Christian Congregational Music : Local and Global Perspectives Conference (Call for Papers)

Ripon College Cuddesdon, Oxford, United Kingdom
1-3 August 2013

Congregational music-making has long been a vital and vibrant practice within Christian communities worldwide. Congregational music reflects, informs, and articulates local convictions and concerns as well as global flows of ideas and products. Congregational song can unify communities of faith across geographical and cultural boundaries, while simultaneously serving as a contested practice used to inscribe, challenge, and negotiate identities. Many twenty-first century congregational song repertories are transnational genres that cross boundaries of region, nation, and denomination. The various meanings, uses, and influence of these congregational song repertoires cannot be understood without an exploration of these musics' local roots and global routes.

This conference seeks to explore the multifaceted interaction between local and global dimensions of Christian congregational music by drawing from perspectives across academic disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, history, music studies, and theology. In particular, the conference welcomes papers addressing or engaging with one or more of the following six themes :

The Politics of Congregational Singing

Popular Music in/as Christian Worship

From Mission Hymns to Indigenous Hymnodies

Congregational Music in the University Classroom

Towards a More Musical Theology

A Futurology of Congregational Music

We are now accepting proposals (maximum 250 words) for individual papers and organised panels of three papers. Further details and a link to the online proposal form can be found on the conference website