Contributions are sought for a new volume on masculinities in popular music.
Placed at the intersection of the now well-established field of popular
musicology and the increasingly important area of masculinity studies, the
collection seeks to address how masculinities are constructed, represented and
problematised within popular music acts and genres.While an interdisciplinary approach is welcomed and recognised as potentially
indispensable, the primary focus of the collection will be musicological.
Therefore proposals are encouraged that underpin their work with appropriate
musical analysis and/or direct link to musical texts or practices. Moreover,
the idea of musical analysis is here expanded to include aspects of vocality,
technology, or other musical factors not always encompassed by traditional
ideas of ‘musical analysis’.

Proposals are especially welcome that deal with any of the following areas, or
related areas:

• Vocality, including falsetto, technology and voice…

• Homosocial representations and potentially queer readings

• Homophobia or misogyny and constructions of masculinity

• Discourses of masculinity in popular music practices

• Masculinities and race; colonialism…

It is understood that many of the relevant issues may be explored using male
artists and their music as case studies. However, recognising that female
artists not only deploy masculine codes, but are also crucial agents in the
construction of masculinities (in the spirit of Judith Halberstam’s Female
Masculinity, who tries ‘to account for the growing popularity of a body of
work on masculinity that evinces absolutely no interest in masculinity without
men’), contributions are also welcome that focus on relevant female artists
and their music, while essentially addressing questions of masculinity.

Please send proposals of 300 words to Freya.Jarman-

Ivens@ncl.ac.uk

by 1st September 2004.