CfP: Austrian Music Studies: Topics – Perspectives - Concepts, Innsbruck, 4-7 Dezember

Annual Conference of the Austrian Society for Musicology

Innsbruck, Austria, Haus der Musik 4-7 December 2019
Organisation and Concept: Department of Music of the University of Innsbruck in cooperation with the doctoral seminar “Austrian Studies” of the University of Innsbruck

Austria is politically, culturally and historically a multiply charged conception. Semantically residing at the interface between the Habsburg Monarchy and the Republic, in every historical period, it has been profoundly conflicting. In the modern times it soon detached itself from its topographical determination and obtained a more extensive meaning. With the end of the 18th century, the strain between heterogeneous territorial dominions, multilingualism, as well as cultural and confessional differences on the one side, and the centralistic tendencies of the public administration on the other, kept increasing. In addition to this, the 19th century brought designs of national identity that confronted the multinational state and destabilised it. In the Republic, which, compared to the monarchy, was territorially severely reduced, the necessity for self-determination manifested itself in the course of its century-old existence in various intensities and forms, ranging from a total abandonment of an independent Austrian (cultural) nation for the benefit of the idea of a German one, all the way to a conscious distance from Germany. Even today there are still political camps subscribing to the Nazi-implemented Anschluss. The production, reception and conservation of music took an active part in the processes sketched here, and were determined by them; but on the other hand they helped to create these processes.

In such a demanding multitude of layers and meanings, as well as contrariness of the notion of Austria, it is no wonder that a flourishing research field of “Austrian Studies” or rather “Austrian Music Studies” found a way to establish itself in European and Anglo-American areas. Such a designation appears also as the subheading of the journal of the Austrian Society for Musicology (ÖGMw), “Musicologica austriaca” – meanwhile an online peer-reviewed journal. 

This year´s Annual Conference of the Austrian Society for Musicology organised by the Department of Music of the University of Innsbruck focuses on the musicological dimensions of the national, supranational, postcolonial and neo-colonial, as well as on the critique of these dimensions. The subjects of analysis at the conference should be music-related identity discourses, collective identities performatively brought up through music, questions of cultural transfer in and outside of the Austrian territories, interrelations and delimitations. We welcome proposals from all subdisciplines of musicology that examine these issues through the connection between theoretical reflections and case studies.

Conference languages are German and English, unless otherwise discussed with the organisational committee.
Format: 20-minute papers with 10-minute discussions.

Abstracts of 250-300 words should be sent as attachments (Word, PDF) by 15th June 2019, along with the author´s name, institutional affiliation, e-mail address and technical requirements, to the following address: bernhard.steinbrecher(at)uibk.ac.at. The authors of accepted abstracts will be notified by 15th July 2019.