6th Conference of the Centre for Study of Popular Culture

Exploration of Class, Distinction, and Habitus in Popular Culture of Central and Eastern Europe

Conference organised by the Centre for the Study of Popular Culture, Charles University and the German Historical Institute in Warsaw

27–29 October 2023, Prague, Czech Republic

Call for Papers: Punk Symposium in Berlin, 22 September 2023

in cooperation with the international Punk Scholars Network

PANK! – (German) language in zines, punk art and punk rock

„Haste ’ne Macke?!“ (Engl. „you nuts?!“) – That is how Nina Hagen begins her song “Pank”, which she recorded in 1978, self-ironically written the way Germans usually pronounce the English word “Punk”. Youth slang, everyday language, humor, and directness characterize early German punk songs in the late 1970s—a departure from internationalized and slick mainstream pop lines à la ABBA. Political communication was also further radicalized in German punk rock. When the Hamburg band Slime loudly postulated in 1980 that they didn’t want any „Bullenschweine“ (Engl. “bull pigs”) and thus polemically commented on the constant confrontation between law enforcement and punks from their point of view, the 10-year-old slogans of radical left-wing bands like Ton Steine ​​Scherben seemed almost well-behaved. Back to the concrete, back to reality, namely the low, grim, and dreary reality—but this reality is then, in turn, violently and solemnly torn apart. A graphic equivalent of this frenzy of expression can be found in the fanzines of the time—Do It Yourself (DIY) magazines in self-publication, made possible by the spread of the photocopier—which also turn the tables with ironic wit, chaotic layout, and humorous appropriation of the narrow-mindedness in contemporary German advertising.

The 14^th International Music Business Research Days 2023 

Towards Sustainability in Music Business?  

Balancing new business models, changing labor conditions and new competences. 

November 1-3, University of Agder, Department of Popular Music, Kristiansand, Norway 

Call For Papers 

Music business, and the frameworks and dynamics of the music industries, continue to develop and change, with new digital innovations, new formats, new business models and new content being created. It is nothing new that music business operates within changing economic- and technological framework conditions – these are perhaps more to be considered inherent features rather than substantial shifts. Nonetheless, these changes need to be continually addressed and critically discussed.  

Barbarian Pipes and Strings Reconsidered — Negotiating Authenticity in the Musics of China: Transcultural Perspectives

25th International CHIME Conference, Heidelberg CATS, October 1-4, 2023

Exactly 25 years after the last International Chime Conference in Heidelberg that focused on “Barbarian Pipes and Strings,” we return to the city by the Neckar and the Centre for Asian and Transcultural Studies (CATS) that now houses the CHIME Collection to reconsider musical practices in China from a transcultural perspective.

Diversity in Popular Music Spheres 

IASPM-Australia/New Zealand 

University of Auckland and Wintec | Te Pūkenga 

Tāmaki-Makaurau (Auckland) and Kirkiriroa (Hamilton), Aotearoa 

5-8 December 2023 

Popular music has long existed as a space for the sharing and fostering of marginalised voices and stories, despite its equal position as a hegemonic economic and cultural tool of capitalism and Western imperialism. This conference invites papers on popular music and popular music studies that consider or celebrate aspects of non-mainstream politics, identities, creatives and practices; as well as interrogating the power structures related to our field that emerge from patriarchal white, cisgender, heterosexual and ableist ideologies and values. We especially look for work around indigenous studies, gender and queer studies, disability studies and colonialism or any other intersectional perspectives, in relation to any aspect of popular music consumption, production and people. 

Call for Papers

Pop after Communism. The Transformation of Popular Culture after 1989/90

Place: Berlin

From-To: 15 – 17 Nov. 2023

Deadline: 31 May 2023

The social changes that went along with the political upheaval of 1989/90 in the countries of state socialism were not limited to the political system, economic structures or social conditions. The late phase and the end of state socialism were marked by a far-reaching transformation of popular culture, with global cultural changes becoming an important driver of the post-communist transformation. Up to now, there have been some individual studies on the history of pop in the 1990s and early 2000s with a particular view to the united Germany, the countries of East-Central and South-Eastern Europe and the states that emerged with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, but no comprehensive overview of the globally entangled transformation processes in pop culture. The conference hence aims to bring together researchers in the broader field of “pop history” to examine the overarching tendencies of this fundamental socio-cultural change and the protagonists and institutions that determined it from a comparative perspective. The focus of the conference is on pop music and the entire range of pop cultural forms of expression (e.g. film, fashion, literature).

While both pop music, especially with its subcultural scenes, and youth culture, which became highly differentiated in state socialist societies in the 1980s, are now relatively well researched, only a few studies follow their development through the social transformations that began after the political upheaval of 1989/90. Thus, relatively little is known about how state cultural institutions were dissolved or transformed in order to adapt to the new conditions and which paths their former representatives took after the political upheaval. Significant differences between the individual countries, e.g. with regard to gradual liberalisation tendencies or repressive policies that continued until the end of state socialism, must therefore be taken into account just as the distinctive preconditions for the developments beginning after 1989/90.

Call for Papers
Music, Migration, Belonging/s in 21st-Century Europe
Conference at the mdw–University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Austria

November 24–25, 2023Music and Minorities Research Center

The question of belonging is important to everyone. Yet, this question becomes particularly significant to the experience of migration, with people leaving or being forced to leave familiar structures of belonging, finding themselves in new, alien contexts and environments. While music studies scholars have debated issues of identity in depth, the notion of belonging or belongings – as well as the counterpart non-belonging – has yet to be more widely theorized.