The 3rd Inter-Asia Popular Music Studies Conference

Taipei, 2012
July 13 (Fri) – 15 (Sun), 2012, featuring Postgraduate Sessions on July 13

We are pleased to announce the 3rd Inter-Asia Popular Music Studies (IAPMS) Conference, which will take place on July 13-15, 2012 in Taipei, in collaboration with the Department of Psychology at Fu Jen Catholic University and the Graduate Institute of Mass Communication at National Taiwan Normal University. Following the first conference in Osaka in 2008 and the second conference in Hong Kong in 2010, we move our next meeting to Taipei—hub of vibrant indie music scenes and Mandarin pop music industries.

The studies on Asian popular music are still in its embryonic stage. There is neither a university program in Asia devoted to popular music studies nor a journal dedicated to the exploration of Asian popular music. What we have now is an online-based, transnational research portal that began in 2007, the Inter-Asia Popular Music Studies Group, plus a rapidly expanding research network that at the moment includes 80 scholars not only in Asia but also in Europe, America and Oceania. The organization is young and enthusiastic about the rising academic interest in Asian popular music both inside and outside Asia. There is a growing feeling that Asian popular music has not received sufficient attention from international popular music studies and that the existing paradigms of popular music studies may not be adequate in understanding the culture, economies, and histories of Asian popular music. The IAPMS biennial conference is meant to foster scholarly conversations surrounding the emerging field of Inter-Asia popular music studies.

Venue

Lecture Hall (first floor) and Audio-Visual Room (second floor), Extension School of Continuing Education Building, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan
Campus map

Organizers

Inter-Asia Popular Music Studies Group
Department of Psychology, Fu Jen Catholic University
Graduate Institute of Mass Communication, National Taiwan Normal University

Conference Theme: Ways of Listening: How do we listen to pop music in/from Asia, and how can we talk about it?

Pop music lovers, makers, and critics take the activity of listening to music for granted. Yet it is not always easy to express our/my listening experiences to others. It is even more challenging to elaborate the social and cultural implications of the differing responses.

Can the question, “how do we listen to pop music” prompt interest in the “ways of listening”?

For example, who is listening to Asian pop music? What constitutes pop music listening? Where does music-listening take place? What activities and connections accompany the act of listening? How is everyday life organized through music listening? What personal, social, affective, and technological experiments have seeped through pop music listening? How do the recording and consumer’s technologies affect the ways of listening in contemporary and historical Asian contexts? Do musicians and critics listen to music and do they do music differently from “ordinary” music fans? Can music listening be creative practices? How are the ways of listening linked to various moments and results of production? How have listening and interpretive practices transformed Asian pop music as social distinction, identity markers, professional knowledge, genres, businesses, and markets?

We invite paper proposals that will investigate, elaborate, contextualize, and historicize the experiences of listening to (Asian) pop music globally and/or in Asia. We welcome papers that address moments that open up to expression and conversation about how people engage pop music. Since this could be a task beyond the measure of words, we invite you to turn the thematic question around with an attitude, such as, “Hey! This is how “we/I/they” action Asian pop music!”

We welcome both individual paper and panel proposals under the umbrella theme. In addition, we welcome individual and panel proposals for the following panel themes geared toward publication projects:

  • Current issues in Asian popular music studies
  • Research methodologies for the studies of Asian popular music
  • Pop music, cultural variability and globalization

M.A. and Ph.D. students: IAPMS∙2012∙Taipei features a postgraduate day! Please consider submitting a proposal!

How to Submit Proposals

The organizers of IAPMS∙2012∙Taipei would like to invite interested participants to send your abstracts of no more than 250 words to iapms2012taipei@gmail.com before January 31, 2012.
Please use the attached Proposal Form (right click to download) when submitting your proposal. If you plan to organize a panel with more than two people, please coordinate with the panelists to put all the necessary information on one form (e.g., panel title, paper titles, individual abstracts, panelists information). A panel description is not necessary.
LANGUAGE: Given the diverse languages spoken in Asia, English will be the working language for the conference. Given the presence of many bilingual and multi-lingual speakers in Asia, translation service may become available during Q/A, upon request. We welcome multi-lingual participants to volunteer their service. Please contact us if you are willing to help.
Please email all inquiries to: iapms2012taipei@gmail.com

Timeline and Deadlines

2011.08.31 Announcing call-for-papers
2012.01.31 Deadline for submitting proposals
2012.02.29 Announcing accepted proposals
2012.03.31 Announcing conference program and information on registration, travel, and accommodation
2012.06.31 Deadline for submitting full papers
2012.07.13 Conference begins
2012.07.15 Conference ends

Registration Fee

Waged members: NT$ 800 (=US$ 30)
Unwaged members: NT$ 400 (=US$ 15)

Organizing Committee

Tunghung HO (Fu-jen Catholic University, Taiwan)
Eva TSAI (National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan)
Miao-Ju JIAN (National Chung-Cheng University, Taiwan)
Anthony FUNG (Chinese University, Hong Kong/China)
Yoshitaka MORI (Tokyo University of the Arts, Japan)
Kai Khiun LIEW (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore)
Yukie HIRATA (Dokkyo University, Japan)
Hyunjoon SHIN (Sungkonghoe University, Korea)
Jung-Yup LEE (University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA/Korea)

Notes

Please observe that this conference is scheduled after the ACS Crossroads 2012 Conference in Paris. For more information on that conference please go to: http://www.crossroads2012.org/?q=en/node/26

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