Welcome to The International Association for the Study of Popular Music UK and Ireland Branch

Frames of Listening: Popular Music and Visual Culture

Posted: August 26th, 2014 | Filed under: Calls for Papers, IASPM Conferences | No Comments »

IASPM-Canada 32nd Annual Conference
University of Ottawa – Carleton University, May 27/28 – 30, 2015

“Frames of Listening: Popular Music and Visual Culture” aims at exploring the intersections of sound and images across a range of popular music genres and cultural forms. With the advent of YouTube in 2005 and the proliferation of handheld technologies and social networking sites, musical-visual culture in a variety of forms has become readily accessible to millions worldwide. Even before the digital revolution, musical artists collaborated with visual artists to develop iconic images that had the power to shape identities, to communicate social messages, to strengthen genre affiliations, and to sell records. How do we receive and interpret the intersections of music and moving images in popular music? How do these multi-sensorial artistic expressions do cultural work and shape the world?

As a site for a conference on popular music and visual culture, Ottawa offers a number of key advantages: the city is home to two major research institutions, with active researchers in the field of Popular Music Studies; the government agencies situated in the National Capital Region have an impact on Canadian Music; the National Archives and museums afford important research opportunities; the city is in close proximity to a number of major cities in Ontario, Quebec and the northern U.S.; the region boasts a host of venues for evening performances, a wide variety of gastronomic possibilities as well as outdoor activities (the Rideau Canal, the Rideau and Ottawa Rivers, and the beautiful Gatineau Park).

While proposals on any topic relating to popular music are welcome, the conference organizers especially invite proposals for individual presentations, panels, workshops or performances on topics related to the theme of the conference, including (but not restricted to) the following:

  • music / image aesthetics, theory, and analysis
  • uses of popular music in screen media: theory, history, and practice
  • audio-visual production and reception
  • technologies of new media and popular music
  • mediation of and in popular music genres
  • audio-visual representations of gender, sexuality, race, class, age, and ability
  • popular music iconography; art; graffiti; artist portraits
  • mediated branding and product placement
  • musician – visual artist collaborations
  • performance art and the moving/sounding image

These themes will be brought into focus in a Plenary Panel Presentation featuring international scholars Stan Hawkins (University of Oslo, Norway), John Richardson (University of Turku, Finland), and Carol Vernallis (Stanford University, U.S.).

Proposals for single papers, workshops, performances or other forms of presentation may be submitted. Abstracts for individual papers, roundtables, and workshops should be no longer than 300 words; proposals for panels should include an abstract for the panel as a whole (300 words max.) as well as an individual abstract for each paper proposed for the panel (300 words max.). It is possible that the program committee may accept a panel but reject an individual paper on that panel.

The local organizers will be applying to SSHRC for conference funding. SSHRC requires the following information from each presenter. Please submit this, along with your 300-word abstract, in a single Word document (use your last name as the document’s file name–e.g., “Hendrix.doc” NOT “IASPM abstract.doc”). Please do not submit your proposal as a PDF file.

  • Status as a student or nonstudent
  • Family Name
  • Given Name
  • Initials
  • Organization (i.e., university)
  • Department/Division
  • Country
  • List degrees, specifying the discipline, starting with the most recent.
  • List recent positions and those relevant to the event. Start with the most recent.
  • List recent publications and those relevant to the event. Start with the most recent.
  • 150 char title of proposed presentation.
  • 100-150 abstract of proposed presentation.

Please submit your abstract in French or English, depending on the language in which the paper will be presented by 15 October 2014 to Richard Sutherland <[email protected]>

Papers will be limited to a standard 20-minute length followed by 10 minutes of questions, whereas other presentations will be limited to 60 minutes. All participants must be members of IASPM-Canada or provide proof of membership in another IASPM national chapter. Membership information is available on the membership page.

For questions about the conference, contact program chair, Richard Sutherland <[email protected]>, or local arrangement chair, Lori Burns <[email protected]>.

Submission deadlines:

10 NOVEMBER 2014

Applicants will be notified of the program committee’s final decisions by 15 December 2014.

Program Committee:

Melvin Backstrom, McGill University
Sandria Bouliane, McGill University
Norma Coates, Western University
James Deaville, Carleton University
Paul Sanden, University of Lethbridge
Jesse Stewart, Carleton University
Richard Sutherland (Chair) Mount Royal University

Local Arrangements Committee:

Lori Burns (Co-Chair), University of Ottawa
James Deaville (Co-Chair), Carleton University
James McGowan, Carleton University
Hélène Laurin, University of Ottawa
Krisandra Ivings, University of Ottawa
Agnes Malkison, Carleton University
Jada Watson, Laval University



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