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

U:Pop – The First International Popular Music Studies Undergraduate Conference

Posted: January 5th, 2015 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | Comments Off on U:Pop – The First International Popular Music Studies Undergraduate Conference

The University of Northampton, United Kingdom
Saturday 30th May 2015

As the academic study of popular music has developed over the last thirty years, reaching both across disciplines and across the globe, our understanding of the economic, social, political and cultural significance of this most ubiquitous of forms has only become ever more sophisticated and dynamic. Whilst the discipline(s) has developed both scholars of international repute and a thriving postgraduate research body, the work produced by undergraduate students studying relevant courses has had little opportunity to be recognized outside their own institutions.

Following the highly successful Undergraduate Panel at the PopLife conference at the University of Northampton in 2014, students and staff recognized the need to offer a conference platform to the very best work in the field coming out of undergraduate courses in popular and commercial music. As such we would like to offer undergraduate students working in the field of Popular Music Studies the opportunity to submit proposals for the First International Popular Music Studies Undergraduate Conference to be held on the 30th May 2015. The aim of the conference is to promote the very best scholarship at undergraduate level and to encourage continued engagement with the field, and the introduction of new blood into the research community.

Submissions

There is no fixed theme for the conference as long as it relates to the study of popular music. Both conventional papers and practice-based research may choose to engage with the following themes:

  • Music making
  • Performing popular music
  • Audiences / fandom / subcultures
  • Patterns of consumption
  • Music media
  • The music industry / industries
  • Pop historiography
  • Writing about music
  • Technology and innovation
  • Popular music and the political realm

Proposals may be entirely novel pieces of work or may be presentations or extensions of current dissertation or project work.

Abstracts should be no longer than 300 words (for a 20 minute paper) and should be submitted with a short author biography to [email protected]  by 14th February 2015. Proposals for dedicated panels or for practice-based sessions will also be considered.