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

Exploration of Class, Distinction, and Habitus in Popular Culture of Central and Eastern Europe

Posted: April 28th, 2023 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | Comments Off on Exploration of Class, Distinction, and Habitus in Popular Culture of Central and Eastern Europe

6th Conference of the Centre for Study of Popular Culture
Conference organised by the Centre for the Study of Popular Culture, Charles University and the German Historical Institute in Warsaw

27–29 October 2023, Prague, Czech Republic

Class, distinction, and habitus have a contested position in the political and social sciences. No less controversial are the concepts in the humanities, even though the study of class in cultural studies seems to be long past its prime. Since the 1960s, Western youth and working class popular and urban cultures have received wide scholarly attention. Minority groups and people on the margins ridiculed and stigmatised by popular culture experienced a research boom several decades ago and a renewed interest owing to research into reality TV shows. Representations of white upper-class heterosexual male domination in popular culture has been interrogated with the finest critical tools in the last years. The research agenda of Central and Eastern European popular culture looks a bit different. Due to the allegedly different path to modernity, exploration of class, distinction, and habitus in popular culture offersinteresting stimuli even today. A closer look at the political and socioeconomic changes that the region has undergone shows that these phenomena were closely linked to the development of industrial capitalism and the rise of the bourgeois society in the 19th century on the one hand. On the other, class often dissolved into nationalist and even racist ideology. Unique group’s distinctions were melted into the cult of the common people. A specific habitus was suppressed by the all-encompassing folksiness. Mass movements in the interwar period placed the removal of the enemy class and distinction at the centre of their politics. The socialist dictatorship after the Second World War declared that it had done away with class and group-specific distinctions; differing habitus was to be replaced by uniformity. However, in the post-Stalin period, even the mildest proclamations concerning a classless society had to be revised. New social differentiations and subtle distinctions among people became more visible and found not infrequent reflection in literature, film, music, and visual arts. In late socialism, power elites gradually abandoned the banner of egalitarianism and the new class manifested in a showy manner its distinctions and habitus.

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Diversity in Popular Music Spheres

Posted: April 19th, 2023 | Filed under: Calls for Papers, IASPM Conferences | Comments Off on Diversity in Popular Music Spheres

IASPM-Australia/New Zealand
University of Auckland and Wintec | Te Pūkenga
Tāmaki-Makaurau (Auckland) and Kirkiriroa (Hamilton), Aotearoa
5-8 December 2023

Popular music has long existed as a space for the sharing and fostering of marginalised voices and stories, despite its equal position as a hegemonic economic and cultural tool of capitalism and Western imperialism. This conference invites papers on popular music and popular music studies that consider or celebrate aspects of non-mainstream politics, identities, creatives and practices; as well as interrogating the power structures related to our field that emerge from patriarchal white, cisgender, heterosexual and ableist ideologies and values. We especially look for work around indigenous studies, gender and queer studies, disability studies and colonialism or any other intersectional perspectives, in relation to any aspect of popular music consumption, production and people.

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Pop after Communism. The Transformation of Popular Culture after 1989/90

Posted: April 19th, 2023 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | Comments Off on Pop after Communism. The Transformation of Popular Culture after 1989/90

Place: Berlin
From-To: 15 – 17 Nov. 2023
Deadline: 31 May 2023

The social changes that went along with the political upheaval of 1989/90 in the countries of state socialism were not limited to the political system, economic structures or social conditions. The late phase and the end of state socialism were marked by a far-reaching transformation of popular culture, with global cultural changes becoming an important driver of the post-communist transformation. Up to now, there have been some individual studies on the history of pop in the 1990s and early 2000s with a particular view to the united Germany, the countries of East-Central and South-Eastern Europe and the states that emerged with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, but no comprehensive overview of the globally entangled transformation processes in pop culture. The conference hence aims to bring together researchers in the broader field of “pop history” to examine the overarching tendencies of this fundamental socio-cultural change and the protagonists and institutions that determined it from a comparative perspective. The focus of the conference is on pop music and the entire range of pop cultural forms of expression (e.g. film, fashion, literature).

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Music, Migration, Belonging/s in 21st-Century Europe

Posted: April 13th, 2023 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | Comments Off on Music, Migration, Belonging/s in 21st-Century Europe

Conference at the mdw–University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Austria
November 24–25, 2023
Music and Minorities Research Center

The question of belonging is important to everyone. Yet, this question becomes particularly significant to the experience of migration, with people leaving or being forced to leave familiar structures of belonging, finding themselves in new, alien contexts and environments. While music studies scholars have debated issues of identity in depth, the notion of belonging or belongings – as well as the counterpart non-belonging – has yet to be more widely theorized.

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Sound, Meaning, Education: CONVERSATIONS & improvisations

Posted: April 11th, 2023 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | Comments Off on Sound, Meaning, Education: CONVERSATIONS & improvisations

Sound, Meaning, Education: CONVERSATIONS & improvisations
University of Guelph/IICSI, October 20-22, 2023
Proposal Deadline: May 15, 2023
SME | CFP (Call for Proposals)

Sound, Meaning Education (SME) invites researchers, artists, and/or teachers to submit
proposals for an in-person conference to be held at the University of Guelph, October 20-22,
2023. The conference will gather all manner of curricular innovators to share
research/scholarship, pedagogical strategies, narratives/stories, performances, and imaginings
for the purpose of building infrastructures that support sound and meaning explorations within
teaching and learning contexts.

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DC23 | Dancecult Conference

Posted: April 11th, 2023 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | Comments Off on DC23 | Dancecult Conference

19-20 October 2023
DC23: After the Pandemic

We are delighted to announce the call for proposals for DC23, a Dancecult conference to be held at the University of Huddersfield, UK, 19-20 October 2023. As the first in-person Dancecult conference, DC23 will host participants in the broad interdisciplinary community of research around electronic dance musics and cultures who will converge, share and celebrate their ongoing research efforts. The conference is an opportunity for graduate students and senior researchers alike to share insights on electronic music, dance industries and events in the post-pandemic world.

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Special Issue of Popular Music History

Posted: April 11th, 2023 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | Comments Off on Special Issue of Popular Music History

Popular Music (Re-)Writes History: Popular Music and the Construction of Historical Narratives 

This special issue seeks to investigate the role of popular music in constructing and negotiating historical narratives. Drawing on critical historiography (e.g. White 1973, 1987), which posits that history is a narrative construction of the past, the issue aims to examine the ways in which popular music contributes to the writing and re-writing of the past. Popular Music serves as an important arena for constructing and negotiating historical narratives, as evidenced by recent examples such as musicals inspired by historical events and figures, protest songs, and music as part of disinformation campaigns that aim to re-write – often violent – histories. Recognizing that historical narratives reflect the values, beliefs, and interests of those partaking in their construction, the issue invites critical exploration of these factors. Contributions may focus on a wide range of agents, genres, historical periods, socio-political events, and media platforms. The special issue further welcomes theoretical and methodological reflections on popular music as historical narrative.

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