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

Music, Music Making and Neoliberalism

Posted: February 13th, 2013 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | Comments Off on Music, Music Making and Neoliberalism

Call for Papers: Special Issue of Culture, Theory and Critique

 Music, Music Making and Neoliberalism

Theorizing the relationship between music and capitalist processes has been an ongoing concern for scholars in a number of disciplines.  Marx’s passing characterization of music as a form of unproductive labor, at worst a form of labor in a process of transition, would set the stage for much theorizing regarding the fate of music and music making under capitalism.  Much of the music-related scholarship dealing with capitalism has been primarily interested in the production, consumption and circulation of various musical texts (pieces of music, musical genres, specific artists or bands, and so on).  Critics have also addressed the broader implications of this dynamic to the act of music making, in one way or another, suggesting that music’s ability to critique, resist or cope with capitalism was predicated in its ability to remain at least partially independent from processes of mass production and consumption. Such approaches emphasize the notion that music’s engagement with capitalism begins at the moment when these texts and practices enter the marketplace, along the way complicating but not necessarily questioning whether music remains a form of unproductive labor, particularly in the context of late capitalism.

Read the rest of this entry »