Call for papers
Narrative Voices in German Popular Music Discourses An edited volume
Contributors are invited to submit articles in English for an edited volume with the working title "Narrative Voices in German Popular Music Discourses." The volume is intended to give an overview of significant aspects of German popular music development since the 1960s by scrutinizing important genres of popular music and song in Germany such as Schlager, Folk, Volk, volkstuemlich, rock, rap/hip-hop, blues, techno, Liedermacher, punk/new wave, and others. Contributions should address the unity and tensions of music and lyrics of pop songs, the kinds of social communities constructed by the genres addressed, and the socio-cultural values transmitted in songs and musics. Articles may address both the establishment as well as the crossing and dissolution of genre boundaries, the specific contributions of major figures in German popular music history such as Nina Hagen, Udo Lindenberg, Udo Juergens, Kraftwerk, Rammstein, Liedermacher, Chansoniers, or others who may or may not be familiar to audiences in the English-speaking world. Analyses might involve the constructions of gender, class, and ethnic boundaries through German popular music. Articles may also analyze the impact and contribution of foreign influences on German popular musics like the Beatles, punk and new wave, skinhead music, or heavy metal, dealing with issues such as Americanization, globalization/localization, or commercialization. They may also focus on the changes domestic traditions have undergone as a result of these influences, particularly on genres like volkstuemliche, Schlager, or the Liedermacher. Historical, sociological, ethnographic, or textual analysis-based approaches may be employed.
Conceptual Focus
The volume will be based conceptually on the specific encoding of experiences, values, narrative stances, and genre distinctions explained in Simon Frith's book Performing Rites (1996). Articles in this volume should therefore adhere to or be based on the view that the genres represent "shared musical knowledge and experience," that they help collusively organize the listening process and the playing process with "an implied plot," an "implied romance," or "implied community." Contributors should also find it useful to base their analyses in discourse theoretical writings by Habermas, Bourdieu, and/or Foucault.
Potential Audience
The volume should interest students and scholars of German Studies, German and European history, ethnomusicology, and popular culture and media. It is designed to expand upon and deepen scholarly analysis of the popular musics of the second largest popular music market of the world touched upon by the recent special issue of Popular Music (October 1998, 17/3), or dealt with on a comparative level by Uta Poiger (2000), and intermittently detailed in articles by Peter Wicke with regard to East Germany. The volume is therefore intended to address a sorely neglected area of German studies, which typcially focuses on literature and film, but tends to marginalize popular music narratives as epiphenomenal or "merely" commercial. Articles should be about 25 pages in length and follow the citation and bibliographic guidelines of the Modern Language Association (MLA) style manual.
Abstracts (which may be submitted by email) of one page should be sent by Feb. 15, 2001 to the address below. Deadline for final versions will be August 15, 2001.
Edward Larkey
Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics
University of Maryland Baltimore County
1000 Hilltop Circle
Baltimore, MD 21250
Tel: 410-455-2109 (Dept.)
Fax: 410-455-1025
Email: larkey@umbc.edu
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