6th Global Reggae Conference – Reggae Innovation and Sound System Culture II
February 13-16, 2019, UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES, MONA CAMPUS
The University of the West Indies and Birmingham City University are delighted to announce the staging of the 6th Global Reggae Conference under the theme Reggae Innovation and Sound System Culture II. Hosted as a premier biennial event by the Institute of Caribbean Studies and the Reggae Studies Unit inside Jamaica’s Reggae Month, this conference will engage academics within a wide field of scholastic orientations and practice. This event comes as part of larger project on music and cultural innovation and black popular culture through which both Universities have engaged in a partnership to expand scholarship and outreach through community engagement, experimentation, archive building, exhibitions, among others.
The Reggae Innovation and Sound System Culture II International Conference builds upon the momentum gained through recent meetings of the Reggae Research Network held throughout the UK in 2017, the Bass Culture Research Project and associated events, the Strictly Vinyl Sound System Outernational #4 in January 2018 at Goldsmiths, University of London, and Reggae Innovation and Sound System Culture in April 2018 at the Birmingham Conservatoire all establishing new approaches to and visibility for reggae innovation research.
This conference on Jamaican soil, and inside the UNESCO Creative City of Music – Kingston – promises to be a landmark event in reggae, culture and sound system research, highlighting the music’s subgenres, crossovers, mashups, intersections and innovations, featuring local, regional and international academics, guests and musicians. The conference will discuss and engage with reggae innovation, particularly the theoretical and practical expressions of how innovation plays out through music and popular culture.
We welcome proposed papers that address the following conference sub-themes:
• Innovation through heritage, from mento to dancehall
.
• Innovation for heritage beyond dancehall.
• Reggaefuturists and reggaefuturism.
• Reggae musicians and innovation case studies.
• Re-reading reggae histories, transitions and translations.
• Reggae in (and out) of global and/or local spaces.
• Reggae, music and gender.
• Reggae and the music industry; new forms, new marketing, new audiences.
• Jamaican and diasporic sonicities.
• Reggae in and beyond Jamaica (intellectual property).
• Reggae’s new music, new media, and new technologies.
• Exploring dub’s inner and outer spaces and locations.
• Dub as rhetoric and discourse.
• Dub and technology.
• Reggae and dub visualization.
• Reggae in and out of popular music studies.
• Creativity: from theory to practice; methods and processes.
• Reggae as source and stimulus for music intersections and hybrids.
• Reggae voice(s).
• Reggae in transition:
reinventing reggae – reconfigurations,
collaborations and crossovers.
We would also welcome presentations and displays made through innovative uses of media, music and technology alongside traditional formats. Presentation proposals from musicians, artistes and students are welcome.
Abstracts for individual or panel presentations of no more than 250 words supported by a short biography no longer than 75 words, should be submitted to the conference organisers for international peer review.
For pre-organised panels, include one abstract for each presenter. Each abstract should include the following information: name of author/authors; email address/es; name of associated institution; and keywords of presentation.
We welcome innovative uses of technology and creative sessions formats as well as traditional paper presentations.
DEADLINE FOR ALL SUBMISSIONS IS SEPTEMBER 30, 2018.
Email all submissions to globalreggaeconference@gmail.com with the subject heading “Reggae Innovation II 2019”.