CFP: "In the Mix: Asian Popular Music"

CALL FOR PAPERS

"In the Mix: Asian Popular Music"
Conference, Princeton University, March 25th-26th, 2011.

A conference organized with support from the Department of East Asian Studies, the Department of Music, the Program in American Studies, and the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies at Princeton University.

Special Talk and Performance: DJ Krush

Deadline for Submissions: November 30, 2010

We are pleased to invite abstract submissions for the conference, "In the Mix: Asian Popular Music," which will take place on the campus of Princeton University on March 25–26, 2011.

Interest in Asian popular music—by which we are referencing both popular music in Asia itself and popular genres played by Asians outside of Asia—has grown internationally over the past decade, thanks to the global popularity of anime, video games, and other media, increased travel, and easy accessibility through the Internet, among other factors. In a world where global popular musics are decentralized into local scenes that are less influenced by North American trends than they might have been in the past, the study of Asian popular music invites negotiations among a diversity of theoretical viewpoints, methodologies, and disciplines, including globalization, gender, media and/or literary studies, anthropology, and musicology/ethnomusicology.

The conference aims to gather together scholars from a wide range of perspectives. We are also inviting musicians and music industry professionals to contribute their thoughts on their own experiences, thereby adding practical insight into the mix of scholarly discussions. In so doing, we seek to deepen our understanding of artists, musics, and scenes as perceived by fans, promoters, and academics in actual and theoretical contexts.

In addition to paper panels and discussions, the conference will include a special talk by DJ Krush—a pioneer of Japanese hip-hop and internationally known DJ/producer, known for his varied soundscapes of hip-hop beats and Japanese sonic references—followed by a performance by DJ Krush.

We welcome proposals for papers from scholars of all disciplines on any aspect of popular music in Asia or by Asians or Asian-Americans. Some suggested topics include:

-Histories of subcultural music scenes in Asia

-Asian hip-hop

-Questions of authenticity, hybridity, and the boundaries between subcultures

-Aesthetics and music

-Musical analyses

-Nationalism

-Reception of Asian or Asian-American popular music, within or outside of the home country

-Relations between theory and ethnography in the study of Asian popular music

-Interactions between digital culture and popular music

Submissions should comprise a paper title, an abstract of up to 250 words, a short bibliography of no more than a page, and a short biography of about 200 words, all in one .rtf or .doc file with the author's lastname_firstname as the title. Submissions should be sent by e-mail to puasianpopconference@gmail.com by 30 November 2010 and should include the title of the paper, name, affiliation, email address, and mailing address of the applicant. Please address any questions to the organizing committee at the email address above.

Organizing committee

Richard Okada, Department of East Asian Studies

Noriko Manabe, Department of Music

Cameron Moore, Department of East Asian Studies