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

Shifting Ground: A Symposium on Music and Publishing

Posted: January 21st, 2011 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | No Comments »

11th April 2011
Oxford Brookes University

The Oxford Brookes Popular Music Research Unit, in association with The Royal Musical Association and The Oxford International Centre for Publishing Studies, is holding a one-day symposium exploring links between music and publishing in its broadest sense on April 11th, 2011. This event is intended to bring together academics, journalists and publishers to explore this previously neglected area which offers exciting opportunities to tap into current concerns about the effects of the internet on the dissemination of music, to explore how our experience of music is shaped by publications relating to it, and to explore more broadly the important issue of the relationship between music and commerce, both in a historical context and in the present. The day will feature themed paper sessions, a keynote presentation from the Music Publishing Association, a discussion panel of journalists including Fiona Maddocks and Alyn Shipton focusing on writing about classical, jazz and popular music and will end with a round table discussion featuring Dr Dai Griffiths (Brookes), Dr Lee Marshall (Bristol) and Dr Simon Warner (Leeds) to consider future directions of research in this area.

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Norient academic online journal

Posted: January 17th, 2011 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | No Comments »

With the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM) approaching its 30th birthday, norient wants to contribute to this anniversary by dedicating its first issue of the norient academic online journal to popular music ethnographies – with a twist. While IASPM has been a major force in contributing to the study of popular music using a methodologically broad approach these studies have to a large extent been focused on a North American and British/European popular music legacy.

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Audio-visuality

Posted: January 12th, 2011 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | No Comments »

A conference on the experience of audio-visual art, artefacts, and media texts
May 26-28, 2011

Sound is one of the most overwhelming and omnipresent ‘interferences’ in modern life – and at the same time one of the most volatile and transient [human] experiences. Each individual can – with mobile media like the iPod – be accompanied by her own individual soundtrack, and thus ‘score’ the experience of everyday living. Sound as such normally cannot be seen but both heard and felt, which makes it fundamentally multi- or synaesthetical. Our multi-sensuous reality, appealing to all the senses, is being reduced to exactly an audio-visual culture in (and?) what could generally be considered its electronically mediated version. In relation to the massive amount of audio-visuality we can state that research and the broad field of sound discourse are still inadequate when it comes to the qualitative exploration of aesthetic reception, theoretical and epistemological questions, dimensions, and themes. We are still hesitant and insecure in our knowledge on how an audio-visual phenomenon or a work of art may influence us, how we experience it and (inter)act with it, and what kind of experience, knowledge and understanding a predominantly audio-visual and multi-sensory culture facilitates and how it ?engages us in as late modern human beings. We imagine that the relations between sound and “a good experience” can be explored through genealogies of sound and listening and through reflections on the interactions of sound, listening/hearing and other sensory experiences.

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Making Things Whole Again: The Take That Reunion

Posted: January 5th, 2011 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | No Comments »

3-4 June 2011
An interdisciplinary conference examining the theme of break-up and reunion in popular music acts, focusing on Take That. Organised by the University of Salford in conjunction with the exhibition “Fan Networks in the Pre-Digital Age: Take That Fans 1990-1996”.

The long-anticipated reunion of Take That and Robbie Williams and the unprecedented sales figures for their summer tour 2011 offer an excellent opportunity for scholars from a range of academic disciplines to discuss key issues arising from this contemporary popular music phenomenon. From at least the time of the Beatles, the break-up of a favoured band has had profound implications for fans, followers, and the music industry.

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