The North American British Music Studies Association

North American British Music Studies Association Biennial Conference 2016: Call for Proposals

The North American British Music Studies Association will hold its Seventh Biennial Conference from Thursday through Sunday, 4-7 August 2016, in Syracuse, New York, hosted by Syracuse University. Proposals on topics related to all aspects of British music and musical life throughout Britain, the Empire/Commonwealth, and beyond are welcome. Syracuse University is home to the Department of Art and Music Histories, one of the oldest in the country dedicated to the study of the arts in an interdisciplinary context, and to the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, one of the nation’s top communications schools. Thus, the program committee particularly encourages submissions that draw upon interdisciplinary or broader cultural contexts or that engage with media aspects or studies.

Presentations may take a variety of formats, including individual papers of twenty minutes in length, workshops involving group participation, roundtable discussions, lecture-recitals, and themed panel sessions. The Nicholas Temperley Prize will be awarded for the best scholarly presentation given by a graduate student.

A new addition to the program this year will be a colloquium, featuring a group of senior scholars invited to participate by the NABMSA executive board, who will address a topic that cuts across chronological, methodological, and geographical divisions within the discipline.

Proposal format and content

• For individual papers, abstracts of around 350 words should clearly present the title, the subject, the methodology, the argument, and the significance of the findings.
• For presentations in other formats, proposals should be of similar length, and should clearly state and justify the intended format, including amount of time requested, and should indicate the originality and significance of the material to be delivered.
• For those proposing a session of papers, individual papers should follow the guidelines above, and should be accompanied by a rationale of around 350 words that addresses the topic of the session and the relationships between the papers to be presented.
• Anyone proposing a lecture-recital should attach a short biography and must also include recordings of the proposed performer(s) playing examples of the proposed repertory if not of the exact proposed work(s).
• All proposals should also indicate audio-visual needs (in a separate line at the end of the abstract).
• Students should identify themselves as such, so that their papers can be considered for the Temperley Prize.

Proposal transmission procedures

• Proposals should be sent via e-mail attachment to the Program Committee Chair Christopher Scheer (christopher.scheer@usu.edu) with the subject-line NABMSA 2016 Proposal.
• The proposal should be attached to the e-mail and in Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx, or .rtf), only. Other formats such as .pdf will not be accepted.
  • In addition to paper title and abstract, the Word document should contain:
    • Your name
    • Your address
    • Your telephone, fax, and preferred e-mail address
    • Your preferred affiliation or city
    • Your audio-visual requirements
  • Audio or video recordings supporting proposals for lecture-recitals are required (demo disc, .mp3 files, etc.) and should be received (electronically) by the same deadline as the abstract (see below). Please contact the Program Chair via email for instructions on how to transmit these materials electronically. Do not send them as email attachments.
  • The deadline for all submissions is midnight, Eastern Standard Time, on Friday 22 January 2016.

More information about NABMSA and its activities may be seen on the Association’s web site, http://nabmsa.org/conferences/2016-biennial-conference/

Submissions will be acknowledged within four days of receipt. Participants will be notified of the acceptance by mid-March 2016. Program Committee for 2016: Christopher M. Scheer (Utah State University), chair; Linda Austern (Northwestern University); Lisa Colton (University of Huddersfield); Ryan Ross (Mississippi State University); and the President of the Society (ex-officio).