Routledge press announces a call for papers for its upcoming volume, The Routledge History of Social Protest in Popular Music, edited by Jonathan Friedman, professor of History at West Chester University.
This collection will show the great diversity in form and content of popular music as a means of social protest over time, focusing largely on the American and British context but also including a sweep across continents. The musical movements under discussion in this volume vary in the degree of their intentionality and directness to protest, but there is a distinct thread-line in each, addressing societal wrongs, whether based on race, gender, or class, and offering solutions or comfort.
The volume will be divided into four parts:
1. Historical Beginnings--This part will offer a theoretical framework and historical background to 20th century popular protest music, by looking at developments in the 19th century through the years prior to the advent of rock and roll. Musical protest against discrimination based on race, gender, and class will be the guiding theme of this section.
2. Rock, Folk, War, and Civil Rights--This part will specifically address anti-war and pro-civil rights discourses in musical forms in the United States, not just in the 1960s but well before.
3. Contemporary Social Protest in Rock--This part will deal with how a number of genres in modern popular music have addressed the human condition, some with greater degrees of intentionality and effectiveness than others. Guiding questions in this section include: What are the criteria for effective social protest in these diverse musical genres? In what ways have artists in popular music advanced or set back the cause of human rights?
4. International Protest--This part will offer a scan of protest music across the globe, from Latin America to Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. What have been some of the shared themes in these vastly different settings? How has international protest music drawn on both indigenous roots and western influences in crafting its voice?
Contributors are welcome to submit a proposal relevant to one of these sections. Essays on 19th and early 20th century musical protest, postmodern theory, feminism, and musical protest, dance music, gay and lesbian protest rock, and international protest are especially welcome.
Please send a 100 word proposal plus a current vita electronically to jfriedman@wcupa.edu.
Jonathan C. Friedman, Ph.D.
Professor of History
Director of Holocaust and Genocide Studies
Main Hall 409
West Chester University
West Chester, PA 19383
610-436-2972
Contact Information:
For inquiries: jfriedman@wcupa.edu
For submissions: jfriedman@wcupa.edu
Website: http://www.routledge.com/
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