[Commlist] Call for Papers: Transformational POP. 4th IASPM D-A-CH Conference

*call for papers*

*Transformational POP*

*Transitions, Breaks, and Crises in Popular Music (Studies)*

*4th Biennial IASPM D-A-CH Conference, 22–24 October 2020*

Paderborn University/Germany, Faculty of Humanities and Arts, Department 
of Music – Popular Music and Media

/Organizational Committee/: IASPM D-A-CH Executive Committee and 
Advisory Board +  Jun.-Prof. Dr. Beate Flath, Prof. Dr. Christoph Jacke, 
Manuel Troike (Local hosts)


Pop music cultures, in their entire breadth, are seismographs of social, 
political, economic, ecological, media, artistic, and technological 
transformations. In and through them, fields of tensions, disruptions, 
and lines of conflict become not only visible, audible and perceptible, 
but also communicable and thus, negotiable. Economic and ecological 
crises, social structural changes, political shifts, communicative-media 
discourses, atmospheric moods, and disturbances of the most diverse kind 
cannot be appreciated in isolation from specific sounds, performances, 
lyrics, images, stars, genres, etc. Therefore, these are always changing 
in the process: pop music cultures transform and are themselves 
transformed. “Pop is transformational, always. It is a dynamic movement 
in which cultural materials and its social environments mutually reshape 
each other, crossing previously fixed boundaries: class boundaries, 
ethnic boundaries or cultural boundaries [own translation].“ (Diedrich 
Diederichsen, Pop – deskriptiv, normativ, emphatisch (1996). In: Charis 
Goer, Stefan Greif, Christoph Jacke (Eds.): Texte zur Theorie des Pop, 
2013: 188)

As a central category in the academic consideration of pop music 
cultures, transformation means more than mere development or change. 
Transformation, in this context, means that pop music cultural areas on 
and around real or virtual stages, in connection with societies, 
intentionally or non-intentionally, move from one state to another. 
Transformation, as a descriptive category for transitions, ruptures, and 
crises in cultural fields and practices, is central – as a key concept 
of a “[...] performative transformation model of crossover, 
reinterpretation and exchange of characteristics […], which focuses on 
the culture's opposition to the binary and an either-or, that is, on the 
articulation and possibility of a third party and non-binary, and the 
necessary and possible competence of the actors [own translation] [.]“ 
(Thomas Düllo, Kultur als Transformation, 2011: 53)

Thus, transformations are modes of transition. Pop music cultures are an 
exemplary field of transformations, where value systems, legal 
frameworks, infrastructures, technologies, consumption, reception and 
conditions, and habits change. The related processes, mechanisms, 
dynamics etc. are to be focused in the context of this conference.

With this, the 4th Biennial IASPM D-A-CH conference at Paderborn 
University (Department of Music – Popular Music and Media) would like to 
take a closer look at the transformative moments of pop music cultures 
by theorizing, empiricizing, historicizing, and, finally, politicizing 
them. Digitization, mediatization/medialization, economization and 
glocalization, as well as neo-nationalism, transculturation, gender, and 
power issues are explicitly intended as transversal to the following 
topics, and thus, integrative and not additive.


/Topic Pop – Policy – Polity – Politics/

•Pop and populism

•Politics and (de-)politicization in/of pop music cultures: Policy 
(contents), Polity (structures) and Politics (processes)

•Pop and funding policies: Actors, institutions, focal points

•Labor, work and pop music cultures: Between precarity and superstardom

•Pop music cultures and cultural participation

•(De-)Colonization and Pop Music Cultures

•Pop music cultures and borders, migrations and transgressions

•…


/Topic Pop and Environmental Climate Transformations/

•Climate damage/climate neutrality/climate protection and pop music 
cultures in connection with the creation, production, distribution, 
reception and processing of pop music (e.g. costs and benefits of 
transformative moments, such as new technologies or state incentive 
systems, etc.)

•Sounds of climate-damaging / climate neutral / climate protecting pop music

•Sounds of climate change

•Pop music cultures and environmental activism

•…


/Topic Pop and Public / Published Opinion(s)/

•Pop music journalism (e.g. transformations through commercialization, 
industrialization, digitalization and popularization)

•Transformations of marketing, public relations, advertising and journalism

•Professional versus amateur, public and published, opinion on pop (e.g. 
social networks and fan cultures)

•Transformations of legal frameworks

•…


/Topic Pop, Memories, Histories, and the Archives/

•Connections and transformations of pop music cultures and institutions

•Institutionalized and non-institutionalized historiography, archiving, 
museumization and canonization

•Pop music cultural, pop music media, pop music industrial heritage

•Memory and remembrance in the context of mediatization/medialization, 
automation, digitalization and artificial intelligence

•…


/Topic Pop and Academia/

•Transformations within/of Popular Music Studies (national and inter- or 
transnational as well as disciplinary and inter- or transdisciplinary, 
academic/non-academic)

•Theories and methods of reflection on the transformation of objects and 
methods of Popular Music Studies

•Visions of Popular Music Studies (e.g. institutionalization, curricula 
etc.)

•Popular Music Studies: Specialists stories, genealogies, biographies 
and careers

•Transformations of the “Five I-s“ of IASPM D-A-CH (see Mission 
Statement at www.iaspm-dach.net): International, interinstitutional, 
intergenerational, interdisciplinary and interprofessional

•…


Other contributions outside these topics are welcome and will be 
considered if possible.

The call is aimed at researchers of all disciplines, subjects and 
perspectives who are conducting research in the broad field of Popular 
Music Studies as well as representatives of relevant non-academic 
fields. The conference is transdisciplinary – following the Paderborn 
research approach.

A membership in the IASPM or one of its branches is required for the 
submission of a panel or paper (information on membership at 
iaspm-dach.net).

Papers can be submitted and presented in German and English in the 
following formats:

•Panels with three presentations on a common topic (60 minutes + 30 
minutes discussion)

•individual papers (20 minutes + 10 minutes discussion)

Submissions should include a title, a 250-word abstract, five keywords 
that concretize the planned contribution, names, academic affiliation 
(if applicable), a short bio note (one or two sentences) and contact 
information. Please submit only one abstract per person.

Proposals should be sent by 13 April 2020 to: 
(manuel.troike /at/ uni-paderborn.de). The selection of papers will be 
anonymous. Applicants* will receive feedback by 11 May 2020.

Depending on the amount of financial support for the conference, the 
organizing team will try to support the travel and accommodation costs 
of those speakers whose home institutions do not cover them.

IASPM D-A-CH will award the Maria-Hanáček-prize for the best 
presentation held by a doctoral student at the conference.

If childcare is required, please register briefly at 
(manuel.troike /at/ uni-paderborn.de) by 01.09.2020.

Cooperation partner: norient


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