CALL FOR PROPOSALS 2006 EMP POP CONFERENCE

"Ain't That a Shame": Loving Music in the Shadow of Doubt
The 2006 Experience Music Project Pop Conference

Seattle, WA, April 27-30, 2006


What forces are at work when we like something we "shouldn't"? What
role does shame, either shame succumbed to or shame resisted, play in
the pleasure we as fans and interpreters take from the music we love?
Is loving music passionately (collecting it, critiquing it,
fashioning one's identity around it) itself becoming a guilty
pleasure, i.e. something increasingly rare and in need of
explanation, something self-indulgent or questionable? To what
extent do these issues reveal hierarchies of taste, transformed
subjectivities, the effect of politics on culture, or other lines of
contestation permeating popular music?

For this year's Pop Conference, we invite papers, panels, or other
presentations on these topics. Related questions include but are not
limited to:

--In what terms do "guilty pleasures" operate beyond the U.S.
experience? How do different genres define the inappropriate?

--Who are the performers, the issues and the hidden pleasures, that
you have wanted to write about but never dared, or who you loved and
then forsook?

--What happens when you center your focus on "minor" histories?

--How do the desires for novelty and permanence, diaspora and roots,
or for that matter extremity and conformity, play out against each
other in music?

--Can we think in less whiggish and salutary ways about pop and
progress, or how music functions in dark times?

--Does doubt affect the creation of musical works, and not only
reception? What guilty pleasure do performers feel about their own
social impact?

--How does technology and futurist rhetoric affect distinctions in
pop fashion between the sublime and the ridiculous?

--What are the connections between pop shame and "passing": sexual,
racing, class, nationality?

The EMP Pop Conference first convened in Spring 2002 and is now
entering its fifth year. The goal has always been to bring academics,
writers, artists, fans, and other participants into an all-too-rare
common discussion. Most presentations are of the 20 minute panel talk
variety, but unorthodox suggestions are our favorite kind and we can
support a wide range of technological experimentation. Previous
year's conferences have resulted in the anthology This is Pop
(Harvard, 2004), the current special issue of Popular Music ("Magic
Moments"), and a second anthology that is under preparation. This
year's program committee includes Drew Daniel (Matmos), writer
Jessica Hopper, Jason King (New York University), Michaelangelo Matos
(Seattle Weekly), Ann Powers (Blender), David Sanjek (BMI), Philip
Schuyler (University of Washington), and Karen Tongson (University of
Southern California).

Proposals should be no more than 250 words, should be accompanied by
a brief bio and full contact information, and are due January 16,
2006. Proposals are judged by liveliness of prose as much as
pertinence of topic. Email them, as well as any questions about the
conference, the theme, your topic, or the application process, to
organizer Eric Weisbard at EricW@emplive.org

For more information on previous
conferences, including a full range of participants and abstracts, go
to emplive/Education/Pop Conferences

(via The Girl Group)  ¶ 10/29/2005 07:17:00 AM