[Commlist] CFP - Amplification and Everyday Life

We are delighted to invite proposals for a two-day conference dedicated 
to Amplification and Everyday Life, taking place June 4-5, 2026, at the 
University of Huddersfield, UK.

The deadline for submissions is December 15, 2025 and the Expression of 
Interest Form is available here: 
https://makeitlouder.co.uk/amplification-and-everyday-life/ 
<https://makeitlouder.co.uk/amplification-and-everyday-life/>____

Questions about the conference can be directed to Amplification Project 
Senior Research Fellows Gabrielle Kielich,(G.E.Kielich2 /at/ hud.ac.uk) 
<mailto:(G.E.Kielich2 /at/ hud.ac.uk)>, or Rebekah E. Moore,(R.Moore2 /at/ hud.ac.uk) 
<mailto:(R.Moore2 /at/ hud.ac.uk)>.____

The Amplification Project, a Leverhulme Trust-funded research project 
housed within theMusic and Music Technology divisionof the University of 
Huddersfield, invites proposals on the theme of “Amplification and 
Everyday Life.” As the first large-scale research project dedicated to 
the study of amplification, we hope this conference will help to 
identify and define key issues and debates that are of core importance 
to the topic and will advance our mission to make amplification into a 
key subject in the cultural study of music and sound. ____

Sound amplification is one of the fundamental technologies of modernity. 
More than a way to make things louder, amplification has contributed to 
the increased ubiquity of recorded sound in everyday life and has 
afforded new mechanisms for controlling sound or using sound as a medium 
for social control. The sounds resulting from a range of amplified or 
amplifying devices – radios, phonographs, hi-fidelity stereo units, 
instrument amplifiers, public address systems, mobile phones – have been 
integrated into both private domestic settings and public events, 
contributing to the construction of diverse forms of individual and 
collective experience. ____

Where and how do we experience amplification?____

  * Amplified instruments can be played in isolation or in concert with
    others, creating the basis for distinct types of musical sociality.
  * Live musical events use public address systems to build sonic
    environments designed to allow audiences to feel removed from
    everyday experience, but the work of assembling these systems is
    often routinized and relies upon specialized knowledge acquired
    through years of applied effort.
  * Political rallies and protests use sound reinforcement to amplify
    the voices of both the political elite and the oppressed or
    marginalized, while police and military authorities have often
    resorted to amplification in efforts to drown out or silence those
    same voices.
  * Portable listening devices afford new listening practices and ways
    of negotiating space, whether through cultivating privatised
    soundtracks through headphones or using mobile speaker technology to
    stake claims to public space on buses, subways, and neighbourhood
    streets.
In all these settings and more, amplification insinuates itself into 
everyday living patterns and is one of the principal frames through 
which sound circulates as a primary aspect of social interaction. ____

We welcome contributions from a wide range of scholarly fields, 
disciplines, and methodological approaches, including work that emerges 
from creative practice, and strongly encourage proposals about 
amplification in the everyday life of people of the Global South and 
marginalized—racial, gendered, sexual, socioeconomic—identity groups. ____

We invite papers that explore the following themes, or others related to 
amplification: ____

  * Amplification as a listening technology and a means of cultivating
    audile technique
  * Amplification as a performance technology and its alignment with
    musical practice
  * Amplification as a technology of the self
  * Timbre and amplified sound in everyday performance settings
  * Live music production as everyday labour
  * Amplifying political cultures
  * Amplification technologies as tools of political repression
  * Modifying and experimenting with amplification devices
  * Home audio systems and audiophile culture
  * Amplification in outdoor or natural sonic environments
  * Amplification as a mediator of gender, race, class, sexuality,
    and/or disability
  * Historical or geographical differences and continuities in 
amplification
  * Amplifier manufacturing and production
  * The home as listening environment
  * Home studios and domestic production
  * Amateur musicking and amplification
  * Restoration, preservation and archiving of amplification technologies
  * Reflections on the relationship between the material and
    metaphorical aspects of amplification
  * Everyday amplification and the extreme or the extraordinary
  * Amplified sound art as a medium for representing or distilling the
    everyday
  * Acoustic monitoring devices and everyday surveillance
Individual papers/presentations should plan to be 20 minutes, plus 10 
minutes for discussion. Panel presentations should include 3 or 4 
individual presenters. Panels can also take alternate formats such as a 
more open panel discussion but should specify the need for a 90-minute 
or 120-minute time slot. ____

For individual proposals, please submit a maximum 300-word abstract 
including title, a 100-word bio, and contact information for the 
presenter. ____

For panel proposals, please submit a maximum 300-word abstract for the 
full panel, in addition to 300-word abstracts for the individual papers, 
a 100-word bio for each presenter, and contact information for all 
participants. ____

Presentations will be evaluated through a peer review process based on 
the following criteria: (a) relevance to the call for papers and 
potential significance; (b) evidence of original research; (c) clarity 
of the main idea and research claims being made; and (d) theoretical and 
methodological rigour. ____

We can offer a limited number of small travel stipends of £200 for 
conference participants who require assistance. If you would like to 
request a stipend, please include a one-paragraph rationale for your 
request with your conference submission. Your rationale should address 
the basis of the financial need and the importance of the conference to 
your research plans. Stipends will only be provided for those who have 
had their proposals accepted. ____

Submissions for the conference will be due by December 15, 2025. The 
conference organizers hope to respond to all proposals by February 1, 2026.

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