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

Cool Retro Camp Trash. Aesthetic Concepts in Popular Culture

Posted: August 10th, 2017 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | Comments Off on Cool Retro Camp Trash. Aesthetic Concepts in Popular Culture

University of Freiburg, 3–5 May 2018
https://www.zpkm.uni-freiburg.de/coolretrocamptrash

The aesthetic quality of the popular is now undisputed. In fact, it can be argued that popular culture has become the dominant cultural paradigm of our days, which takes shape in music, film, literature, social media, fashion etc. In order to meet this cultural transformation with due attention, the aesthetic concepts of popular culture are to be scrutinized for the first time from a broad academic perspective.
In the course of the 20th century aesthetic strategies, discourses and value systems have emerged, most of which go beyond the boundaries of the art forms, the media and musical genres. Concepts such as retro, trash, camp, cool, crossover or cyber are just a few examples that show the high degree to which the aesthetic field of popular culture has become differentiated.

The call is aimed at scholars from different disciplines, but also at persons from the fields of cultural journalism and artistic practice. The aim of the conference is to illuminate how aesthetic concepts of popular culture come into being, are practiced, diffuse socially and develop normative quality.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to the following:

  • strategies in artistic production
  • aesthetic concepts across the art forms and the media
  • ideology, myth-making and purification
  • aesthetic concepts and meaning in everyday life
  • popular culture and (new) aesthetic theory
  • methods of analyzing popular aesthetic objects and practices
  • links to concepts and currents of bourgeois high culture (e.g., romanticism, autonomy aesthetics, avant-garde)
  • material manifestations of aesthetic concepts (particularly sound)
  • media and art form-specific concepts and practices
  • aesthetic patterns in genre

Keynote lectures will be held by:
Prof. Dr. Henry Keazor (University of Heidelberg) and Prof. Dr. Markus Tauschek (University of Freiburg)

The conference is organized by the Zentrum für Populäre Kultur und Musik (Centre for Popular Culture and Music) of the University of Freiburg, where it will take place from 3 to 5 May 2018. The proposals must be submitted in the form of abstracts (max. 1500 characters) together with brief information about the speaker (both in English or German) by 15 November 2017 at the following address: [email protected]

Young scholars can apply for travel allowance to the conference organizer. Conference languages are English and German. For further information please contact PD Dr. Christofer Jost ([email protected]).