Journals Focusing on Music, Audiences, and Fandom

I'm on a slight break while I finish up the semester. In the meantime, check out what my colleagues from England are up to! Dr. Lucy Bennett is guest-editing a special issue of the journal Participations, on music and audiences, while Dr. Mark Duffett is guest-editing a special issue of Popular Music & Society, focusing on fandom. As an old fogey who remembers a time when human fans (instead of decorative fans or industrial blowers) were almost completely absent in scholarship, this is fantastic. There much to discuss--I hope that some of you out there will consider submitting a proposal. Each call for papers follows below.

Proposals are sought for a special issue of Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies on music and audiences. The theme of this issue will be an examination of the music audience from a range of perspectives, with both theoretical and empirical research welcomed on all aspects of music and reception. The issue would also particularly be interested in proposals that consider music audiences in the context of debates over technology and the Internet, and in articles which focus on issues of genre, different music fan cultures, or the specifics and particularities of music audiences, due to contexts such as sexuality, generation or nationality.

Proposals are welcomed on, but not limited to, the following possible topics:

-Music fandom (s);
-Music audiences, technology and the Internet;
-Music audiences in regional, local, national and international contexts;
-Representations of, and audience responses to, gender and sexuality;
-Film, television and the music audience;
-Music taste(s) and genres;
-Responses to political engagement in music;
-Generational music audiences;
-Celebrity and stardom;
-The live music experience;
-Discussions of music engagement and meaning.

Please submit article proposals of no more than 300 words, along with a 200 word author biography to Dr Lucy Bennett (BennettL@cf.ac.uk) by 11 July 2011. Please also contact Lucy with any queries or requests for further information. Completed articles will have a submission deadline of 10 January 2012. Please note that Participations operates an open-refereeing policy. For more information see the website (http://www.participations.org).

Popular Music and Society invites article proposals for a new special issue. Fandom is both a personal expression of emotional conviction and a complex, changing, multi-faceted social phenomenon that now encompasses both online and offline activity. The study of fandom is a scholarly niche that exists at the intersection of a wide range of interests and connections. It can be contextualized by wider media research (theory by scholars such as Henry Jenkins and Matt Hills; reception analysis; celebrity studies; ethnography; subcultural theory) and by direct research into popular music culture (ethnomusicology; research on listening; live music audiences; studies of music in everyday life). We invite papers with themes that may include, but are not limited to:

• Fans as musicians / musicians as fans
• The consumer marketplace, perceptions of the music industry
• Collecting, listening, and other fan practices
• Live music, local scenes, and fandom as living culture
• Stereotyping, self-awareness, media representation, literature and fiction
• Fandom and social identities (such as gender, age, disability, race)
• Methodology, research practice, cultural theory
• Histories, critiques of fandom as a response to mass culture
• Taste, cultural capital, and the canon
• Online participatory cultures
• Case studies and ethnographies; personal narratives, memories, and investments
• Stardom and celebrity; identification, reading, and textuality
• Legacies of key representations (e.g., Fred Vermorel and Judy Vermorel's book Starlust)
• Modernity, religion, pathology, and the "cult" analogy
• Differing fandoms / specific music genres
• The fan community: insiders, outsiders, and the "ordinary" audience
• Fan culture and the paradigm of performance
• The uses of fandom: political activism, heritage, and tourism
• Fandom, the family, and / or the life cycle

Send proposals of up to 500 words in the first instance. Contributions will be peer-reviewed for potential inclusion in the main section of the journal. Polemical papers will also be considered for inclusion in the Forum section. Indicate the name under which you would wish to be published, your professional/academic affiliations, a postal address, and preferred email contact. Deadline for submission of proposals is October 31, 2011. We would hope to commission articles by December 31, 2011, and deadline for submission of the articles will be July 31, 2012. Please email proposals to guest editor Mark Duffett at m.duffett@chester.ac.uk