CfP: "Musical Futures" British Forum for Ethnomusicology Annual Conference 2025 (3.-6.04.2025, University of Cambridge, UK) Deadline: 09.12.2024
The conference theme for 2025 is Musical Futures. However, presentation of any new research is welcome, whether it engages with the theme or not.
Deadline extended to 5pm on Monday 9 December 2024
Further Information on Conference Website.
In Reckoning, political scientist Deva Woodly concludes her account of the Black Lives Matter movement with a meditation on futurity, writing: ‘Futurity is a word with multivalent meanings; it indicates the future time, a future event, or renewed or continuing existence. Futurity is the conviction that the part of the story one is living in is not and cannot be the whole of it’ (2021).
In a time of multiple, intertwined crises across the planet, what does it mean to imagine and cultivate musical and ethnomusicological futures? A global pandemic, the climate crisis, wars in Ukraine and Gaza, mass displacement of populations, xenophobic violence, and the defunding of Higher Education across the UK and beyond pose existential questions about the value of music and music studies in the face of such difficulties. Simultaneously, technological developments—the rapid expansion of generative AI, online disinformation, virtual reality, and cyberattacks—have potential to further destabilise the many societies with which we engage.
While such complexity may give rise to pessimism or cynicism, certain traditions of thought have long grappled with social and political challenges. Afrofuturism (and, in a way, its inversion, Afropessimism) envisions new possibilities and agency for Black life, often through the vehicle of music and the arts. Theorists of sexuality and gender have drawn attention to how queer and trans people have found new domains of living and potentiality, whether ‘utopian’, ‘deviant’, or otherwise marginalised. At the same time, decolonial historians have increasingly noted how colonialism and other forms of political violence also make frequent recourse to a vision of a particular future. In short, the future—musical and otherwise—has always been a site of struggle, ambiguity and possibility. Reflecting on ‘musical futures’ invites us to imagine both a hope for and consideration of the future.
Keynote speakers for the event will be: Marié Abe (UC-Berkeley), Georgina Born (UCL), and Luis-Manuel Garcia-Mispireta (Birmingham).
DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: 9 December 2024, 5 pm via online submission form
Please note that all presenters must be members of BFE at the time of the conference.
We welcome proposals for:
Papers (20 minutes with 10 minutes for questions)
Panels (3 or 4 related papers on a shared theme, totalling 1.5 or 2 hours)
Roundtables (3–5 shorter presentations, 10–15 minutes each, followed by a chaired discussion, totalling 1.5 or 2 hours)
Performance-based presentations or workshops (20 or 50 minutes with 10 minutes for questions). Please contact the organising committee to discuss possible ideas.
Posters
Films, audio pieces, podcasts/digital audio, or other media presentations (20 or 50 minutes with 10 minutes for questions)
Collaborative presentations, e.g. including an ethnomusicologist with one or more practitioners, performers, or other research participants. Collaborative research participants do not need to be members of BFE, although the person submitting the proposal should be. Please contact Peter McMurray to discuss possible options.
Abstracts for individual papers should be no more than 250 words. For panels, please submit a panel/roundtable description (up to 250 words) along with abstracts of each individual paper (up to 250 words). For roundtables, please submit an abstract for the session (up to 500 words), including some indication of each presenter’s contribution. For all other presentations (including collaborative presentations, media presentations and workshops), please submit an abstract for the session (up to 250 words). For all formats, please include a short biography (up to 100 words) for all presenters.
All abstracts will be peer reviewed. We aim to respond to applications by 23 December.
Conference Format and Remote Participation
This conference will primarily be an in-person event in order to facilitate extensive, in-depth interactions between participants. However, there will be limited provision for remote presentation and other hybrid formats. If this is something you anticipate needing to allow you to participate, please indicate that in the submission form.
Pre-Conference Workshop, 2 April 2024 – on ethnomusicology and global music history
As a preliminary to our conference on ‘musical futures’, we plan to hold a day-long workshop on Wednesday, 2 April, focusing on musical and auditory pasts, with particular focus on intersections between ethnomusicology and the emerging area of global music history. Like the BFE conference, the event will have a primary in-person component but with potential for remote participation. Further details will be announced in due course. The application procedure will be separate from that for the main conference.
Guidance for Submissions
All submissions must be made through the conference abstract Google Form (link below). If you have any questions not answered by this page, or have problems accessing the form, please email Peter McMurray (pm638[at]cam[dot]ac[dot]uk).
Please do not include any presenter names in the titles or abstracts of submissions.