[ANPPOM-Lista] Prince from Minneapolis CfP Deadline: 20/10

[Carlos Palombini]

PRINCE   FROM   MINNEAPOLIS
A  SYMPOSIUM  AT THE   UNIVERSITY  OF  MINNESOTA
​APRIL 16-18, 2018

​CALL   FOR   PAPERS

​Prince was proud to hail from Minneapolis. Continuing to live and work
​ ​
there, he put the city firmly on the map of the music industry through the
​ ​
Minneapolis Sound. Until his unexpected death on April 21, 2016, he hosted
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parties for local fans at his Paisley Park studio. Prince is probably the
​ ​
only global megastar who has remained so embedded in the cultural life of
​ ​
their hometown.

This symposium will investigate Prince’s unique relation to Minneapolis and
​ ​
Minnesota. What demographic, cultural, and economic conditions were in
​ ​
place for Prince to emerge as a musical genius? How was a new sound born
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from a small African American population in a very white and segregated
​ ​
state? Why did Prince stay there? How did he reinvent the aesthetics and
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politics of blackness? How did he at the same time win over white and
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international audiences? How did Minnesotans, both queer and straight,
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react to Prince’s ambivalent black male sexuality? How is Minneapolis
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represented in *Purple Rain*? How do we interpret his spiritual
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explorations? What kind of utopia did Paisley Park embody? What was
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Prince’s mode of operation in the studio? How did the Minneapolis sound
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affect hiphop, jazz, rock, and electronic dance music? Why do music
​ ​
tourists flock to this city from Europe and Australia?

Appreciating Prince’s impact will provide a window on fundamental questions
​ ​
in US and Minnesotan society. At a time when the political achievements of
​ ​
the 1960s are under grave threat, we hope understanding where Prince* comes
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from *will make some room for reimagining social change.

Send paper title, abstract (300 words), and short bio (200 words) to
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PrinceFromMPLS em gmail.com by *October 20, 2017​*.

*POSSIBLE  TOPICS*

In collaboration with the symposium, the University of Minnesota’s Weisman
​ ​
Art Museum <http://www.wam.umn.edu/> is organizing an exhibition, “Prince
from Minneapolis”, celebrating Prince’s local
legacy, from December through June. Immediately after the symposium Paisley
​ ​
Park <http://officialpaisleypark.com/> is hosting “Celebration 2018” and
​ ​
there will be other commemorations in the Twin Cities.

• music industry and technology
• musicology and music history
• name change and legal battles
• visual arts
• style, fashion, design
• protest, freedom, revolution
• segregation and migration
• blackness and hybridity
• gender, sexuality, family, love
• apocalypse and messianism
• vegan, environmental, health ethics
• afterlife and remembrance
• Minneapolis and the world