith Popular Music Challenges
The conference address is iaspm11@gmail.com
DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACTS is 1st July 2010
We will notify participants in November 2010 and the programme will
published on line as soon as possible in 2011.
We look forward to seeing you at this very special conference in South
Africa in the 30th year of IASPM!
The IASPM-International Executive
