Routledge Popular Music in the Nordic Region‏

Call for contributions
Popular Music in the Nordic Countries: Music, Identity, and Social Change in the Early 21st Century

Editors: Fabian Holt (University of Roskilde, fabianh@ruc.dk) and Antti-Ville Kärjä (University of Turku, avkarj@utu.fi)

For the Routledge series World Popular Music, we are hereby making a call for chapter proposals for a volume with the title above. The volume will examine the role of popular music in the Nordic countries in the context of contemporary social change. The focus of volume will be to situate popular music in both local and cross-national contexts of the region and to apply and develop new interdisciplinary research perspectives. This call is therefore not only targeted at music studies but also at scholars working on music within anthropology, cultural studies, history, sociology, and media studies. The volume is part of a larger pan-Nordic collaboration and forms the basis for the production of radio and television series as well as museum exhibitions.

We encourage proposals on the following themes in particular, but emphasize that all suggestions focusing on the roles and limits of popular music in the Nordic countries from a 21st century perspective are welcome.

POPULAR MUSIC IN THE TRANSFORMATION OF WELFARE SOCIETY IN NEOLIBERALISM
Popular music has shaped conceptions of gender, ethnicity, and race in relation to ideologies of the welfare state. If we recognize popular music
as an agent of both tradition and of social change, how is it shaping Nordic policies, subjectivities and ideas about cultural heritage in relation to recent neoliberal restructuring of the market–state relations?

POPULAR MUSIC AND CHANGING MUSICAL GEOGRAPHIES OF MARGINS AND CENTERS IN THE NORDIC REGION
Popular music has long been associated with urban centers and has thus created hierarchies between centers and peripheries. Is this changing with new technologies of distribution and ongoing urbanization? Moreover, are new geographies of the Nordic region emerging in contemporary popular music and how are they different from previous ones? Both border regions and indigenous peoples will be included in the analyses.

POPULAR MUSIC IN EMOTIONAL CULTURE AND NARRATIVES OF NORDIC IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE
Popular music is recognized for its role in public emotional culture, for example in relation to social hierarchies and ambient soundscapes associated with particular Nordic landscapes. In such cases, popular music affords a platform for emotional culture and diverse images of Nordic identity. Popular culture is also an arena for exoticization and stereotypes that have a bearing on social and societal power relations.

The proposals should not exceed 400 words and we ask they be submitted as an email attachment in pdf format by 1 November 2011 to Fabian Holt at fabianh@ruc.dk. Please indicate “Routledge Nordic Volume CfC” in the subject heading and label your attachment your_surname-nordpop.pdf. The editors will review the proposals and send notifications by 1 December 2011, after which appropriate contributors will be invited to a start-up symposium in Helsinki in February 2012 (subject to funding). The tentative deadline for first drafts of full manuscripts is in June 2013, with early 2014 as the expected publication date. Should you need further information or have any questions, do not hesitate to contact the editors.

http://fabsound.blogspot.com/2011/10/cfc-routledge-popular-music-in-nordic.html