This symposium invites submissions from scholars in all fields who are dealing with recorded music, senses of hearing, and the acoustemologies of various technologised sound cultures. The symposium intends to interrogate and reflect on various methodologies for investigating the means by which members of a society evolve as communities of listening in different locales. Moreover, it focuses on those who are exposed to the same music through historical experiences such as colonialism, for instance, and through applied technologies such as the radio, records, cassettes, and the internet. Leading questions include: how do these disparate communities articulate and share their versions of a style of music in renditions where the sound is removed from its original source and made local through taste yet global through their experience with music technology; how are communities of listening mobilized; how do these disparate communities of listening fit into a world of interconnectedness and difference; how can the senses of hearing and listening assist the observer in learning a culture and develop an understanding of the way members of a society know one another? These are but a few of the questions the symposium will address.

Speakers
Speakers include Andrew F. Jones (UC-Berkeley), Michael Denning (Yale University), Earle Waugh (University of Alberta), and Andy J. Hamilton (Durham University).

Submissions

Speakers will have 20 minutes for their presentations and 10 minutes to respond to questions. Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be submitted by 30 November 2010 to Lee Watkins at leeww@hku.hk. Each abstract should include the presenter’s name, institutional affiliation, telephone numbers, and email address. Presenters of approved submissions will be notified by 10 January 2011. Proceedings will be conducted in English.

Date: 25-26 March 2011.

Organiser and venue: Department of Music, The University of Hong Kong.