Popular Music in Communist and Post-Communist Europe: State of Research, Perspectives (28–29 March 2017)

The Department of Musicology at Palacký University in Olomouc is holding an international and interdisciplinary conference dedicated to the presentation, summary and evaluation of existing research in the field of popular music in communist and post-communist Europe on 28–29 March 2017.

The conference provides a forum for synthetically conceived contributions, as well as contributions focused on narrowly defined issues related to the topic. The meeting will be dedicated both to general reflections on the field of “Popular Music Studies” in particular national contexts, and to presentations discussing the current state of archival and other sources, new methodological approaches, institutional initiatives, projects, etc. Studies on various aspects of the history of popular music (jazz, rock, pop, etc.) in communist and post-communist Europe are welcome, as well as in-depth interpretations of communist and post-communist historiography of popular music, with all its social, political, aesthetically evaluative and other attributes. The sufficient distance from the transformative era at the turn of the 1990s as well as the current European experience of the twenty-first century make it possible for general issues such as totalitarianism and democratism in popular music to be openly discussed.

The conference should serve to mediate contacts and strengthen collaboration between researchers in post-communist Europe. It also aims at creating a space for dialogue with peers outside the given geopolitical sphere. The main conference language will consequently be English (although a translation service may be arranged in special cases). Selected conference papers will be published (specific information about the proceedings will be provided at the conference meeting). There is no conference fee.

The guests and keynote speakers will include Rüdiger Ritter (University of Bremen/TU Chemnitz; co-editor of Jazz Behind the Iron Curtain, Frankfurt/Main: Lang, 2011), Anna Szemere (Visiting Professor at Eötvös Loránd University; author of Up From the Underground: The Culture of Rock Music in Postsocialist Hungary, University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001) and Artemy Troitsky (freelance journalist and broadcaster; author of Back in the USSR: The True Story of Rock in Russia, London and Boston: Faber & Faber, 1988) who have already accepted invitations.

ABSTRACT DEADLINE:
A presentation suggestion (approximately 100 words + brief biography, contact and affiliation) should be sent no later than 20 January 2017 by email: musicologicaolomucensia@upol.cz. (The length of each presentation will be 20 minutes plus 10 minutes for discussion.)

An acceptance email will be sent by 25 January 2017.