Posts Tagged ‘2014’
Call for Participation
Singing Storytellers: The Lives, Music and Verbal Artistry of Bards in our World
An International Interdisciplinary Symposium hosted by Cape Breton University, in partnership with Celtic Colours International Festival and CBC Cape Breton
October 9th – 12th, 2014
Singing storytellers – griots, kobzars, troubadours, ashiks, gusle players, sean-nós and seann-nòs singers, bards and epic singers, performance poets, men and women from countless narrative traditions around the world – have played a variety of complex roles in their communities and cultures. The long-time focus of study for ethnomusicologists and other scholars of culture, history and memory, they are multifaceted social agents – genealogists, historians, spokespersons and activists, diplomats, musicians, praise singers, healers, and advisors. Wordsmiths and performers, their verbal and musical art have been the subject of studies across disciplines – religious studies, history, music, folklore, anthropology, gender studies, linguistics and literature, to name a few. But recent studies of these bards and their practices in our contemporary world are relatively few.
The study of today’s singing storytellers resonates with theoretical interest in ethnomusicology, humanities and social sciences. It offers opportunities to consider the importance of the individual in society, as well as the politics of representation. Whereas ethnomusicology has, more conventionally, invoked music as a symbol of national pride, cultural and national unity, or presented musical phenomena as typical products of a larger social organicism, this symposium also looks to the ways in which music is historically constructed, socially maintained, individually created and experienced. We will look to examples through which numerous interlocutors, processes, practices, statements and performances continually operate and fluidly reshape one another. We will consider the ways in which cultural performance and production are contingent on intersecting and mutually affecting aspects of experience entwined with identities. Contributing to a burgeoning literature on musicians’ life stories, this topic brings to light the ways in which individuals function within cultural webs along the many avenues they travel — revealing shared practices and ideologies within specific locations and beyond. Aspects of identity and experience are shaped in the context of wider, changing historical, social and cultural pressures – which many singing storytellers deftly negotiate. Singing storytellers provide an opportunity for scholarly investigation that profoundly makes evident the complexity with which experiences and identities are created and performed through the lives, music and verbal artistry of individuals.
Call for Participation
We invite contributions from a rich array of scholars/practitioners/artists alike – to encourage investigations of and engagement with performers and their practices in our world today, through a variety of ways of knowing, and creating and sharing knowledge.
We invite proposals for various forms of presentation, including papers (either individual 20- minute papers with additional 10 minutes for discussion, or panels), keynotes, workshops, performances, roundtables, films and exhibitions (including of photographs and other visual materials, and interactive and multimedia installations).
- Workshops will run either 60 or 90 minutes
- Roundtables will run concurrently throughout the conference
- Theatre and studio space is available in addition to standard conference facilities
***Symposium works will be considered for publication in a peer-reviewed, edited collection.***
Submissions for papers or creative presentations MUST include:
- Title(s) – for panel (if applicable) and each individual presentation
- Presentation format/type
- Technical requirements
- 300 word abstract (of each individual presentation)
- 100-150 word abstract (of each individual presentation)
- Panel proposals also require a panel description of 100-200 words
- Each presenter(s) one-page C.V.
- Each presenter(s) institutional affiliation (or indication if you are an independent scholar/artist), including department or division
- Each presenter(s) complete contact information, including postal and email address, and telephone number
ALL SUBMISSIONS MUST INCLUDE ALL OF THIS DETAILED INFORMATION FOR EACH PRESENTER, or your abstract will NOT be eligible for consideration. The detailed information and materials requested are necessary in order for the conference organizers to apply for travel/event funding.
PLEASE SEND YOUR SUBMISSIONS to singingstorytellers@gmail.com by March 15, 2014. The subject line of the email is Singing Storytellers proposal – [name]. PLEASE ATTACH THE INFORMATION and MATERIALS IN .DOC FORMAT.
Please write to us at singingstorytellers@gmail.com if you have any questions! For information and updates, check the conference WEBSITE (www.singingstorytellers.ca).
We look forward to receiving your proposal – and to welcoming you to Cape Breton!