Call for Papers

Word and Music Studies: Eighth International Conference (2011)

Location and Dates

August 3-6, 2011

Santa Fe, NM, USA

Call for Papers

The International Association for Word and Music Studies (WMA) takes pleasure in announcing its Eighth International Conference to be held at Santa Fe from August 3 to 6, 2011. Previous conferences have been held biennially in Graz, Ann Arbor, Sydney, Berlin, Santa Barbara, Edinburgh and Vienna with conference proceedings published in the association’s book series, Word and Music Studies (WMS). The Proceedings of the most recent conference in Vienna are due to be published later in 2010.

Scholars active in all areas of Word and Music Studies are invited to participate in the Santa Fe conference, which, like its predecessors, will be devoted to two themes, the second of which, “Surveying the Field”, is a regular feature. The conference will also include a section of “Word and Music Studies Working Papers” (replacing the former “Word and Music Studies Forum”, a change due to the recent formation of a separate WMA institution for emerging scholars in the field, “The Word and Music Association Forum”).

The primary conference theme will be

“Voice in Words and Music”.

The issue of ‘voice’ concentrates on a topic of central concern in any study of artistic mediation, namely, the question about the nature of the source of an utterance, about the agent transmitting the utterance, of ‘who is speaking’. From its origin in Aristotle’s Poetics and the early discussions of genre differentiation the issue has been vital for identifying the manifold formations of medial processes as they developed in the course of history. Particularly since T. S. Eliot’s seminal essay, “The Three Voices of Poetry” (1954)—which distinguishes the voices of “the poet talking to himself”, “the poet addressing an audience” and “the poet when he attempts to create a dramatic character”—, literary research has focused on the issue, and the flourishing narrative theory of the twentieth century has found many answers to the question. The early work of Derrida introduced a new set of problems concentrated on the relationships between speech and writing and on what Derrida saw as the historical privileging of the former over the latter; what do we do when we use ‘voice’ as a metaphor, in what sense do we ‘write’ the voice, and to what extent are the concepts of speech and writing tied up with the effect of voice? More recently Judith Butler’s work on speech acts has raised further issues about the relationship between voice, authority, and the body.

Similar questions have been important in musical scholarship. Edward T. Cone introduced a literary model of voice into musical analysis in his 1974 study The Composer’s Voice; the titular concept, together with the related idea of a musical persona, has been influential, but it has also drawn sharp critiques from later writers including Carolyn Abbate, Lawrence Kramer, Fred Maus, and Peter Kivy, all of whom object to what Kramer calls the “concentration of subjective authority” into the fictitious image of an originating speaker. Voice has also become an important topic in opera studies, not in its traditional role as the property of the singer, but as an independent agency in the workings of musical drama and as a signifier of something beyond speech. The differentiation between voice and speech (or song) also goes back to Aristotle, and further connects the literary and musical problems of what voice is, what it signifies, and how it functions.

It is therefore of genuine intermedial interest to contrast the two media of literature and music from a voice-theoretical perspective and to attempt a clarification of their comparability on this level.

Possible individual questions to be discussed are:

Papers are invited for submission which address these or any other related issues with reference to the full range of forms and genres as they have developed in the historical process—in all cases from an intermedial word/music point of view.

It should be noted that—as the description of the general issue given implies –it is not the aim of this conference to contribute to the field of ‘voice studies’ in the sense of studying the practical side of singing.

The second theme of the conference, “Surveying the Field”, involves papers airing general theoretical and methodological questions intrinsic to the scholarly field of Word and Music Studies. Overviews of recent developments and new directions are welcome; however, papers in this area should not address specialized topics.

The third feature of the conference, the section of “Word and Music Studies Working Papers”, will consist of shorter papers on any subject in the field of Word and Music Studies. Younger scholars are especially encouraged to present their work in this section to an expert audience. Successful papers will be invited to be published in the “Word and Music Studies Online Research” section of the WMA Online Newsletter.

Papers accepted for the “Voice in Words and Music” and “Surveying the Field” sections should be 30 minutes in length. “Working Papers” should be 15 minutes in length. Please submit abstracts of no more than 300 words, and attach your current location and academic affiliation, via email to Walter Bernhart, walter.bernhart@uni-graz.at, by 15 September 2010.

Members of the Programme Committee are Walter Bernhart (University of Graz, Austria), Michael Halliwell (University of Sydney, NSW), and Lawrence Kramer (Fordham University, New York, NY).

The local organizers in Santa Fe are Deborah Weagel of the Department of English at the University of New Mexico and Jessie Fillerup of the Department of Music at the University of Mary Washington. Santa Fe is one of the oldest capital cities in the United States and is the site of the oldest continuously occupied public building in America, the Palace of the Governors. It is known for its rich history, unique architecture, food, museums, art galleries, cultural events, stunning Southwest landscape, and music, including the Santa Fe Opera, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and the Santa Fe Desert Chorale. The operas scheduled for the 2011 Santa Fe Opera season include "Faust" (Gounod), "La Bohème" (Puccini), "Griselda" (Vivaldi), "Wozzeck" (Berg), and "The Last Savage" (Menotti). The opera house is a world-class, open-air theatre located in the natural setting of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains outside the city centre. D. H. Lawrence wrote of this area: “The moment I saw the brilliant, proud morning sun shine high up over the desert of Santa Fe, something stood still in my soul.” Travel and Leisure magazine rated Santa Fe one of the top three travel destinations in the United States.

The conference will be held in the meeting room at the Santa Fe Sage Inn, located just blocks away from the main plaza. Accommodations are available here for the conference rate of $117 per night, August 3—7 (check-out), for a Double Queen or King. This hotel offers complimentary parking (excluding motorcoaches), complimentary downtown shuttle service, a ‘Healthy Start’ breakfast, an outdoor heated swimming pool, complimentary local calls, a 24-hour front desk, a business centre, a guest laundry facility, and a fitness centre. More deluxe accommodations can be arranged, if so desired, at the El Dorado Hotel and Spa, the historic La Fonda Hotel, or any other of Santa Fe’s premium hotels.

Events planned for the conference include an opening reception dinner at La Plazuela restaurant at the Fonda Hotel on Wednesday and a tour of the Indian Pueblo and Spanish cultures of New Mexico. The tour, our Saturday excursion, will include lunch at the Painted Parrot Buffet of the Buffalo Thunder Resort; a visit to an Indian Pueblo famous for its pottery; a stop at a high cliff which offers spectacular views of the region; and a tour of the Spanish village of Chimayo with its historic church, crafts, and chili. To conclude the excursion, we will enjoy a final meal together at the historic Hacienda Rancho de Chimayo restaurant. WMA members will be free during the evenings to attend the opera (and its various activities, including dinners and lectures), the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Santa Fe Desert Chorale performances, or enjoy the general festivities of the historic plaza. Those who go on the Saturday excursion may not return in time for evening concerts or the opera. Please note that the opera house is located outside the city centre and requires a private car, rental car, taxi, or pre-arranged shuttle service for transportation. Free parking is available. It is not accessible by the local bus service. It is certainly worthwhile to attend at least one opera. For those who are on a budget, standing room tickets are available at the opera for a nominal fee.