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

Dark Sound Symposium 2015

Posted: October 23rd, 2014 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | No Comments »

Dark Sound: Destructive Pop 2015, Popular Music Symposium
The Academy of Music and Theatre Arts, Falmouth University, 24th and 25th April, 2015

We invite proposals that wish to address and respond to the destructive character of dark sound in popular music.

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Popular Music Fandom and the Public Sphere: A One Day Symposium

Posted: October 23rd, 2014 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | No Comments »

University of Chester, Friday, 10th April 2015

Keynote speaker: Dr Cornel Sandvoss, University of Surrey

In the mainstream media, postwar popular music fandom has traditionally been associated with collective displays of emotion. Yet fandom is actually about a range of things: shared tastes and personal convictions, individual subjectivity and wider community. Fandom does not exist entirely in private nor entirely in public, but is characterized a process of continual mediation between the two. Jürgen Habermas’s concept of the public sphere suggests that shared spaces of discussion have political consequences, making the crossing of the private/public boundary a political act. It is possible for fans to have relatively public experiences in private and private experiences in public. What new forms of public sphere does popular music fandom create? Edward Comentale suggested that Elvis Presley created a “public sphere within the public sphere.” Furthermore, both ‘the public’ and ‘the private’ are transforming in a networked society and neoliberal era. As communities of imagination, fan bases are providing new models for public activism based on shared values. Fandom can therefore help to indicate where conceptions of the private and public might require some reformulation. We invite papers associated with this subject on specific topics such as the following:

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25th Annual Pacific Northwest (PNW) Graduate Music Conference

Posted: October 15th, 2014 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | No Comments »

University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC February 21–22, 2015 

The 25th Annual Pacific Northwest Graduate Music Conference will take place at the University of British Columbia (UBC) School of Music, February 21–22, 2015, in Vancouver, BC.

This conference provides an excellent forum for young music scholars in various sub-disciplines to exchange ideas and present original research. Professor Nathan Hesselink (UBC) will deliver the keynote talk, “Bring On the Night: Rhythmic Play, Compositional Intent, and Communication in the Music of The Police.”

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AHRC funding for UK/EU Arts and Humanities Doctoral Research Students

Posted: October 14th, 2014 | Filed under: News | No Comments »

The Midlands3Cities Doctoral Training Partnership will be awarding 410 PhD studentships over a five year period to excellent research students in the arts and humanities. A collaboration between Birmingham City University, De Montfort University, Leicester, Nottingham University, Nottingham Trent University, and the University of Birmingham, the partnership provides research candidates with cross-institutional mentoring, expert supervision including cross-institutional supervision where appropriate, subject specific and generic training, and professional support in preparing for a career.

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The Electric Guitar in Popular Culture

Posted: October 9th, 2014 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | No Comments »

Friday March 27 and Saturday March 28, 2015
Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio, USA

The Electric Guitar in Popular Culture aims to examine the roles of the electric guitar in cultures throughout the world. It is intended to serve as a space for academics, professionals, hobbyists and fans to engage in dialogue about topics related to the electric guitar and its cultural influence. We seek to explore the answers to many questions, including but not limited to:

  • How has the electric guitar altered music and the lives of musicians throughout its history?
  • How has the electric guitar impacted local music scenes in northwest Ohio and those throughout the world?
  • Have changing representations of the guitar in popular culture impacted aspiring musicians?
  • How have advances in technology impacted the production of electric guitars for both producers and consumers?
  • How have various cultures and perspectives surrounding the electric guitar shifted over time?

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Embracing the Margins: Counter-Mainstream Sensibilities in Popular Music

Posted: October 7th, 2014 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | No Comments »

University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, March 27–28, 2015
Sponsored by the UNC Music Department and the AMS Popular Music Study Group

Keynote Speakers: Theo Cateforis (Syracuse) and Robin James (UNC–Charlotte)

What does it mean for musicians and fans to identify their own genre of popular music as marginal? What kind of cultural and aesthetic work is accomplished in this act? This type of stance has informed the politics and aesthetics of countless genres—from the more obvious manifestations of punk, indie, and experimental music to less-often affiliated traditions such as country, metal, jazz, blues, hip-hop, world music, R&B, folk, and electronic dance music. A sensibility of self-identified marginality can contribute to deeply ingrained notions of legitimacy, whether regarding musical style, social identification, spiritual conviction, or aesthetic values. Too often, however, studies of marginal musical identity have remained isolated within their respective genres or limited to the politics of social resistance.

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International Conference on the Multimodal Experience of Music

Posted: October 2nd, 2014 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | No Comments »

ICMEM, Sheffield, 23-25 March 2015

In live and virtual situations, music listening and performing are multimodal experiences: Sounds may be experienced tactically, music evokes visual images or is accompanied by visual presentations, and both generate vivid cross-modal associations in terms of force, size, physical location, emotion, fluency and regularity, among others.

ICMEM aims to bring together researchers from various disciplines who investigate the multimodality of musical experiences from different perspectives. Disciplines may include among others audiology, cognition, computer science, ethnomusicology, film studies, music performance and theory, neuroscience, philosophy, and psychology.

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