Special Issue. Contemporary post-Soviet popular music: Politics and aesthetics
Special Issue Call for Papers, IASPM Journal
Special Issue Guest Editor:
Ann Werner
Contemporary post-Soviet popular music: Politics and aesthetics
IASPM Journal is the peer-reviewed open-access e-journal of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM). As part of an international network, the journal aims to publish research and analysis in the field of popular music studies at both global and local levels.
This themed issue of IASPM Journal seeks to explore how popular music is an important field for political and aesthetic negotiations in post-Soviet space, countries and regions formerly part of the Soviet Union or closely related to it, experiencing war and protests during the past years. Symbolic uses of popular music in post-Soviet space includes the ‘singing revolution’ in Estonia, music for several revolutions and a war in Ukraine and current diaspora of Russian musicians. The issue aims to address how politics and aesthetics are articulated in popular music today in post-Soviet space (Mazierska 2016, Miszczyński & Helbig 2017, Blüml, Kajanova & Ritter 2019, Hansen et al. 2019), without excluding contributions focusing on articulations of power and nationalisms, resistance and revolution or ambivalence. We welcome contributions focusing on different genres and parts of the region; Soviet/Russian rock (Gololobov, Pilkington & Steinholt 2014, Wickström 2014), Ukrainian (Helbig 2014, Sonevytsky 2019) and Belarussian (Survilla 2002) popular music, popular music in Caucasus and Central Asian former Soviet republics (Klenke 2019, Merchant 2015) as well as the post-Soviet diaspora. In times when authoritarian and illiberal governments are expanding or defending power in post-Soviet space popular music enables significant circulation of meanings.
Contributors to the issue are welcomed from popular music studies, ethnomusicology, musicology, Slavonic and East European studies but also from the wider field of humanities and social sciences such as sociology, political theory, media studies, gender studies and other.
Proposals might include but are not limited to:
- Fans, listeners, gender, class and race in the post-Soviet space
- Music industries and music work in the post-Soviet space and diaspora
- Genres of post-Soviet popular music
- War and conflict affecting post-Soviet popular music
- Popular music and political participation in the post-Soviet space
- Youth movements and post-Soviet popular music
- Analysis of the sounds and lyrics of post-soviet popular music
To be considered for this Special Issue, please submit the following by 7 April 2023:
- an abstract of 150-250 words (plus references, if necessary)
- author name(s)
- institutional affiliations
- contact details
- a brief bio of no more than 150 words (which includes the author’s positionalities in relation to their topic)
Submissions should be sent to ann.werner@musik.uu.se
If your abstract is accepted, we expect to receive the full article uploaded into the online submission by 31 January 2024. We will send further instructions and links to authors following acceptance of abstracts.
The issue will be published in autumn 2024.
See the journal site for further information regarding submissions. Please also refer to the IASPM Journal Style Guide.
NOTE: In order to submit to IASPM Journal you must be an IASPM member and registered as an author on the site.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the special issue editor ann.werner@musik.uu.se
