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

Popkongress 2019: Popular Articulations – Articulations of the Popular

Posted: September 25th, 2018 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | No Comments »

11th Annual Meeting of the AG Populärkultur und Medien Gesellschaft für Medienwissenschaft (GfM)
Universität Passau
Lehrstuhl für Deutsche Sprachwissenschaft Prof. Dr. Rüdiger Harnisch

14–16 February 2019

Generally speaking, the term ‘articulation’ stands for a way of expressing something and represents how a particular expression is applied. In addition, the term is used in different scientific communities. For example, in phonetics it refers to the actions that produce spoken sounds. In music, the use of the term ‘articulation’ relates back to phonetics because with the help of musical articulation different sounds can be separated from each other, allowing the music to speak. Finally, articulations can also be understood as part of social and pop cultural praxis.

These examples show the huge potential of the term ‘articulation’, which stands at the centre of the 11th annual meeting of the AG Populärkultur at the University of Passau. In addition, the conference will be open to further definitions and interpretations of the term, which – in the sense of ‘expressing something’ – can represent all language- and non-language-based forms of expression as well as social practices. Therefore, various approaches to linguistic and non-linguistic topics, social phenomena and their influences on popular culture are welcome. In accordance with the traditions of the GfM-AG Populärkultur und Medien, all forms of popular articulations and articulations of the popular, especially within the media context (e.g. in language, music, and image) and their interactions and reflections which have an impact on social communication, are considered in this field of research.

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Rhyme and Rhyming in Verbal Art and Song

Posted: September 19th, 2018 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | No Comments »

Helsinki, Finland, 22nd – 24th May 2019

During Medieval times, end rhyme became a key device for demarcating poetic lines in European and Arabic cultures. Besides characterizing a longstanding literary tradition, end rhyme and rhyme patterns became central structural and sonic elements in oral and oral-literary traditions worldwide. In oral performance, rhyme stands for aesthetics, creativity and memory: memorization as well as the exploitation of working memory in lyrical improvisation. In verbal art and song, rhymed registers continue to deploy the poetic potential of language for situated communication and meaning over changes in fashion and the coming of new musical styles.

This conference is intended to promote cross-disciplinary analysis and understanding of the role and aesthetics of rhyme in the poetics of sound and meaning. Our focus is especially upon the history and universality of rhyme as well as its particularities in various performed oral and popular registers.

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The Fifth Biennial Christian Congregational Music: Local and Global Perspectives Conference

Posted: September 14th, 2018 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | No Comments »

Ripon College Cuddesdon, Oxford, United Kingdom
30 July-2 August 2019

Congregational music-making is a vital and vibrant practice within Christian communities worldwide. It reflects, informs, and articulates convictions and concerns that are irreducibly local even as it flows along global networks. The goal of the Christian Congregational Music conference is to expand the avenues of scholarly inquiry into congregational music-making by bringing together world-class scholars and practitioners to explore the varying cultural, social, and spiritual roles music plays in the life of various Christian communities around the world. We are  pleased to invite proposals for the fifth biennial conference at Ripon College in Cuddesdon, near Oxford, United Kingdom between Tuesday, July 30 and Friday, August 2, 2019. The conference will feature guest speakers, roundtables and workshops that reflect the ever-broadening scope of research and practice in Christian congregational music-making around the world.

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Locating Heavy Metal Music and Culture

Posted: September 12th, 2018 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | 1 Comment »

International Society For Metal Music Studies

4th ISMMS biennial international Conference, 17-20 June 2019, Nantes (France)
www.francemetalstudies.org

Presentation

Five years have passed since the inception of the ISMMS (International Society for Metal Music Studies), an international association that has been triggering a new dynamic of collective research on hard rock, heavy metal and metal within the humanities and social sciences. It was officially launched during the first conference on “Heavy Metal and Popular Culture” at Bowling Green State University (Ohio, USA) in April 2013. This founding event which was followed in 2015 by the “Modern Heavy Metal: Markets, Practices and Culture” at the University of Helsinki’s (Finland) International Institute for Popular Culture, and in 2017 by the “Boundaries and Ties: the Place of Music Communities” Conference one at the University of Victoria (British Columbia, Canada).

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Setting the Record Straight: Hidden Histories of Popular Music

Posted: September 6th, 2018 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | No Comments »

Editors:

Chris Anderton (Solent University, Southampton, UK) [email protected]
Martin James (Solent University, Southampton, UK) [email protected]

Proposals are sought for chapter contributions to an edited collection with strong publisher interest.

The historical significance of music-makers, music scenes and music genres has been mediated through numerous academic and popular press publications (including magazines, films and television documentaries), as well through officially released music industry products and the informal productivity of artist and genre enthusiasts. This book will examine these various publications and will question how and why they are constructed. For instance, the formal mediations of the music industry and popular press typically present linear narratives that are based on simplifications, exaggerations and omissions. The histories they construct often place an undue emphasis on key moments of birth and death, or on particular personalities that are deemed to drive those moments. This approach tends to lead to totalising ‘popular’ histories that reduce otherwise messy narratives to one-dimensional interpretations of a heroic and celebratory nature. Ideological positioning, personal biases and sometimes untrustworthy narrators lead to historical perspectives that become naturalised and accepted as being true, and serve to narrow our understanding of the development of popular music. They also contribute to the creation and maintenance of myths that reinforce the contemporary industry of music nostalgia, and are further communicated through the user-generated content of social media and the Internet. Artists, genres and events may be removed from these simplified and mythologised media narratives or their significance downplayed in processes of distortion and selection. The informal mediations of fans and enthusiasts may reinforce such mythologies or actively challenge them by presenting alternative narratives. For example, bloggers and non-commercial bootleggers uncover ‘lost’ recordings, make live concerts available to trade, or publish their own interviews and stories that extend beyond the official canon.

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