CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS

[Mark Yoffe]

CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS: 15 Years Later: past and present in Soviet/ 
post-Soviet popular music

15 years since the fall of the Soviet Union it is important to re- 
examine our views of popular music under the Soviet regime and to 
newly examine the present situation in which post-Soviet popular 
music finds itself in.

It goes without saying that the last 15 years brought tremendous 
changes in the world of Russian and non-Russian popular music in the 
countries of the Former Soviet Union. Initially an identity crisis 
brought about by the loss of the role of spiritual, cultural, and 
political leadership on the cultural arena that was one of the main 
characteristics of Soviet popular music community reigned. This was 
followed by a period of self discovery, re-discovery and adaptations 
to the new socio-economic, cultural and political reality. Popular 
music was subjected to new forces of market economy: issues brought
up by management, image making, marketing, advertisement, etc. 
Ideologically and stylistically popular music covered a wide span of 
attitudes, styles, beliefs and trends, from ultra nationalist root 
folk to sleek Westernized pop and more. We suggest examining these 
trends and movements closely from as wide as possible variety of 
points of view: social, political, cultural, stylistic, 
anthropological, musicological etc.

We also invite discussions and revisionist theories of Soviet popular 
music, to provide a fresh view of this phenomenon, from the distance 
of 15 years and rich data and new information accumulated since 1991.

We invite papers dealing with these or other related to the history, 
traditions and interpretations of Soviet and post-Soviet popular 
music to be delivered at the panel we are proposing for the IASPM 
conference in Mexico City 2007.

Please send your abstracts (max. 250 words) to Mark Yoffe 
(yoffe at gwu.edu) and David-Emil Wickstroem (davidw at hum.ku.dk) by 
october 15th 2006

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------