Musics and Knowledge in Transit
Call for Proposals
Musics and Knowledge in Transit
XI Conference of SIBE – Sociedad de Etnomusicología
III Conference of Musics in the Lusophone and Hispanic Worlds
I Conference of IASPM – International Association for the Study of Popular Music Portugal
VI Conference of IASPM, Spain
I Conference of ICTM, International Council for Traditional Music, Portugal
October 28-31, 2010
Rectory of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Lisbon, Portugal
The Ethnomusicology Institute – Center for the Study of Music and Dance is pleased to host the above listed international conferences at the Rectory of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa from October 28 to 31, 2010.
The official languages of the conference are: Portuguese, Spanish and English.
Conference Themes
Transatlantic Flows: The Iberian Peninsula, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean
The Iberian Peninsula, the countries of Africa, of Latin America and the Caribbean have together constituted the site of an extraordinary movement of peoples and cultural practices, especially with regard to music and dance. This legacy continues to shape cultural circuits of exchange into the present, informed both by numerous cultural affinities and by linguistic and cultural differences. These processes have led to the formation of a common history, marked by the realities of globalization, international migration and by broader cultural-political processes. An analysis of these processes centered on the Atlantic and on border territories and neighborhoods promises to bring new theoretical perspectives to the social sciences and, especially, to ethnomusicology. To what extent do historical and current circuits of exchange lead to the reformulation of cultural spaces, expressive practices and to their resignification? Might tackling these cultural flows lead to a new empirical, theoretical and critical understanding of the Atlantic?
Author Rights and Notions of Intellectual Property in Performative, Mediatized and Virtual Spaces
The legislation of author rights in the context of music and dance has proven ambiguous and difficult to implement. It recognizes the creation of works, purportedly original, realized by an individual or by a small group, yet it habitually does not take orally transmitted musics into account. Locally formed notions as to the nature and status of the ownership of orally transmitted expressive practices are often informed by an authenticity ideal that sometimes obscures the authority of the compositions themselves. Since the emergence of World Music, the appropriation and redistribution by the recording industries of musical elements from different cultural contexts in order to produce new musical forms and compositions is a process that has not been effectively regulated. How does legislation deal with local notions of property and creative practices in a mediatized environment? How does the legal system understand authors’ rights for musicians, the music industries and the communication media? To what extent can scholars contribute to the protection of musicians’ and dancers’ rights?
Communication Media, Technologies and Industries of Music, Dance and other Performing Arts: From the Printed Medium to the Internet
Different communication media and technological innovations have contributed to the shaping of the creation, reception and consumption of music and dance, from the appearance of the musical press, through musical theatre, phonography, radio, cinema, television and the Internet. We invite contributions that reflect on the function and impact of communication media and technologies at local, national and global levels taking into account performative, social, economic and political dimensions. How do technologies shape music and dance production? What challenges do the new means of production and dissemination through the net pose for the creation, management and wide propagation of the performing arts? How and to what extent do scholars use communication media and technologies as sources and/or tools in their research.
The Construction/Reception of the Performative Body
Performative events have their primary material location in the human body and thereby contribute simultaneously to its construction. Each of the arts disciplines models the body in its own particular way. From a contemporary perspective, the body of the creator and of the performer establishes, in both music and dance, networks that implicate the body of audience members. How can these ways of modeling the performative body be characterized taking into account also the sensorial networks at work in the processes of creation and reception? To what extent are contemporary reconfigurations of the performing arts and technological developments reflected in the development of performance and interpretation techniques? How is the incorporation of technology processed on the ground?
Dialogic Debates in Ethnomusicology
The postmodern outlook has brought in its wake a profound shift in ways of doing scholarship. In the social sciences and humanities, the complicity of the “other” in the production of knowledge and in its application has come to occupy a prime place in numerous theoretical debates about dialogic practice. In ethnomusicology, the researcher frequently constructs, with the help of the “other”, his/her specific relationship with the music studied, and his/her capacity to practice and reflect upon it. What are the consequences of the dialogic debate for the production, dissemination and application of knowledge? How can the scholar and her/his interlocutors negotiate the production of ethnomusicological discourse? How might we resolve the differences in perspective between the researcher and his/her interlocutors?
Music and Dance: New Educational Challenges
Recent debates on education have emphasized topics such as the need to develop creativity, to improve communicative skills, and the ability to work collaboratively, with a view to making room for the promotion of citizenship. The performative arts of music and dance, in both specialized and generalist programs of education, represent in this respect privileged sites for that promotion. What role might ethnomusicological and ethnochoreological research play in this process? What theoretical and practical propositions might we offer in curricula, in teacher training, in the management of interculturalism, in the integration of schools within communities and in assuring their engagement with social development in general?
New Research
Proposals on new research on other relevant topics are also welcome.
