Call for chapters
Virtual Bands, Virtual Music
Deadline for proposals: 31 May 2012

Shara Rambarran and Sheila Whiteley are seeking contributions from the wide spectrum of musicology and social sciences for an edited text on Virtual Bands, Virtual Music that will reflect upon its origins, its characters, its music(s), its scattered identity, its legacy, its worldwide membership and circulation. How can we define aesthetically, culturally, politically, and ideologically the concept and meaning of virtual bands? To what extent is contemporary popular music driven by the digital media (Internet, digital music distribution, consumption), music technology (sampling, remix, MP3), and creative artistic technology (music video, performance, virtual groups)?

Suggestions for chapters (non-exhaustive) include:

– Origins and legacy
– Music and the Performer (creativity, authorship, identity)
– Fantasy worlds, fantasy characters
– Reception (digital consumption, digital technologies, activism)
– The Music Industry (impact, copyright, digital distribution)

Other, more general, possible categories:
-The musical genres
-The role of technology (instrumental, sampling, remix, MP3)
-Associated subcultures
-Legacies
-Circulation
-Gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity and identity
-Influence of ‘orientalism’ and geopolitics
-Intellectual debates
-The media: reports, reception, gossip
-Graphic arts (animation, 3D holograms)

Proposals should be 500 words maximum and should include keywords and a brief bio of the author. Submitting a proposal implies that it only contains original, non-published material and that it is not simultaneously being submitted to another publication.

The deadline for submissions is 31 May, 2012. A decision on inclusions will be made by 1 July, 2012 and chapters will need to be finalised by August 31, 2013 to allow time for final editing.

Proposals should be submitted electronically to sheila.whiteley@googlemail.com and shararambarran@yahoo.co.uk