Call for submissions
Norient Academic Online Journal
The Future(s) of Music? – Notions of Prospective Musics in Utopian Movies and Literature

The famous Cantina Band scene from George Lucas’ Star Wars, featuring an alien ensemble performing a foxtrot-like John Williams composition, is just one of many examples: While film scores often have provided an experimental ground for musical innovators – just think of the trendsetting sound creations Oskar Sala and Bernard Herrmann contributed to the late films by Alfred Hitchcock – diegetic depictions of musical performances, i.e. those scenes in films where the production or consumption of music is part of the story, often draw on known musical idioms when the dramatic setting is explicitly utopian. The paradox here is that there seems to be a decisive difference between composing innovative film scores on the one hand and imagining, picturing and sounding-out “the music of the future” on the other. Or, is it futures?

Now that Holly- has been joined by Bolly-, Hallyu-, Nolly-, and several other -woods from all around the globe, the Norient Academic Online Journal (NAOJ) is looking for articles for its second volume that address cinematic, theatrical / dramatic and / or literary delineations of the future(s) of music and that pay particular consideration to the specific positions, perspectives and artistic strategies of its producers. NAOJ is looking for contributions that reflect on the diversity of worldviews, on “aural imaginations” of places, discuss markers of knowledge and power, or explore traces of ethnocentrism, traditionalism, or parody in these various produced and performed futures.

Parallel to the thematic call that will result in the second issue of the NAOJ we also welcome ethnographic articles on popular musics from around the world.

Articles can be submitted in any language the editors can read (currently English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Scandinavian, Russian, Dutch, Esperanto) but must include an abstract in either English or German.

Deadline for abstracts (maximum 200 words) is 31 May 2012.

Please submit your abstracts to journal_submission at norient.com

For inquiries regarding the journal you can contact the editor-in-chief David-Emil Wickström (dew at norient.com).

Tentative schedule: 1 October 2012: Deadline for articles (maximum 6,000 words, Chicago Manual of Style with the author-date system and endnotes)

Spring 2013: Articles published.