[AMS-announce] CFP: Cultural Globalization and the Cold War, Cold War and Music Study Group, AMS Annual Meeting, Nashville, November 2008

[ams-announce-admin at list.bowdoin.edu]

Call for panel presentations: "Cultural Globalization and the Cold War: Music Crossing Borders"

Panel discussion to be sponsored by the Cold War and Music Study Group, American Musicological Society, 2008 annual meeting, Nashville, Tennessee

The processes of cultural globalization are generally taken to include (among other aspects) music’s transmission to distant places via migration, war, or cultural diplomacy; the alteration or suppression of local musical practices through interaction with non- local ones; and the effects of technological mediation, such as broadcasting or recording, on musical practices.  These factors were also at play in a worldwide interaction of national cultures and political allegiances during the cold war; yet the cold war and musical globalization are rarely considered together.

In this panel we will consider the cold war as a global conflict, and potentially a culturally globalizing one, by examining the ways in which cold war politics caused music to be pushed or pulled into places far from its point of origin, or to be transformed by political relationships spanning vast distances.  Throughout our discussion, we will seek both to gather specific evidence from panelists and audience participants and to weigh how this evidence affects our understanding of the cold war’s impact on music-making and on the meanings of music.

Our panel will therefore seek to answer the following questions:

1. What relationships, if any, do you find between the international political activities of the cold war and the processes of cultural globalization that affect music of the mid-to-late twentieth century?

2. What specific evidence from your own research shapes your view?

3. What implications does this evidence have for our scholarly work as we seek to understand the music of this era?

This session will include several panelists, each of whom will use these questions as a springboard for a brief (15 minute) presentation, focused on their own research; these questions will also be circulated again right before the meeting to encourage broad participation from the audience.

If you are interested in participating as a panelist, please send a proposal of ca. 300 words, indicating clearly what repertories and research questions you would examine, to Danielle Fosler-Lussier (fosler-lussier.2 at osu.edu) by 15 January 2008.