CFP: Researching Music of the Cold War: Methodological Challenges and New Critical Approaches, AMS Cold War and Music Study Group, AMS Philadelphia

RESEARCHING MUSIC OF THE COLD WAR: METHDOLOGICAL CHALLENGES AND NEW CRITICAL APPROACHES

AMS, PHILADELPHIA, PA

CALL FOR PANEL PRESENTATIONS

Panel discussion to be sponsored by the Cold War and Music Study Group, American Musicological Society, 2009 annual meeting, Philadelphia, PA

Nearly two decades have passed since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the demise of communism in Eastern Europe, and the disintegration of the Soviet Union. In recent years, musicologists have enjoyed unprecedented access to archival materials and have demonstrated increasingly critical distance from the events of the Cold War era. Yet the relative recency of the Cold War poses both unique opportunities and challenges to the researcher. Although scholars have the privilege of working with living witnesses, they also face a number of moral and ethical demands, particularly when dealing with information that may be personally damaging or traumatic. Historiographical and political biases that developed during the Cold War still risk coloring present-day assessments of the period. While there has been a surge in scholarly publications on music of the Cold War, little has been said about the methodological, interpretative, and ethical challenges that confront musicologists. The purpose of this panel is to offer a forum to discuss these challenges. Panelists will be asked to draw from their own research experience and reflect on methodological approaches to studying music of the Cold War.

Possible themes might include the following:

- studying music of authoritarian regimes

- oral history and working with living sources

- aesthetic judgments and the musical canon

- multi-site research and globalization

- analyzing and interpreting archival sources

The session will include a series of 15-minute presentations from a range of methodological and generational perspectives, followed by a broader audience discussion. If you are interested in participating as a panelist, please send a proposal (ca. 300 words) to Laura Silverberg (ls2647 [at] columbia [dot] edu) by 1 March 2009.