2021 Popular Music Books in Process Series, Call for Presentations
Since June, in response to the Covid-19 crisis, Popular Music Books in Process has presented a weekly online event for music writers and scholars to showcase their new books or books in progress to an engaged and interactive audience. The series is a collaboration between the Journal of Popular Music Studies, the Pop Conference, and IASPM-US.
Our 2020 run is scheduled to end in December. But since the pandemic continues, we are inviting new proposals for the first half of 2021. If you are publishing a book between now and June 2021, or have a work in progress, please let us know. Details are below. While all kinds of formats are welcome, we’d suggest you think about inviting one or more other people to join you in dialogue about your project, or to co-present on multiple projects — this has tended to make for livelier sessions in the Zoom medium than solo presentations. (Some authors have even incorporated live music.) If you don’t have ideas for co-presenters, we may be able to suggest some, or pair you with another presentation that’s topically compatible.
For this new cycle, we also invite what have been called “digital lectures” — Zoom-type recorded videos that combine a spoken narration, slides and/or audio-visual examples, and perhaps an on-camera presence. For our purposes, a digital lecture of roughly 15 minutes would be shown at the start of a Zoom gathering, with discussion to follow. (It’s worth noting that the Journal of Popular Music Studies is looking to publish a package of digital lectures as a late 2021 offering, and both IASPM-US and the Pop Conference expect digital lectures to be part of their 2021 offerings. These presentations might serve multiple purposes.)
Our YouTube page (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiArt-iq8lLPQ79blC6xqHRMbq70v0Yrd) shows the variety of ways people have already presented within the series, and serves as an archive that greatly extends the reach of the sessions.
Regardless of how you choose to present, our focus remains books, whether early in their gestation or after publication. We want to showcase music writing of many kinds on many subjects, keeping our communities of music writers and thinkers connected, and welcoming in new participants. Please feel free to share this call with others you think might be interested and appropriate.
To apply for a 2021 session, please send in by December 16:
— A proposal of about 300 words describing the published book, book in process, digital lecture, or music talk that you (or you and others) would like to present.
— Bio(s) of about 100 words maximum for each participant.
— An indication of when in the January to June calendar would be best for you.
Email all three co-organizers, thanks.
Best,
Kimberly Mack, Kimberly.Mack@utoledo.edu, University of Toledo, for IASPM-US
Eric Weisbard, Eric.Weisbard@gmail.com, University of Alabama for JPMS
Carl Wilson, CarlZoilus@gmail.com, Slate, for Pop Conference