The North American British Music Studies Association

The North American British Music Studies Association

cfp: Thirteenth Annual Plenary Conference of the Society for Musicology in Ireland

Thirteenth Annual Plenary Conference of the Society for Musicology in Ireland

University College Cork

12–14 June 2015

[DEADLINE: 31 March 2015]

Musicology in Progress…

Keynote address: Nicholas Cook (1684 Professor of Music, University of Cambridge), “The imaginary African: music, identity, and race”

In this conference, we come together to share our current research, our personal musicologies in progress. We also seek opportunities to reflect, in and around the programme, on the state of musicological enquiry more generally. Musicology is itself a work in progress, with recent discoveries heaped ever higher upon the ground bass of its enduring concerns, with the expanded timbres offered by new materials and approaches, and with the heady call-and-response of habitual practice vs. emergent subjectivities. In all this we’re meanwhile surrounded by others—inside and beyond the academy—who are every bit as actively taking up the challenge of explaining music as a vital facet of human experience. And as scholars we’re increasingly challenged to demonstrate how our work makes an impact in the wider world. So, we wish to discuss together how musicology leads to or springs from action that improves the human situation. What is our progress in that respect? We invite participants to consider submitting proposals that touch upon the notion of musicology in progress, and to take this opportunity to reflect on where we are now and where our next steps might take us.

Proposals are now welcome for papers (20 minutes’ duration) and panels (60/ 90 minutes) addressing any area, field or theme of musicology—broadly defined. Proposals may be submitted to smi2015cork@gmail.com (closing date: Tuesday 31 March 2015). Each proposal should contain:

• (each) speaker’s name, title, affiliation (where applicable) and contact email;

• an abstract summarising the paper or panel. Abstracts for individual papers should be c. 250 words in length; those for panels should be of similar proportion for each speaker;

• the proposal can be submitted in doc, docx or rtf format;

• we welcome proposals for research presentations that adopt other formats, including posters, performances, sound art, digital interventions, roundtables or films; abstracts for these should be similar in length to those already discussed.

Currently, we anticipate announcing the draft programme on Tuesday 28 April. If you need proof of earlier acceptance for visa or grant-related reasons, be sure to note that in your accompanying email.

Registration is now open at http://www.uccconferencing.ie/product/2015-annual-conference-society-musicology-ireland-june-12-june-14-2015/, with reduced rates for SMI members. Meanwhile, SMI membership can be taken out or renewed at http://www.musicologyireland.com/. A small number of free registrations are available to research students willing to work for up to 6 hours as conference assistant: contact smi2015cork@gmail.com (by 31 March 2015) for further information.