cfp: Soundscapes of ­the South

Call for Papers: Soundscapes of ­the South
Macon, Georgia 
September 28-29, 2023


“Precisely how and why the American South has shaped and nurtured so much successful art is something sociologists and anthropologists will still be bickering about a half century from now,” Amanda Petrusich wrote in It Still Moves: Lost Songs, Lost Highways, and the Search for the Next American Music (2008): “All I know is that it is mostly true.” Fifteen years on, her musical travelogue remains a vital exploration of the ways in which place may infl­uence “the sounds we make.”

Soundscapes of the South welcomes papers on southern music and its diverse contexts, themes, places, and moments for a Symposium taking place at the Museum at Capricorn (https://capricorn.mercer.edu/museum/) in Macon, Georgia, on September 28-29, 2023. Aiming to cover a plethora of artists, genres, periods, topics, expressions, and perspectives, we invite presentations that range from the analytical and the re­active to reminiscence and anecdote, by scholars, critics, journalists, authors, artists and musicians, on the theme of “Southern soundscapes.”

Possible topics might include (but are not limited to):

– Genres such as Bluegrass, Blues, Cajun, Zydeco, Jazz, Honky-Tonk, Rockabilly, Rock, Hip-Hop, Rap, Gospel, Sacred Harp, Folk, Country, Dance Music, Tex-Mex/Música Tejana, R&B, Ragtime, Swamp Pop
– Specific artists and bands 
– Case studies of albums and shows
– Maps and topographies
– Traditions, revisions, innovations
– Labels, recording studios, venues
– Landscape and the poetics of place
– Musical hotspots
– Race
– Gendered subjectivities
– Historical events and moments
– Protest music
– Music and the literary tradition
– Weather and climate
– Travel and mobility
– The relations between the regional, the national, and the global
– The dynamics of the rural and the (sub)urban
– Recurring tropes and metaphors

Keynote speaker: Stephen Deusner
We welcome abstracts (max 250 words) to Asbjorn.Gronstad@uib.no and Oyvind.Vagnes@uib.no. Deadline: April 10th, 2023