[ANPPOM-Lista] CFP: Music and Democracy: beyond Metaphors and Idealization

[Carlos Palombini]

CALL FOR PAPERS
Music and Democracy: beyond Metaphors and Idealization
21 June 2019
University of Huddersfield

Convened by Igor Contreras Zubillaga (British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow,
University of Huddersfield) and Robert Adlington (University of
Huddersfield)
Keynote speaker: Esteban Buch (CRAL/EHESS, Paris)

Democracy has been and ideal for musicians throughout the twentieth century
and into the twenty-first. Musicians working in fields including modern
composition, jazz, improvisation, orchestral social inclusion projects, and
online networked performance have been drawn to democracy as a metaphor and
ideal for legitimising their practice. How are we to understand such
appeals to the concept of democracy, in the musical field? Although the
concept of democracy tends spontaneously to arouse approval and adherence,
consideration should be given to the great diversity of uses that have been
made of it (and continue to be made nowadays), the multiplicity of forms of
democracy, and the historicity of democratic systems. These complex facets
of democracy became especially apparent in the political context of
transition to democracy after an authoritarian regime, leading to a
struggle between different ‘ideas’ of democracy. Therefore, a careful
scrutiny of what ‘democratic’ means and a close analysis of the relations
being produced, for whom, and why, seem necessary in each particular case.

Building upon the conference ‘Finding Democracy in Music’, held at the
University of Huddersfield in September 2017, this study day – the first
one of a series of three – aims to interrogate what Georgina Born has
termed ‘the experimental and novel socialities, imagined communities and
social and institutional conditions summoned into being’ by ‘democratic’
forms of music-making. What is the nature of a ‘democratic ideal’ in music
(or art-making more widely)? What is achieved, politically, by rethinking
the way in which music is made? When does such rethinking affect the wider
domain of social relations, and when does it not? If democratic
music-making can help with the wider democratisation of social life, how
does it do so? When and how is ‘democratic’ music more than just a metaphor?

We invite proposals from scholars working in any discipline for papers
exploring these and related questions in relation to any musical practice.
Papers will be 30-minutes in length with 15 minutes of discussion time, to
enable the fullest exchange. Please submit proposals (250-300 words) to
I.ContrerasZubillaga(at)hud.ac.ukby the deadline Thursday 31 January 2019.
The programme will be announced in early March.

https://musicdemocracystudydays.wordpress.com

-- 
carlos palombini, ph.d. (dunelm)
professor de musicologia ufmg
professor permanente ppgm-unirio