Participatory Approaches to Music & Democracy

10–14 August 2018, Vienna
Call for Papers

The conference isaScience 2018 is part of isa, the International Summer Academy of the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Austria
https://www.mdw.ac.at/isa/isascience

The organisers of isaScience welcome papers on music and democracy from a wide range of disciplines (e.g. musicology, ethnomusicology, music sociology, cultural studies, queer studies, postcolonial studies, arts and cultural management) addressing (but not limited to) the following themes and topics:

• Music's role for historical revolts and revolutions, for propagating national and nationalistic identities in the long 19th century or music's use in the name of “the people” during fascist and post-fascist periods;

• Research on performance practices of minorities and marginalised groups that challenge and subvert dominant norms and classifications;

• Democratizing dimensions of orally transmitted music traditions;

• Grassroots, “bottom-up” and Do-it-Yourself approaches to music and performance propagated by social movements;

• Research on music and activism: e.g. activist choirs, feminist and queer performance groups, anti-racist rock groups, singer-songwriters etc.

• Participatory forms of “musicking” (Small) in local, translocal and virtual music “scenes”;

• Documenting and preserving the “sounds of democracy” and “hidden” popular music's past: studies on archives, museums and halls of fame;

• Music, migration, border regimes and exile;

• Representations of democracy in artistic practices (e.g. composing);

• Research on “mediamorphosis” (e.g. electrification, digitalisation) and its effects for democratization: “new” possibilities of self-representation, modes of participation for consumers, and business models in the music and media industries;

• Notions of “epistemic violence” (Spivak) in music research.

Please submit your abstracts (max. 300 words) for papers, panels and innovative formats and
a short biography and institutional affiliation,

in English language until 15 March 2018 to isascience -at- mdw.ac.at.