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Call For Papers for Our Next Conference

"A Return to (What Never Was) Normal: Discourses of (Ab)Normalcy in US Culture, Literature, Arts, and Politics; Past, Present, and Futures"

PANEL 8

8) "The Soundtrack of (Ab)Normalcy"
Panel Chair: Ángel Chaparro Sainz, Universidad del País Vasco (UPV/EHU)
E-mail: angel.chaparro@ehu.eus  

In this panel, we propose an approach to the contrast normalcy/abnormalcy and the redefinition of normalcy in these agitated times in the United States through the lenses of popular musical production. From the West coast (and the ramifications, mutations and revisions of the Western myth) to the East coast (and the bond and talk with the other side of the pond), from South to North, we seek proposals that can deal with a vast range of music genres, periods and generations; in a variety of perspectives and with different thematic interests; but always considering how songs, lyrics and artists have contributed to the ongoing conversation on what that "return to normal" means.

Possible lines of inquiry are the following:

• Discourses of the (ab)normal in American popular music

• Migration and the national normalcy in American popular music

• Poverty and inequality as normalized abnormalities in American popular music

• Discourses of environmental pollution and degradation in American popular music

• Healing, recovery, and growth narratives in American popular music

• (Ab)normal sexualities in American popular music

• Gender claims and gender divisions in American popular music

• The "New Normal" in American popular music

• Race, gender, genre in American popular music

• Revisions of the Mythic West in American popular music

• American popular music and politics

• The return to normalcy in the music business

• Transnational and international connections in popular music

GUIDELINES FOR PARTICIPANTS

Abstracts of Proposals are to be e-mailed directly to the chair of the selected panel using this form. The deadline for submitting abstracts is October 15, 2022. Panel chairs are expected to accept/reject proposals and have panels set up by November 7.

Non-members of SAAS (of all nationalities) are welcome to participate in the conference, but will be required to pay membership dues for one year as well as the conference registration fee. Members of ASA (American Studies Association), AISNA (Associazione Italiana di Studi Nor-Americani), APEAA (Portuguese Association for Anglo-American Studies) and HELAAS (Hellenic Association for American Studies) need only pay the conference registration fee.

Further guideliness for participants can be found here.