The Natures of Pop

Second Issue of the Journal of Global Pop Cultures (September 2023)
Submission deadline: March 31, 2023

Pop is artificial by definition.  Of course, all forms of culture are artificial.  But this is especially true of pop.  Unlike older concepts, such as folk culture, folklore, or popular culture, the concept of “pop” emerged only in the 1950s and referred to the specific cultural forms of postmodern, highly technologized liberal consumer societies.

While folk culture was traditionally viewed and ideologized as deeply rooted, enduring, organic, and authentic, pop was popularized as an artificial construct characterized by a plethora of ephemeral trends, cultural industries, and performative self- understandings.  Pop was post-natural — replete with technology, capital, and performativity.  Countercultures like the hippie movement can be understood as reactions to this condition.

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Soundtracks of Our Lives: Music-Making and Musicians in Cinema of the MENA Region

Beirut
Organization: Université Saint-Joseph de Beyrouth
Categories: Popular Culture, Aesthetics, Cultural Studies, Film, TV, & Media, Mediterranean, Middle East

Abstract Due: 2023-02-15

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Interactions between film and music in the MENA region are relatively understudied, partly because music often takes a subsidiary role in film analysis, while music specialists seldom turn their attention to film. Nevertheless, a growing body of work exists on music as a form of cultural resistance at times of political upheaval, such as during the Arab uprisings and protests in Iran when voices of past musical icons have reverberated with the revolutionary mood and musicians have become symbols against political oppression. The censorship and control of music production and consumption have also received attention. Meanwhile, film scholars have written on the importance of music to the development of movies in the MENA region, musical genres and the participation of singing stars in Egyptian cinema. However, these disciplinary strands are rarely brought together.

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Mediations of music and power in online music cultures

21–22 September 2023, Division of Gender Studies, School of Culture and Education, Södertörn University, Sweden

Music cultures in the twenty-first century are strongly shaped by online media. Music streaming, social media, video sharing sites as well as internet-based music production software, radio stations, and music magazines have variously affected the formatting, curation, and consumption of music. Largely centralized around a small number of privatized companies, where human and automated processes intersect, online music cultures are sites of mediations of power.

In this context, online music media have entailed economic, technological, and cultural changes in contemporary music cultures. For example, music streaming illustrates monetary shifts in the music industry, where power is newly negotiated between music recommendation companies and the record, advertisement, and investment markets. Moreover, online music media combine curatorial and algorithmic processes that mediate cultural production and consumption and re-construct listeners as ‘datafied’ users. While the ‘platformization’ of online music cultures impedes the visibility of non-commercial media and practices, global music and media corporations present their own initiatives toward equality in the music industry and activist practices in networked communities on and off commercial sites negotiate the affordances and limitations of these media.

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Everyday is Spatial 2023

‘Everyday is Spatial’ (EiS) is an event designed to encourage and explore creativity in the making of audio and immersive experiences. The presentation and discussion of works will enable practitioners to reveal the potentials, challenges and uses for how spatial audio will define the everyday audio experience.

EiS ran for the first time in June 2022 presenting a diverse range of practices all centred around applications of spatial audio. With 30+ presentations, performances and installations from an international submission list, it established the need and demand for practitioners and academics to share their research and interest in this evolving field.

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Music Research Forum

Music Research Forum is currently accepting scholarly articles in the field of music from outstanding graduate students and young professionals. The deadline for submissions for Volume 37 (to be published in late summer 2023) is Wednesday, January 18, 2023.

Music Research Forum is a peer-reviewed journal published annually by the Graduate Student Association of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Articles will be considered in any area of music scholarship, including but not limited to musicology, theory, composition, ethnomusicology, ludomusicology, music education, electronic media, and criticism. Particularly encouraged are submissions relating to studies surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion, popular music, gender and sexuality, trauma, disability, and social justice. Faculty are highly encouraged to pass this information along to students and recent graduates.

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Songwriting Camps in the 21st Century

As part of the AHRC-funded project “Songwriting Camps in the 21^st Century”, Dr Jan Herbst (University of Huddersfield) and Dr Simon Barber (Birmingham City University) are inviting applications for a postdoctoral Research Fellow in Popular Music Songwriting, employed for 3 years at the University of Huddersfield.

The successful candidate will join a cross-national research project between the UK and Germany (the German sub-project is led by Michael Ahlers at Leuphana University, Lüneburg). A summary of the project is available on the funder’s website: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FX002276%2F1#

To apply, visit: https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/CWI271/research-fellow-in-popular-music-songwriting. Please note the deadline is 24^th of January.

PhD Scholarships at University of Huddersfield

The University of Huddersfield is offering a number of PhD scholarships, including some specifically focused on popular music.

The Nitin Sawhney Scholarship is open to any popular music topic, whether focused on text based or practice based research. It will include some tutorial support from British composer, performer, and producer Nitin Sawhney.
https://research.hud.ac.uk/research-degrees/researchscholarships/schoolofartsandhumanitiesscholarships/nitin-sawhney-scholarship/

The Richie Hawtin Scholarship focuses on Electronic music, and may include some tuition from DJ and Producer Richie Hawtin if appropriate.
https://research.hud.ac.uk/research-degrees/researchscholarships/schoolofartsandhumanitiesscholarships/richie-hawtin-scholarship/

The Creative Music Production Scholarship is aimed at projects focused on the art of record production or other relevant subjects.
https://research.hud.ac.uk/research-degrees/researchscholarships/schoolofartsandhumanitiesscholarships/creative-music-production-scholarship/

The John Warhurst PhD scholarship is focused on film music and media composition, named after and supported by Huddersfield University graduate and Oscar winner John Warhurst, as well as the Nitin Sawhney Scholarship supporting any area of popular music scholarship.
https://research.hud.ac.uk/research-degrees/researchscholarships/schoolofartsandhumanitiesscholarships/john-warhurst-scholarship/

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Diversity and Inclusivity in the British Music Industry Conference 

Tuesday 6 June 2023 @ the Media Factory University of Central Lancashire 

The music industry, like many industries, has historically been dominated by certain groups and has not always been inclusive or representative of the diversity of the population.

Research has shown that people of colour, women, LGBTQ+ individuals, and people with disabilities, are often underrepresented in the music industry, particularly in leadership roles. There are also issues of unequal pay and opportunities for marginalised groups.

Following on from the ‘Women in Music’ conference held at UCLan in 2022, which considered primarily women, we would like the scope of this 2023 conference to include all marginalised groups within the UK music industries.

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Music and Dance on East–West Axis: Correlations and Mobilities

International scientific symposium
Organizers: Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts: Institute of Musicology – Department of Arts, Istanbul University State Conservatory
Location: Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Belgrade (Serbia)
Dates: September 4–6th, 2023

The question of “Orient” in humanities gained significant attention, especially after the landmark work of Edward Said (1978). However, the issue of representation from the position of power was of a much older date, and the eurocentric perspective of the late 19th and 20th centuries influenced comparative musicology and then ethnomusicology to a certain extent, due to the fact that ethnomusicology as a discipline is rooted in the observation of music of “the Others”. Said’s work also affected academic discourse about questions of (Middle) East wars and the history and social reflections of the religions, and it was a necessary basis for postcolonial and deconialization studies in global terms, which occupy a significant position in contemporary ethnomusicology (and musicology). Perceived from the aspect of “the crossroads between East and West” and the attitude of abandonment of burdening synonym for conflicting nations, the Balkans, as the main focus area for this symposium, is observed as a field for research of correlations in music and dance heritage, as well as the space where/through music/dance and musicians/dancers are migrating and moving.

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Low End Theories: Bass Culture, Sound Systems, and Popular Music

Online conference – 19–20 May 2023

View online | Download a PDF | Conference website

Bass and Afro-diasporic sound system culture are defining elements of many popular musics today. Dub-reggae practices are embedded in the pop industry as well as mainstay genres such as hip-hop, dancehall, and jungle/drum ‘n’ bass, while sound system-powered subcultures proliferate in scenes such as footwork, Miami bass, and beyond. ‘Bass music’ is an established, and contested, category of electronic dance music culture. Sound system events have persisted through and adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic, despite its impact on night life industries worldwide.

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