Category Archives: New publications

2025 IASPM BOOK PRIZE – Call for Nominations

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Dear IASPM members,

A public award will be given by IASPM for outstanding first books by a single author on popular music, in the categories of English and any other language, at the 2025 IASPM Conference in Paris, from July 7-11, 2025.

Nominations are invited from IASPM members for books they consider to be possible contenders for the award. Authors nominated should preferably already be members of IASPM or must become members of IASPM after being nominated to be eligible. Send your nominations to both of the Chairs of the Book Prize Jury, Daniel Fredriksson (dfr@du.se) and Beatriz Goubert (bgoubert@gc.cuny.edu), by March 31st at the latest.

When nominating a book, please provide the following details:

  • Author, nationality
  • Bibliographical information, including language and page count of the nominated book
  • Confirmation of IASPM membership, including branch

Authors may either self-nominate or other members may nominate authors and books they regard as worthy of consideration for the award. Please note the eligibility criteria:

  • A single author
  • A member of IASPM
  • The author’s first book (in any language)
  • The nominated book must have been published between November 1, 2022 – October 31, 2024
  • An electronic copy of the nominated books (PDF) must be sent to the Chairs of the Book Prize Jury
  • A physical copy of the awarded books must be sent to the 2025 Conference Organizing Committee for the award ceremony
  • Authors of nominated books must provide the Chairs with a one-minute video presentation of the book to be shared with the IASPM membership
  • The books accepted for evaluation will be announced via the membership email list by the Chairs no later than April 7, 2025

To be evaluated by the 2025 IASPM Book Prize Jury, an electronic copy of each book (PDF format) must be sent by the publisher or the author to the Chairs of the Book Prize no later than March 31st, 2025. A physical copy of the awarded books must be sent to the 2025 Organizing Committee in due time before the conference.

Deadlines:

  • February 20, 2025 – Book Prize Call
  • March 31, 2025 – Deadline for Nominations
  • April 7, 2025 – PDFs sent to the Chairs
  • May 31, 2025 – First round evaluation
  • July 7-11, 2025 – Award announcement at Paris conference

Please circulate this call within our branches, and do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions about the 2025 IASPM Book Prize.

The deadline for the 2025 Book Prize has been extended to April 7, 2025

With best wishes,

Daniel Fredriksson & Beatriz Goubert

Chairs of the 2025 IASPM Book Prize 

Cfp: The Oxford Handbook of Pop Music

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Call for Chapter Proposals, The Oxford Handbook of Pop Music, edited by Eric Weisbard

Proposals now due: August 15, 2023

Pop music, by definition, is commercial music: motivated by profit more than artistry, seeking a mainstream appeal that forbids fussiness about aesthetic absolutes. This resistance to firm definition has affected music writing. Jazz criticism, rock criticism, and rap criticism reflected genre communities debating standards. Popular music studies preferred scenes, subcultures, and other margins that at times crashed the charts. Sound studies almost left music behind altogether. There is no precise field of pop studies to glean from. Nevertheless, for 20-plus years now the Pop Conference has featured hundreds of writers pursuing pop across numerous topics and methods. And a phrase has circulated, “poptimism,” disposed to correct for the biases of “rockism.” The Oxford Handbook of Pop Music will build upon these significant beginnings. 

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Cfp: Unheard Melodies: Towards A Global Musicology of boys love Media

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Call for Papers 

Unheard Melodies: Towards A Global Musicology of boys love Media 

What implications does the study of music, broadly defined, have for boys love media in Asia and beyond? The potential for comprehensive engagement appears vast in theory, but practical exploration remains somewhat limited. This prospective collection of essays aims to bridge the gap between theory and practice by delving into an otherwise relatively unexplored terrain. By examining the intricate dynamics between music and boys love media, encompassing visual, textual, audiovisual elements, and more, our mission is to shed light on the profound influence music exerts on narrative, aesthetics, and emotional expressions. While the amalgamation of music and popular media in the Asian context offers fertile ground for scholarly inquiry, the specific realm of boys love media remains noticeably absent from existing musicological scholarship. Through thoughtful research and an interdisciplinary approach, we warmly invite scholars, researchers, and experts to contribute studies that unravel the intricate connections between music and boys love media. Expanding on themes such as the narrative functions of music, portrayals of musical performances, the symbolic and metaphorical dimensions of music, and the affective and expressive currents in auditory, sonic, and queer contexts, this collection aspires to establish a robust foundation for exploring musicology within the diverse manifestations of boys love media across the expansive Asian landscape and beyond. 

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2023 IASPM BOOK PRIZE – Call for Nominations

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2023 IASPM BOOK PRIZE – Call for Nominations

Dear IASPM members,

A public award will be given by IASPM for outstanding first books by a single author on popular music, in the categories English and any other language, at the2023 Minneapolis IASPM conference.

Nominations are invited from IASPM members of books they consider to be possible contenders for such an award. Authors nominated should preferably already be members of IASPM, or need to become members of IASPM after being nominated, in order to be eligible. Send your nominations to both of the Chairs of the Book Prize Jury, Andrea Dankić (andrea.dankic@gmail.com) and Ali C. Gedik (cenk.gedik@gmail.com)by November 7, 2022 at the latest. 

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New Collection on Covid and the Music Industries

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Colleagues – for those of you that are interested in the impacts of covid on the music industries – just to inform you of a new edited collection that was published last week in the Journal of World Popular Music. The collection is being launched at this years IASPM conference in Liverpool and is available now. It focuses specifically on the impacts of Covid on the music industries of the Global North. See https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JWPM The details are below.

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cfp: Festival Activism

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Call for Proposals: Festival Activism
Edited by David McDonald and Jeremy Reed

For decades festivals have provided important sites of inquiry for folklorists and ethnomusicologists alike. While theoretically and methodologically diverse, this literature has traditionally focused on the communitas of festival experience and the flow of everyday social life beyond the festival’s liminal boundaries. Attending to the activist turn in ethnographic research, we wish to explore the idea of festivals as strategic forms of social action. Specifically, how can a critical ethnographic study of festivals reveal the ways in which performers, participants, and organizers encounter and challenge the myriad forms of violence that frame the contemporary world? How do festivals constitute sites of activism and forms of social and political intervention?

Co-Editors David A. McDonald and Jeremy Reed of Indiana University are seeking chapter proposals that explore existing and emerging debates on the dynamics of festivals and activism. This volume understands festivals as an interspace between disciplines such as folklore, ethnomusicology, performance studies, cultural studies, media studies, and others. At the same time, an attentive and critically ethnographic approach to festivals can offer utility to professional fields beyond the social sciences, such as arts administration and public affairs. We welcome original research that explores the significance of festivals as tools of social and political intervention. And further, we encourage chapter proposals that integrate festival research into contemporary conversations on applied, activist, and public facing work in the humanities.  

We envision this volume published as part of IU Press’ “Activist Encounters in Folklore and Ethnomusicology” book series. If interested in participating, please send a 250 word abstract to David McDonald davmcdon@indiana.edu and Jeremy Reed reedjer@indiana.edu by November 20, 2021. Finished chapter drafts will be expected by May 1, 2022 with final revisions expected in Fall 2022.