IASPM-US 2008 Conference: Global Pop, Space and Place

IASPM-US 2008 Conference:
Global Pop, Space and Place

University of Iowa
April 25-28, 2008
Iowa City, IA

For many, popular music would, by definition, transcend any particular space, propelled by the technologies of mass media. Connecting every wired corner of the globe, today’s digital media technologies — from mp3s and p2ps to Myspace and YouTube — would appear to amplify popular music’s inherently translocal character. At the same time, popular music remains deeply entwined with significations of place, of home and away, town and country, here and there, black and white; and it remains shaped by real spaces and the changes that affect them. Popular genres and styles are nurtured and inflected in social spaces, and they enrich one’s sense of place as they shape one’s imagination of others. How is popular music shaped by, or how does it shape, social uses of space? Does popular music look and sound fundamentally different in an increasingly interconnected world? What happens to the notion of the popular in a peer-to-peer age? How does greater access to more music from farther away change our senses of our cities, regions, countries, selves, others? The conference program committee of the 2008 meeting of IASPM-US invites proposals for papers, panels, or roundtables relating to these questions and, of course, welcomes proposals on any aspect of popular music.

Possible paper topics might address questions such as the following:

    * How do new uses of space inflect popular musics’ sounds, uses, and meanings?
    * How does popular music inform regionalism and geographical identity?
    * Are ‘translocal’ and ‘global’ popular music coterminous, or crucially distinct?
    * What is the relationship between popular music and urban space?
    * How does popular music draw the lines of community?
    * How do we conduct research in a MySpacey, YouTubey world?
    * What is popular music without the music industry?
    * In what ways does popular music animate politics, ideology, or propaganda?
    * How does popular music give voice and strength to its collective listeners?
    * How does popular music mediate social tragedy?

Proposals will be read blind by the program committee, which consists of Connie Atkinson (University of New Orleans), Rebekah Farrugia (Western Michigan), Jonathon Grasse (California State University, Dominguez Hills), Kwame Harrison (Virginia Tech), Adam Krims (University of Nottingham), and Wayne Marshall (Brandeis University).
Proposals will only be accepted via the online submission form at http://www.iaspm-us.net/conferences. Abstracts for individual papers and roundtables should be no longer than 300 words, and proposals for panels should include an abstract of no more than 300 words for the panel as a whole, as well as abstracts of no more than 300 words for each paper proposed for the panel. The program committee reserves the right to accept a panel but reject an individual paper on that panel.

For questions about the conference, contact Wayne Marshall, Program Committee Chair, at 2008conference@iaspm-us.net.

Submission deadline: 11:59 PST November 1, 2007.

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