Hi,

after a wonderful week in Mexico City at the biannual IASPM-conference (and in
other
places afterwards) here's a small report. The panel that Yngvar Steinholt, Mark
Yoffe and I
organized on Soviet- and Post-Soviet popular music ended up being a four person
panel
with Yngvar Steinholt, Sergio Mazzanti, Lena Kopylova and me presenting five
papers (on
Televizor, DDT, Soviet Rock Opera, contemporary popular music in St. Petersburg
and the
use of folklore in (Post-) Soviet popular music). It was very interesting and we
discussed
i.a. the role of popular music in the Soviet Union (against the regime or not?
Alexei
Yurchak's book "Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet
Generation"
and the concept of vne raises some important issues to be considered in future
discussions). The next world conference will be in Liverpool (UK) 2009 and I
warmly
recommend you to join IASPM (www.iaspm.net) if you are interested in popular
music
studies.

Finally, I would like to remind everybody about the call for abstracts for the
special edition of Popular Music and Society on Post-Soviet popular
music - the deadline is September 1st, 2007 (see the cfa below).

Do skorogo,

david-emil
---
POPULAR MUSIC AND SOCIETY
CALL FOR ABSTRACTS
Special Issue: "Popular Music in the Post-Soviet Space: Trends,
Movements, and Social Contexts"
Guest-Editors: Yngvar Steinholt, Tromsø University
David-Emil Wickström, University of Copenhagen
Mark Yoffe, George Washington University
Fifteen years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, popular music
is thriving in the former Soviet territories and covers a broad
variety of genres. Among these are rock bands formed in the Soviet
era, surviving legends of Soviet pop, and younger bands and
performers of the 1990s and 2000s. Local and foreign musics blend as
new impulses arrive from without and arise from within the region.
Thanks to the most recent wave of Russian emigrants, these popular
musics have also spread to various localities around the world, as
exemplified by the phenomenon of "Russendisko" in Berlin or the
Russkii Rok-Klub v Amerike (Russian Rock Club of America).
This special edition of Popular Music and Society aims to present
research on contemporary
popular music (broadly defined) in the former Soviet republics and
their diasporas. A central issue will be how the musical landscape
has changed since the collapse of the Soviet Union: What present
trends can be observed? How has the Soviet context influenced the
popular music of today? How is music performed and consumed? How
has the interrelationship between cultural industry and performers
developed? How are nationalist sensibilities affecting popular music
and vice versa? What are the future potentials and orientations of
popular music in and around this vast region?
Contributions are welcomed from researchers in all disciplines
involved in the study of popular
music in the post-Soviet space: popular music studies,
ethnomusicology, Russian studies, literature studies, culture
studies, sociology, history, linguistics, folklore, journalism.
Deadline for abstracts (maximum 600 words): 1. September 2007
Submission instructions: Submit abstract by e-mail to Yngvar
Steinholt at:
<yngvar.steinholt@...>
Tentative schedule:
1 September 2007: deadline for abstracts
1 September 2008: deadline for articles (must be in MLA format)
Spring 2009: special issue published
Journal websites: <http://www.niu.edu/popms> and
<http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/03007766.asp>