IMS – DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC SOCIOLOGY

MDW – UNIVERSITY OF MUSIC AND PERFORMING ARTS VIENNA

Dear colleagues and friends,

we are happy to share some recent news with you.

With best wishes,

Michael Huber and Golan Gur

Head and Deputy Head of the Department

NEWS | NOVEMBER 2024

OVERVIEW

MASTER MUSIC IN SOCIETY

EVENTS

PUBLICATIONS

RESEARCH

MEDIA

STAFF NEWS

MASTER MUSIC IN SOCIETY

We are pleased to announce the successful start of the new master MUSIC IN SOCIETY in October 2024. MUSIC IN SOCIETY offers students the opportunity to acquire comprehensive musical knowledge and competencies from sociological, cultural, economic and gender-specific perspectives. It combines theories and approaches from the sociology of music, art and culture, as well as the fields of cultural studies, cultural institutions studies and gender studies, culminating with a qualification for independent empirical research and a deepening of practical musical skills in one of the following areas: Popular Music, Music Making in Social Contexts, Traditional Musics. The particular focus is on scientific and artistic practices in music and performing arts, taking into account categories of social difference and inequalities as well as approaches to counteracting social inequalities in music-cultural worlds. The master provides the necessary qualification for embarking on doctoral studies, especially in the sociology of music and art, cultural institutions studies, gender studies and cultural studies.

Further information: Click here

EVENTS

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

DIGGING SCHÖNBERG – APPROACHES IN POPULAR MUSICS

6 – 8 November 2024

Arnold Schönberg Center Vienna

Schwarzenbergplatz 6, Eingang: Zaunergasse 1–3

1030 Vienna

Further information: Click here

PUBLIC LECTURE | MASTER MUSIC IN SOCIETY LECTURE

WILL STRAW: MUSIC AND THE POLITICS OF THE NIGHT

13 November 2024 | 18:00

Bankettsaal

mdw Campus

1030 Vienna

Further information: Click here

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE – CALL FOR PAPERS

RAP VERSUS SCHLAGER: HÖRST DU DEN UNTERSCHIED?

14 – 16 May 2025

mdw

1030 Vienna

Deadline for Abstract Submission: 15 December 2024

Organisers: Magdalena Fürnkranz (mdw), Rosa Reitsamer (mdw), Fabian Wolbring (Philipps-Universität Marburg)

Further information: Click here

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE – SAVE THE DATE

GROOVE THE CITY – MOVE THE STREETS

International Urban Music Studies Conference

17 – 19 September 2026

Vienna

More information and the Call for Papers will follow soon.

The Department of Music Sociology is pleased to be involved in the planning and realization of this conference as a partner institution.

PUBLICATIONS

Annuß, Evelyn / Appen, Ralf von / Chaker, Sarah / Felber, Silke / Glauser, Andrea / Kaufmann, Therese / Lettow, Susanne (Hg.) (2024): Populismus kritisieren. Kunst – Politik – Geschlecht. Wien / Bielefeld: mdwPress

Rechtspopulistische Bewegungen und Diskurse greifen auf neue, ästhetisierte Politikstile und bis dato links konnotierte, künstlerisch erprobte Provokationsformen zurück. Zudem besetzen sie Geschlecht, Familie und Sexualität als Trigger-Themen. Die Beiträger*innen bringen die Populismusforschung mit geistes- und kulturwissenschaftlichen Ansätzen zusammen und fokussieren dabei auf das kulturelle Feld und Geschlechterdiskurse als spezifische Aushandlungsterrains. Neben einer Analyse, wie der »rechtspopulistische Komplex« jeweils aktuelle gesellschaftliche Problemlagen instrumentalisiert, eröffnen sie auch Gegenstrategien im Sinne radikaldemokratischer und emanzipatorischer Politiken.

The book is predominantly in German with several English chapters.

Open Access / Free Download: Click here

Appen, Ralf von / Chaker, Sarah / Huber, Michael / Prieske, Sean (Hg.) (2024): „Parallelgesellschaften“ in populärer Musik? Abgrenzungen – Annäherungen – Perspektiven. Bielefeld: transcript

GFPM – Beiträge zur Popularmusikforschung 48 meets ~Vibes – The IASPM D-A-CH Series Vol. 3., http://vibes-theseries.org

In public discourse, in political-populist debates, and in mass media reports, “parallel society” has been a much-used term for years. Its history of political instrumentalisation goes hand in hand with the danger of affirming social inequality. In contrast, the contributions in this volume take a profound look at coexisting, seemingly unconnected structures in the context of popular music. In addition to looking at the East-West-German histories of popular music studies, pop cultural paradigms of difference are critically analysed and addressed from the perspectives of musicology, music sociology, ethnomusicology, and law, among others.

Open Access / Free Download: Click here

Hodaie, Nazli/Hofmann, Gabriele/ Kimminich, Eva / Reitsamer, Rosa / Rellstab, Daniel (Hg.) (2024): (Deutsch-)Rap und Gewalt – Ambivalenzen und Brüche. Weinheim / Basel: Beltz Juventa

Im Mittelpunkt des Sammelbandes steht die Auseinandersetzung mit dem Gewaltmotiv und seiner (multimodalen) Darstellung im (Deutsch-)Rap. Die Facetten der Gewaltdarstellung im (Deutsch-)Rap und deren ggf. vorhandenen Brüche und Ambivalenzen werden einerseits auf der Ebene der Produktion fokussiert. Andererseits erfolgt ein Blick auf die Rezeptionsprozesse, Produktionsmechanismen und -instanzen, die auf eine möglichst breite Rezeption abzielen. Ziel ist es, das Phänomen Gewalt im (Deutsch-)Rap in den Kontext gesellschaftlich relevanter, auch medialer Diskurse einzubetten und dabei auf die Vielfalt, Ambivalenzen und Brüche seiner Darstellung aufmerksam zu machen, um seine Entwicklungen und Erscheinungen aus einer vernetzen Perspektive nachzuzeichnen.

Further information: Click here

Prokop, Rainer / Reitsamer, Rosa (eds.) (2024): Higher Music Education and Employability in a Neoliberal World. London / New York: Bloomsbury

This open access edited collection shows how neoliberalism continues to shape higher music education institutions, curricula design and learning cultures, as well as the various ways of transitioning from education to work and the world of uncertainty and job insecurity currently being experienced by a younger generation of musicians. The book brings together empirical studies, activist voices, theoretical reflections and autoethnographic studies from a broad range of disciplines, work contexts and geographical regions. These contributions examine how race/ethnicity, gender and class pervade the creation, performance and teaching of music and create the context for the reproduction of social inequalities. They also illuminate the notions of employability, entrepreneurialism and meritocracy that underpin higher music education and the music labour markets in Italy, Portugal, the Netherlands, Sweden, Estonia, Hungary, Finland, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and China, and provide insights into the strategies used by musicians to manage their precarious working lives. Finally, this collection specifically highlights alternative pedagogical approaches and activist tactics for moving forward in the era of Black Lives Matter, #StopAsianHate and #MeToo.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna.

Further information: Click here

Open Access / Free Download: Click here

RESEARCH

WEBSITE: HERTA & KURT BLAUKOPF – A RESEARCH PARTNERSHIP

A website (with sub-websites) provides compact information in German and English on central findings of the IMS project “Music Sociology as Collective Action: The research partnership of Herta and Kurt Blaukopf” (2020–2024). It contains short texts on selected focal points as well as a series of digitised archival documents worth seeing. The website was designed by Raphaela Viehböck – enjoy: Click here

MEDIA

Interview contribution by Sarah Chaker as part of the Ö1-Radiokolleg programme: „Straßenmusik. Zwischen Kunst und Lärm: Das harte Pflaster der Straßenmusik“, Radio Ö1, 7 – 10 October 2024

Excerpts from Rainer Prokop’s interview with Funke Mediengruppe on Rammstein, male-dominated music industries and the reproduction of social inequalities in the Berliner Kurier, 16 July 2024: „Krasse Interviews: So urteilen Experten über die Fans von Rammstein“

Rainer Prokop in an interview with Funke Mediengruppe on Rammstein, male-dominated music industries and the reproduction of social inequalities, 12 July 2024: „Experte zu Fall Rammstein: Das Problem sind die weißen Männer“, published online in 12 German daily newspapers, including the Berliner Morgenpost

Rosa Reitsamer in an interview with Oberösterreichische Nachrichten, 3 June 2024: „,L´amour toujours‘: Ein Liebeslied, plötzlich mit Nazi-Refrain“

Interview contribution by Rainer Prokop for the book: „Row Zero: Gewalt und Machtmissbrauch in der Musikindustrie“ by Daniel Drepper (Head of the Research Cooperation between NDR, WDR and Süddeutsche Zeitung) and Lena Kampf (Deputy Head of the Investigative Research Department of the Süddeutsche Zeitung), book publication date: 28 May 2024

STAFF NEWS

We are pleased to welcome Elija Unfried as our new research assistant and thank Sebastian Engler for his work as our previous assistant!

We thank Raphaela Viehböck for her participation in and contribution to the Herta and Kurt Blaukopf project!

We further thank Patrick Gratzer for his collaboration on the FWF research project “Humans and Recommender Systems”!