Call for Papers: Music and Screen from Ethnic and Ethnographic Perspectives

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Music Department, University of Southampton United Kingdom

Friday 23 January

Cultural practices, social identities, and lived experiences are replicated and represented in the interaction between music and screen media—including film, television, video games, and digital platforms. Beyond its traditional role as visual accompaniment, music is fundamental to (re)constructing meaning, negotiating identity, and mediating audience engagement.

By complementing methodological rigor with substantive engagement in issues of ethnicity, nationality, and cultural representation, we aim to encourage scholarship that is both analytical and socially meaningful, addressing the cultural politics, traditions, and embodied experiences that music mediates in screen media.

We approach ethnographic perspectives not merely as a research methodology, but as a framework for exploring how music shapes lived experience, traditions, and collective identities in screen media. This perspective underscores sensitivity to cultural politics: how sound and image construct belonging, otherness, and memory, and how such representations are created, circulated, and debated.

We welcome contributions that address both theoretical debates and applied case studies, including but not limited to:

• Ethnographic perspectives and field-based studies

• Music on screen as a vehicle for representing ethnicity, nationality, and belonging.

• National and transnational screen traditions and their musical languages.

• Case studies of film and television soundtracks that engage with cultural identity.

• How diasporic and postcolonial communities use screen music to negotiate identity.

• The interplay of heritage, tradition, and modernity in screen music practices.

• The politics of Orientalism, exoticism, and stereotyping in audiovisual culture.

• Audience and reception studies: how viewers perceive and respond to cultural representation through sound.

• Industrial and institutional contexts shaping the cultural politics of screen music.

We invite 20-minute presentations on relevant topics from postgraduate students, researchers, postdoctoral scholars, and established academics. Those who prefer to attend without presenting are also warmly encouraged to join and contribute to the discussions.

While in-person participation is encouraged, virtual attendance will be available for those with specific needs.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Prof. Kevin J. Donnelly, Professor of Film and Film Music University of Southampton.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Interested participants should send in proposals to https://forms.office.com/e/vy6i8Yv3E8 with the following details:

• Title of the paper

• Abstract (max 300 words)

• Full name and institutional affiliation

• Short biography (max 100 words)

DEADLINES:

• Submission of abstracts: 30 NOVEMBER 2025.

• Acceptance Notification: 10 DECEMBER 2025.

For further inquiries, please contact obumneke.anyanwu2@mail.dcu.ie