Musics of the Non-Anglo Communities in the USA in the 21st Century

Call for articles
The Musics of the Non-Anglo Communities in the USA in the 21st Century: Technology, Economy, Identity
InMedia
Deadline for proposals: 30 September 2013

The forthcoming special issue of the on-line journal InMedia will be devoted to the musics of the non-Anglo communities in the USA in the 21st century, focusing on identity, technological, and economic issues.

For decades, numerous musical styles have been thriving in the USA, whose origins are not in Anglo-American communities: Bhangra, an off-shoot of the Indo-Pakistani diaspora; Cajun and Zydeco, in Francophone Louisiana; the various styles of the Chicano communities, from conjunto, Norteña, and banda to narcocorridos; salsa, rooted in the Cuban, Puerto-Rican, and Dominican immigration; Klezmer, increasingly outside Jewish circles; the polkas and tamburitzas of the Scandinavian and central/eastern European communities of the upper Midwest; the sounds of the various East, and Southeast Asian groups, and many more. These musics have received enthusiastic, but irregular academic attention. However, in recent years, researchers, both within and outside the USA, have increasingly mapped and analyzed them.

This issue aims at exploring these styles in light of the most recent technological and economic developments. Rather than approaching them from a musicological perspective and studying them in terms of composition, instrumentation, style, etc., our ambition is to inscribe them in their time and place, and investigate their connection with their social, economic, political, and cultural environment. Interdisciplinary perspectives are welcome, including archives and reception analysis, comparative history, sociology and anthropology, postcolonial, visual, and media studies. We invite articles that explore, among others, the following issues:

How has the music industry dealing with these musics fostered or adapted to recent developments?

What is the impact of the new on-line and traditional media on their dissemination and consumption?

Have live performances acquired a different role and importance?

What are the new business models connected to the ubiquitous use of the Internet and new forms of financing (crowd-funding, 360° deals)?

What influence do these evolutions have in terms of acculturation/transculturation processes? Are paradigms of integration and assimilation still relevant to describe how cultural practices are impacting these ethnic and social groups?

Proposals for articles (150 words + a short biography) must be sent to Claude Chastagner (claude.chastagner@univ-montp3.fr). They should include first and last name, status, affiliation, and electronic address of the author.

The proposals selected for publication must be previously unpublished and not under submission elsewhere. The final articles (in English, 5,000-7,500 words) will include two short abstracts, one in English, one in French, and a list of 5 keywords.

The journal follows The Chicago Manual of Style, fifteenth edition, 2003 (for more details see the style guide).

Deadline for proposals: 30 September 2013

Notification of decisions: early October 2013

Deadlines for articles: 28 February 2014