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

Ladies and Gentlemen: Miss Grace Jones

Posted: December 5th, 2016 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | No Comments »

A symposium at Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh, 27-28 April 2017

Grace Jones’ contributions to multiple fields of culture over more than forty years – especially music, performance, fashion, and film – have established her as an iconic figure. To mark the 40th anniversary of her debut album, Portfolio, the University of Edinburgh is holding a two-day symposium on Jones’ diverse range of work and its enduring significance and influence.

We invite 20-minute paper contributions (or pre-constituted, three-speaker panels) on any aspects of Grace Jones’ career. Possible topics for discussion include (but are not limited to):

• Extended analyses of particular Grace Jones albums or individual tracks
• Jones’ key musical collaborators (the Compass Point All Stars and others)
• Jones, Compass Point studios and the cosmopolitan in contemporary popular music
• Jones and the cover version as creative strategy
• Jones’ influence within dance music cultures from Disco onwards
• Jones and Jamaica
• Jones and non-normative forms of black culture and identity within popular music
• Jones, androgyny, sexuality and performativity within popular music
• Jones as live performer and performance artist
• Jones and the producer as auteur (Trevor Horn, Tom Moulton, Alex Sadkin and others)
• Jones, Jean-Paul Goude and the performer’s public image as creative statement within post-1970 popular music
• The contribution of Island Records to popular music since the 1970s
• Jones and the creative cultures of NYC and other global cities
• Jones’ parallel careers in fashion and film
• Jones and the evolution of celebrity and celebrity cultures since the 1970s
• Jones and post-1960s cultures of decadence and excess
• Jones and postmodern divadom
• Jones and popular music fan cultures
• Jones’ influence on her contemporaries and subsequent generations of musicians and performers
• Jones and the rise of reissue and legacy edition cultures in twenty-first-century popular music
• Jones in the twenty-first century

Keynote speakers at the symposium will be announced soon. The event will also include screenings and nightclubbing. You can follow updates relating to the symposium online: @onlytherhythm / gracejonessymposium.tumblr.com.

Please send all paper proposals to [email protected] by 5pm on Monday 9 January 2017. Decisions will be made, and a provisional schedule announced, by Friday 20 January 2017. Ladies and Gentlemen, Miss Grace Jones is being co-organised by Dr Glyn Davis ([email protected]) and Dr Jonny Murray ([email protected]). We’re not perfect, but we’re perfect for you.



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