CFP: Sounding Funny: Music, Sound and Comedy Cinema (publication)

SOUNDING FUNNY: MUSIC, SOUND AND COMEDY CINEMA
EDITED BY MARK EVANS
TO BE PUBLISHED BY EQUINOX (UK) AS PART OF THE SERIES, GENRE, MUSIC SOUND (SERIES EDITOR: MARK EVANS)
CALL FOR PAPERS

This volume will deal with all aspects of sound (including dialogue) and music as they have been utilised in comedy film. Authors are invited to write on any subset of the comedy film from the post-War period, including black comedy, romantic comedy, slapstick, dialogue comedy, parody and spoofs. Essays will explore the way in which music and sound articulate humour, create comedic situations and direct comedic identifications for viewer/listeners. Chapters dealing with theoretical concerns, historical studies, non-Western film or ‘sound auteurs’ are also most welcome.

We invite proposals of up to 300 words for chapters of between 5,000 and 8,000 words. Proposals should be sent to Mark Evans at mark.evans at mq.edu.au by 1 March 2009. Completed chapters will be requested by 1 November 2009. Please note that acceptance of the proposal does not guarantee publication and all chapters will be subject to normal processes of peer review.

CFP: Echo Conference: Music and Humor (UCLA)

2009 ECHO CONFERENCE: MUSIC AND HUMOUR
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES
5 - 6 JUNE 2009
CALL FOR PAPERS

Submission deadline: February 27, 2009
Keynote Speaker: Andrew Dell’Antonio
University of Texas, Austin

From bawdy troubadour songs to Haydn’s string quartets, from comic opera to Monty Python sketches, music has been used as a vehicle for comedic expression in vastly different settings and for various purposes. There are many possible avenues of inquiry on this issue, including investigations of irony, parody, satire, camp, puns, and other perhaps less tasteful form of comic relief.

Echo: a music-centered journal is pleased to announce its fourth annual conference, "Music and Humor," to be held at UCLA on June 5-6, 2009. Scholars from all disciplines are invited to submit proposals for papers on this theme. Submissions must be received by February 27th and may be sent electronically to echoconf at ucla.edu (please put "Echo Conference Submission" and your last name in the subject line).

Please visit http://www.echo.ucla.edu/Volume8-Issue1/conference09.html for full information.

CFP: Playing for Laughs 2009 (De Montfort)

PLAYING FOR LAUGHS 2009
DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY
SATURDAY, 7 FEBRUARY 2009
CALL FOR PAPERS

Following our inaugural comedy conference earlier this year, we are pleased to announce Playing for Laughs 2009, a one-day symposium on comedy and performance.

Playing for Laughs 2009 will be framed by arguments of ownership and permission. In addressing what and how things make us laugh we inevitably have to question our 'right' to laugh when the lines between taste and decency, humour and offence are blurred by arguments of context and experience. Is it enough, still, to say 'it's only a joke'?

Panels of papers will be based on the following topics and issues: gender; race and ethnicity; religion; geography and class; disability; sexuality; age.

We invite papers for these panels that address comedy in performance, from stand-up to music hall, from play-writing to sketch shows, from slapstick to satire, that address issues of morality, ethical responsibility, comic frames and the boundaries and limits of humour.

Proposals (of no more than 250 words) should be sent to rclegg@dmu.ac.uk by 5 December 2008. Informal enquiries or expressions of interest can also be sent to the conference convenors.

Roger Clegg (rclegg@dmu.ac.uk) and Tracy Cruickshank (tcruickshank@dmu.ac.uk)

This symposium is hosted in association with Leicester Comedy Festival, 6th-15th February 2009 (www.comedy-festival.co.uk <http://www.comedy-festival.co.uk/> )