Music and counter-culture(s): Rock, the Sixties, the US and beyond
Submission deadline: November 1st, 2011
Volume! La Revue des musiques populaires (www.seteun.net), the one and
only French peer-reviewed journal exclusively dedicated to the
interdisciplinary study of popular music, seeks contributions for a
special issue on music and counterculture. Any scholarly essay on
popular music and counterculture, focusing on link to the "central"
period of the sixties and seventies, is welcome. Here are however a
few first elements that have generated debate in our editorial
discussions:
Download the CFP here:http://www.seteun.net/spip.php?article258
During the sixties in the U.S. and more globally in the West, a new
generation proposed – apparently – a culture radically opposed to the
traditional American Way of Life, which expressed itself via a set of
cultural references, ideas, lifestyles and, emblematically, of musics
– a heterogeneous movement baptized "the" counterculture. It marked
the generations that lived it and the ones that followed, transforing
the political and cultural landscapes as well as the global musical
spectrum. Its legacy has constantly been reactivated since by "new"
musical subcultures, be it polemically (punk, metal) or not, that
claimed for themselves its spirit (Goa trance, Kosmische Musik,
alternative hip-hop) and/or its material features (freak folk,
neo-hippies, stoner), and appropriated former musical elements, as
well as techniques, gestures, identities (style, hexis) or rituals
(protests songs, alternative festivals, forms of activism etc.) to use
them in new ways with new medias.
A certain progressive hagiography insists on its multicultural,
multiracial, feminist, militant and egalitarian aspects. However, many
signs suggest that things weren't that homogenous. If we usually
identify the movement with rock'n'roll (and its subgenres: blues-rock,
pop, psychedelic music, prog rock, hard rock) and folk – which were
mainly listened to by white youth – to define exactly which musics
were part of the phenomenon is a complex task: how did, for example,
previous subcultures, or free jazz and Jamaican music and other
"minority" musicians and fans relate to the counterculture? The proud
funk and soul music of a champion of individual success and American
capitalism like James Brown paradoxically helped cement the protest of
the Afro-American youth. The counterculture developed in the heart of
the West, but it also triggered a somewhat caricatured passion for the
exotic other – what is it that can be said, musically (raga rock,
neo-orientalism), politically and culturally of the echo of the "Third
World" within this movement? To take a final example of the
phenomenon's ambiguity, it was the era of the Summer of Love, of
sexual freedom and so forth, but it also glorified its manly
heterosexual singers and guitar heroes, while the female and
homosexual figures were rare on stage.
For this special issue of Volume!, the editors seek submissions coming
from the whole spectrum of social sciences, that will reflect upon the
heterogeneity of this/these music(s), its ambiguity, scattered
identity, its worldwide circulation, its origins, influence and
legacy. How can we define, aesthetically, culturally, politically,
historically and chronologically the music of the counterculture? what
is it that cements it? "formal" characteristics (musical elements,
style), ideology (militancy, lifestyles) or its nemeses (the system,
the American values and cultural hierarchies, war, the State,
capitalism)?
Other, more general, possible categories:
- the musical genres ("San Francisco sound", jazz-rock, prog rock,
psychedelic music, hard rock, free jazz, soul, funk…);
- the role of technology (instrumentation, recording technologies,
sound systems…);
- the period's subcultures, their stars, grandiose moments,
signification, themes and mythologies;
- their legacies: permanence and ruptures (punk, techno, free parties,
freak folk…) and the contrary ("merchant hijacking" by the dominant
culture…);
- the countercultural circulations between music, arts, politics,
social movements;
- questions of gender, class, race, sexuality and identity;
- influence of the "Third World" on the counterculture (orientalism,
africanism…), the geopolitics of counterculture and its new centers of
gravity;
- the actual perceptions and representations of the counterculture:
celebration and condemnation in the media, intellectual& art worlds;
- the "counter"-countercultures, the "reactionary" subcultures, back
then and since (conservative revivals, extreme right-wing skinheads,
rock against communism…):
- the margins of counterculture.
We strongly recommend authors sending us an early 500 word maximum
proposal when possible.
Final submissions should be sent by October 15th, 2011, by email,
- in English or French,
- with an abstract, a set of key words and a short biography of the
author,
- 30 000 to 50 000 characters (spaces included),
- Harvard system of referencing,
- .doc – Word 2004 format or .rtf;
(detailed instructions here:http://www.seteun.net/spip.php?article229
– respecting these requirements speeds up the editorial process.)
to the following addresses:
editions[at]seteun[dot]net, fredericbob[at]aol[dot]&
jedediah-sklower[at]hotmail[dot]com
They will first be evaluated by Volume's editorial board before being
blindly peer-reviewed by specialists.
